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David

David

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Some of the Japanese profiles on the penpals website I visit are hilarious. Here's an example of one Japanese woman who visited London, her profile pics include:

▪︎The absolutely must have photo of yourself standing in front of Big Ben.

▪︎The inevitable photo of a red bus, red telephone box or red post box.

▪︎A photo of yourself doing a peace sign at the gates of Buckingham Palace.

▪︎A photo of yourself drinking tea in a teahouse.

▪︎A photo of yourself doing a peace sign at the top of London Eye.

▪︎A photo of yourself standing beside the guards at Buckingham Palace.

▪︎Photos of kiosks selling souvenirs.

▪︎A photo of the fry-up your B&B provided.

▪︎Anything Harry Potter related.

▪︎A photo of the escalators on the London Underground.

▪︎A photo of yourself wearing the plastic London Bobby helmet you bought as a souvenir.

etc.


And that's only the start of it, they photograph nearly every feckin thing they come across.
 
I know - what's with all that taking pictures of cable boxes and overhead wiring? The shore lids for accessing water and drainage, traffic lights, street lights, cracks in the pavements, and dozens of them clamouring for attention in tight little groups of seventeen little men and women at a time? Don't get me wrong, I love Japan and Japanese culture. Plus I lived with one Japanese lady during her two year world tour break between finishing business school and then taking her time out in New York,until she met some Irish people, so she flew into Dublin instead.

That's where she met the Mowl and her life took a turn.

For the two touring years of freedom and all expenses paid, her father (a director of the 'Shisheido Cosmetic Concern' corporation) had arranged her marriage and she was wed to (as she said it on the phone to me from over in Kyoto) 'some guy'. But I thought it hilarious that she'd call me on the morning of her wedding. Japanese people are so eccentric to our eyes. But then they look at us the same way, and I'm sure we're as weird to them as they are to us.

You should hop a plane and go over - you'd fucking LOVE it.
 
I've never felt more like an alien visiting a different planet than on a stopover in Tokyo for a day or two. The culture is just so different to anything we know in the west. There is something unknowable to the western mind underneath.

They have all the outward signs of western consumer culture of course in Tokyo but the psychology is so completely different that I knew I could never, even if I spent 30 years there, say that I would be familiar with it.
 
Not exactly Japanese art, but I was the man hired to complete this interior and exterior when it was bought by the current owner, Derek. We go back years and he'd have me over to repaint the black exterior every two months or so because the rain and the muddy streams by the pavement throughout the year messed up the pristine look of the restaurant. I did the interiors too: from the long hall at the back right up to the front door, usually from midnight onwards til the first kitchen and cleaning staff arrived.

Derek had his kitchen staff prepare a meal for me and I'd drink Japanese beers all through the night with the music blaring and nobody to complain. The space above the restaurant is used by Walton's music shop and some dance troupe. We had to get the dropped-ceiling rehung after a droop appeared in the main table area to the left as you come in. It was inspected and Yamamori had to close for a few days while the ceilings were repaired.

It's in a great spot, and as a family member I'd always swing by for coffee when downtown in the daytime and in for dinner in the evenings. On the house, always. One time I was finishing off the exterior and it was a bit windy. I had the ladder poised by the kerb to stop it sliding or getting hit by a passing bus. One cranky old bitch passed by refusing to walk under the ladder - I think she really expected me to come down and take the ladder out of her way. Pshaw.. Fuck off. So she walks around it, which meant she had to step out into the road. Off she goes, steaming and fuming, and after several meters she then turns around and starts screaming at me. A tiny speck of black emulsion got carried by the wind and landed on the breast of her coat. She went mental and we brought her in and gave her something to drink. I went to clean the speck off (letting it dry and picking it off would be 100% successful) but she followed me into the men's jacks and took a wet tissue and started trying to rub it off. She rubbed it in instead, fucked it up completely, then demanded a new coat.

Irish people.

You're exactly the fucking reason I left that blighted little shithole of a kip.

There's fuck all to miss about Irish people.



I miss the Japanese staff in Yamamori more than I miss any of the useless Irish pillocks who hang around these boards all fucking day and night.
 
The Japanese have a great work ethic. They also have little time for slackers or rude behaviour.

Contrast that to your average Irish-run shop where you don't get so much as a please or a thank you....the cashier is either talking to one of her work colleagues, or the person behind you. Basically pig-ignorant behaviour from people whose job description involves showing the customer an ounce of appreciation. They'd be fired in just about any other country.
 
David said:
The Japanese have a great work ethic. They also have little time for slackers or rude behaviour.

Contrast that to your average Irish-run shop where you don't get so much as a please or a thank you....the cashier is either talking to one of her work colleagues, or the person behind you. Basically pig-ignorant behaviour from people whose job description involves showing the customer an ounce of appreciation. They'd be fired in just about any other country.
Click to expand...

Can't recall ever being served in a city centre shop/newsagent in Dublin by an Irish person since the previous century.

Pakistani lads mostly, the type to eye you when you ask for twenty packs of Rizla blue papers and a packet of whatever cigarettes I can still remember the names of. They hand you the skins then give you a nod when taking the money.

Fuck off. Who the fuck are you staring at? Making presumptions, isn't it.

I always get rid as many five euro notes as I can before leaving Ireland: they're always filthy, greasy, rancid, smelly little rags of paper handled by thousands of people before me, but I'm fucked if I'll take them out of Ireland and back into the real world. Manky little things - they should be replaced with five euro coins for Irish knackers. Definitely the worst part of working for cash is getting handed nine different diseases from the folding money. Bank it, then take fresh notes instead.

It's the shop assistants I pity, handling filth all day, picking their noses and scratching themselves, then handing me a manky fiver?

Here, take that back and can you give me that in coins instead of a fiver - I need to use a phone/parking spot.

I won't even touch them unless I HAVE to.
 
Had a fascination with the Hikikomori of Japan for a while. Unemployed young men who lose face when they can't get employment and have shut themselves away from the public and their families. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

Interesting phenomena in a society which values the salaryman and company loyalist to an extreme degree.

'The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare defines hikikomori as a condition in which the affected individuals refuse to leave their parents' house, do not work or go to school and isolate themselves away from society and family in a single room for a period exceeding six months.[10] The psychiatrist Tamaki Saitō defines hikikomori as "a state that has become a problem by the late twenties, that involves cooping oneself up in one's own home and not participating in society for six months or longer, but that does not seem to have another psychological problem as its principal source'.
 
Watched an interesting documentary recently about the first people sent into Chernobyl Plant to shovel up and dump all the materials blown out around the reactor wearing nothing but their regular clothes and a Covid19 mask. They weren't told about the danger of the materials on the rooftops which they had to shovel up and then dump into the destroyed reactor. Fifteen minutes working, several hours break, then back again.

They all died horrific deaths later on, really nasty shit.

I remember the 2004 Tsunami like it was yesterday. Stayed over with friends after a party and flipped on the news next morning over coffee. It was like 9/11 all over again. Finland lost lots of people who were holidaying, including a friend of mine from the music business: he, his wife, and their two kids were all taken out to sea by the retreating waves. The bodies were never found/identified, so they had a burial at sea for them here in Finland. This chap:

Aki Sirkesalo ja perhe: RIP



It felt like it was another one of those 'once in a lifetime' events at that moment, but that's definitely not the case.

Iceland is currently awaiting some action from their volcanoes: their population is small but they're hardy people who have faced the elements every day of their normal lives, so I'd imagine they have contingency plans. It's a 'watch this space' news item today.
 
Japan's Secret Watergarden, with David Attenborough.

The care and respect shown by these people toward nature in contrast to Ireland's slurry spreading farmers is remarkable. Not a Massey Ferguson in sight, nor the stench of cow manure...just pristine nature at its finest.


 
Heh. I was just thinking the other day about the likely routine whenever Lindsey Buckingham wants a new custom guitar. I bet there is a courier arrives in Japan somewhere to a Shinto guitar council of elders. The word goes out and up on Mount Fuji a temple is notified by parchment-runner. They wait 'till spring and then the Makers plant the necessary trees and they all sit around in a circle to watch the necessary woods develop... part of the circle breathes a little heavier when they feel it is necessary to influence the Growing... the correct breathing sequence is required to develop the harmonics of the wood.
 
The Kodo Drummers did a similiar thing: all of the drums onstage during any performance, all of them were cut from the same tree. Bass drums from the lower bough, and all the way up to piccolo notes on the top end. Visually massive, aurally massive, intensity massive. The works. Those guys weren't pissing around. First time I saw them live was one night when I was holed up in bed with hot whiskies and hot water bottles, a nasty flu. My housemate Suzi got us listed for the Simmonscourt gig. She and another friend lifted me out of the bed and into the car, then across town and into the upper galleries just as the show began.

My flu cleared up in minutes - I was in nothing but pyjamas and a bathrobe.

Not even some slippers on my feet.

But man they shook the fucking roof off the joint.



They also played the closing sequence of the infamous 'One World One Voice' project, jamming along with the Leningrad symphony orchestra.

Time-stamped for the Russian and Japanese performance: rather fucking awesome, yeah.

 
Documentary on the traditional handcrafted homes of Kyoto - along with the philosophy behind Japanese interior design and garden spaces. One of the most interesting aspects of Japanese design is the encouragement of minimalism and dislike for clutter.


 
Mowl said:
The Kodo Drummers did a similiar thing: all of the drums onstage during any performance, all of them were cut from the same tree. Bass drums from the lower bough, and all the way up to piccolo notes on the top end. Visually massive, aurally massive, intensity massive. The works. Those guys weren't pissing around. First time I saw them live was one night when I was holed up in bed with hot whiskies and hot water bottles, a nasty flu. My housemate Suzi got us listed for the Simmonscourt gig. She and another friend lifted me out of the bed and into the car, then across town and into the upper galleries just as the show began.

My flu cleared up in minutes - I was in nothing but pyjamas and a bathrobe.

Not even some slippers on my feet.

But man they shook the fucking roof off the joint.



They also played the closing sequence of the infamous 'One World One Voice' project, jamming along with the Leningrad symphony orchestra.

Time-stamped for the Russian and Japanese performance: rather fucking awesome, yeah.

Click to expand...


Saw them on tour at the Barbican in London. Absolutely ace.
 
David said:
Documentary on the traditional handcrafted homes of Kyoto - along with the philosophy behind Japanese interior design and garden spaces. One of the most interesting aspects of Japanese design is the encouragement of minimalism and dislike for clutter.


Click to expand...


'Only allow into your life that which brings pleasure'. Which sounds quite hedonistic or epicurean until you realise that doesn't mean consumer culture and 'stuff' like in the west. Wabi-sabi.
 
Video disappeared: youtube have been acting like right cunts lately with the obligatory two ads at the start and then more breaks and ads soon after.

Even three minute music videos have an average of two minutes of ads.

Any other online platform/brand would be turfed by its users by now.
 
Yep. Used to leap around Ireland driving nails in with the faithful Universal Adjuster. Currachs. Barn doors. You name it. Cuchulainn could drive nails into it.
 
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