PICTURES OF KOCHI

Here are a few snaps from a recent trip to Kochi, a provincial city on Shikoku, the smallest of Japan‘s four main islands. As usual, I don’t really stay with the touristic shots, but quickly slide into the abstract and dreamy, with ISO cranked to the max to make the most ordinary object a work of art. All done on the lovely Nikon D90. No stealing these now, you bastards…

The gates of Kochi castle, looking upwards. This castle, along with those of Himeji, Matsumoto and Hikone, is one of the few originals left in Japan.

Now look, even something as mundane as a coffee cup in an empty trendy cafe can become art if you look at it correctly…

That there is actually the menu, edgewise. No good for selecting for fancy flavoured lattes, but good for arty photos.

A lampshade…

Oh, those delicate pastel shades! Quick! Narrow depth of field, high ISO and Bob’s yer..

I finally leave the cafe and actually walk out and about in Kochi. Palm trees line the river near the station…

This is apparently the Louis Vuitton shop in Kochi. Didn’t know they had so much money down there in the sticks..

Oh look, finally something touristy – Kochi castle at night, and, I hasten to add, taken without a tripod…

Let’s get a bit of pine tree in there too, to make it more ‘Japanesey.’

Monkeying with the white balance can result in weird freakish colours like these, but I kind of like them..

Let’s end as we started – in good ol’ monochrome…

You can check out more of my photos on my website here.

PS. The title of this entry is a play on one of my favourite songs, The Who’s ‘Pictures of Lily.’ Not very funny, but it’s a private joke, never mind…

ZEN AND THE ART OF FINDING GOODNESS IN SHITE

Well, that was 2008 and good riddance to it, I say. Frankly, Mr.Shankley, it stank. One of the worst in blogging memory, or as Her Royal Dummy Highness Queen Elizabeth II might say, an annus horriblis, translated by many an uneducated oik to mean a bum year.

Her Dummy Royal Highness

A year that was filled with a multitude of sicknesses both mental and physical, real and imagined, afflicting both myself, various family and friends and even the poor old cats didn’t come off unscathed, either. From athlete’s elbow to elephantiasis via knobrot and arse-rash, they’ve all put in a cheery little appearance.

Add to that a flurry of financial nightmares, Kafka-like situations involving non-compliant offshore banks, disappearing debtors, massively increased taxation, dwindling income and threats of redundancy, and that was mostly all before the Big Crash of October, which of course, was just around the time I decided to finally get some investments sorted out to cover my theoretical dotage. Nice timing, sir!

K contemplates the fate of his futures portfolio

Now I’m not essentially a gloomy soul, and indeed my recovery rate from setbacks can be amazingly fast. Zen-like focusing on the moment, I wake up each day, putting the bad memories of the past to one side, and consider only the goodness in the world as I skip merrily down the road in my flat cap, radiating working-class cheeky scamp bonhommie to all around me as yet another bucket of rotten fish offal is dumped onto my poor noggin.

Mr.Grimsdale! Mr.Grimsdale!

And so, in the interests of balance, and to counteract the lake of maudlin collecting around our feet, I will now list all of the nice things that happened in 2008, for it was not all bleak Dickensian squalor and consumption.

• iMac – last December’s change over from PC to Apple was a great move, and I’m still marvelling at that sleek sexy trouble-free machine residing regally upon my desk.
• iPhone – it costs a bloody fortune to run, but hey, it’s been a boon, what with it’s internet abilities and numerous pointless but fun applications to kill commuting time.
• Logic Pro – Apple’s music production software has recently served to totally re-energise my creativity in this field, and the last few days have seen a veritable outpouring of new sonic fare from this wonderful device.

Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" seen in wave form in Logic Pro

• Single Malt Whiskey - the hard times have been enlivened no end by my recent obsession with collecting and sampling these delightful alcoholic concoctions, and what better thing to do than drink when recession looms?
• Cosmology & Quantum Physics – never thought I’d be reading science books, but these subjects are fascinating and awe inspiring, containing all the weirdness and mystery one needs to replace the quackery and nonsense pedalled by the paranormal believers.
• The Roman Republic – still captivating, I continue to plough through original source accounts as well as university lectures and TV documentaries on this incredible period in history.

Where's Anthony Hopkins?

• YouTube – my videos of Joy Division basslines have surprisingly garnered a lot of 5-star reviews together with appreciative and supportive comments, which has warmed the very cockles of my heart. Who says the internet is just populated by pimply abrasive adolescents who can’t spell?
• Paris – just there for 4 nights in September, and it cost me a fortune, but it was as magical as ever.
• Domestic Travel - Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Matsumoto, Nagano, Nagoya – all very enjoyable and reminds me that there is still much to like about Japan.

Kanazawa - Geishas oot for the lads!

• British Comedy – my sanity has been maintained by nightly dips into the insanity of The Mighty Boosh, Black Books, Spaced, League of Gentlemen, Monty Python, Snuff Box, The Office and Red Dwarf. Thank the Deity for DVDs and Amazon!
• Starbucks – yes, it’s expensive, and those of you out in the civilised world may not think it anything special, but my frequent jaunts to my favourite branches have provided me with oases of warm tranquility in an otherwise hostile and smelly universe.

THE MIDDLE BIT

And so the spring vacation is upon us, well, upon those of us lazy-arsed tosseurs who eke out a living as itinerant mystical sages in the Land of the Four Clearly-Defined Seasons. Yes, I am currently eschewing all things pedagogical and devoting myself entirely to the noble and nourishing pursuit of doing fuck-nothing until early April. Huzzah!

In keeping with last year I have consulted my financial guru and he has observed the birds in the sky, the tea-leaves in the cup and the configuration of a virgin’s intestines and tells me that I should forgo travel to foreign parts and instead take up my cane and sack and once more take the long road to somewhere domestic. He assures me this will save me at least £5, and so it is that on March 10th I will head north for a couple of weeks in the hitherto unexplored Chubu region of these here lands. When I say unexplored, dear reader, I mean unexplored with regard to my own feet, arse and lungs. Obviously a few other people have already been there, otherwise how are we to account for the vast number of beverage vending machines to be found there?

Now Chubu in Japanese breaks down into two Chinese characters, “Chu”, meaning ‘middle’, and “Bu”, meaning ‘bit’. Hence if we were to glance at a map of old Nippon, it would be after being that mountainous chunk in the centre between the two great urban slabs of Kansai (Osaka & Kyoto) and Kanto (Tokyo & Yokohama):

Well, I’m all agog with excitement, and have already planned out the trip in true nerdy fashion, with multiple copies of itineraries depicting schedules and timings, together with inventories detailing exact numbers of socks to be transported and where said foot-coverings are to be stowed once used and a-smellied.

Here’s the basic plan:

[1] Kanazawa – 3 nights. Old bits and gardeny things to gawp at. Possible side trip to venerable Eiheiji Temple if no Starbucks found.
[2] Takayama – 3 nights. Snowy mountains, olde worlde charm, cold turkey due to lack of Starbucks.
[3] Nagoya – 2 nights. A counterblast to the previous rusticity. Go to Starbucks. Look at big ugly city nobody likes.
[4] Matsumoto – 3 nights. More snowy mountains, old bits and a castle. Starbucks.
[5] Nagano – 3 nights. Snowy mountains, Starbucks.

A splendid plan indeed!

Hotels have been booked, railway timetables consulted – it’s all looking rather wonderful!

And as a tantalising taster of the visual delights that await, I do hereby solemnly reproduce here a nice photo of Matsumoto castle what I nicked off some other bugger’s site: