Aye
waaatsu iiii kuraku?

I do not have an awful lot to share but I am a generous soul and I will share what I have. Well if you must know I imbibed biru last nite and watched rugby. No I didn't go back to Scotland but my friend finally got around to inviting me to watch rugby. He has sky perfect and could watch all the 6 nations games which he kindly recorded for me! Unfortunately he has been awffie busy with work recently (as is the norm in this country - even on my island people regularly work 60 hours plus a week and don't take many holidays). I was settling down to some study but I could not pass up the chance and I had managed 3 hour of study at that point which is better than a kick in the derrière. Well to cut a long story short it was a fun night and now I am paying for it. I really didn't want to get up this morning. But I have a sadistic gregorian imp who will pinch me if I don't get up early. If you also have a sadistic gregorian imp please let me know and we can form an informal support group. If you (a sadisitic gergorian imp owner) exist YOU ARE NOT ALONE! If you don't exist I AM ALONE! WAaaaah!
Sadistic gregorian imps aside.
I went to the mainland this weekend as is my wont. I often want to do my wont. I also had deep and incisefuly insightful thoughts on decision making. You may not think that is very interesting however I beg that you reconsider your rash judgement! Your ability to decision make will directly affect your life what you do and how happy you will be/are! We are constantly making decisions in limited time and with imperfect information, no wonder we get it wrong so often! Decision making is also done at a cultural level, and although we have made many brilliant decisions as a culture we are not getting them all right. I plan to post my thoughts later (actually I am not sure what they were, I was falling asleep when stuck by them so I jumped up, jotted them down in my rather handsome black leather bound journal and promptly resumed falling asleep and forgot all about my great thoughts - they may well be, in fact, a small pile of poo) but speaking of bad decisions we have taken as a society/culture - GLOBAL WARMING. Yes it is old news for many of us, but that doesn't mean it has gone away and that doesn't mean it is not getting worse and worse AND WORSE! For those of you for whom it is new news.......no comment. I admit with much guilt it had been pushed to the recesses of my mind too. Although my conscience is comforted by the knowledge I have a pretty small carbon footprint...relatively speaking of course. I don't drive a car, I don't leave electric appliances on standby, I take my own bag grocery shopping, I.......try not to use disposable chopsticks.....I.......yeah so I am not doing very much actually. I feel a bit bad. This was all brought on by watching 'An inconvenient truth' with Kelly. Thanks for suggesting we watch it Darling! I advise you all to watch it. It is very relevant and timely. I suppose it applys more to Americans than anyone. The Chinese too. Please guys stop using massively outdated and dirty coal burning power plants. Australia too, highest per capita CO2 emissions tut tut! So well yes go watch the movie. Then reduce your own carbon emissions and elect responsible politicians. The alternative is simply not acceptable and if there is anything you hold dear in the world we need to change before it all gets mucked up. It really is a moral decision (as Mr.Gore quite rightly says). I was impressed how fuel efficient Japanese cars were (very!) and amused that Chinese cars are more fuel efficient than American ones! America cannot sell many cars to China because they are not fuel efficient enough! I was also heartened to see that being a little environmentalism is in fact good for business at least not too bad and at least in one industry. Fuel efficient Japanese car makers (toyota, nissan etc.) are growing strongly while makers of fuel guzzling car makers (ie. ford, GM etc) are in fact in pretty serious economic trouble! Get rich and save the world! Actually from an environmental point of view I don't think this whole thing is amazingly bad. Life has survived super volcanoes and giant meteor strikes. Mass extinctions have been regular and arguably have played an important and essential role in the development of life (at least for life as we know it). Life has happily lived through periods much hotter than now and much colder than now. Life will survive. Global warming will mainly hurt us. People. It is already hurting us but we are to busy acquiring stuff to notice. Stuff is nice but there are many, many other wonderful aspects to life. Oh where am I going with this rant! Just go watch the movie, it is nothing new, nothing we havn't known for years and years, but it calls for what is needed and what is needed is something new; a responsible human race....is that possible? Individually people are great, I quite like many people, in fact many of my best friends are people. But as a whole (me very much included) we make some stinkers of decisions. So meh. Oh yah, also I have finally got around to trying Shodou (Japanese brush caligraphy). Yes yes, I am about to leave Japan and I finally get interested in learning about the culture. Whatever. Better late than never! I bought all the equipment and a book on how to do it and have been using it as my study break activity. I was also excited to find out there is a shodou class every thursday on my island! For kids but that is perfect for me! I wish I had found out about this sooner! Perhaps I shall post some of my shodou attempts later!

Take care
Barnabas Primbottom

Ps. If you thought my opening sentence is in Japanese think again.

pps. A story from last nite. Apparently Britain's unenviable reputation for awful food has got as far as Japan. My friend asked me about it and I tried to explain. I explained how traditional British food is yummy but that now people are so busy, lifestyles have changed and how big supermarkets have taken over and fresh local produce is hard to find. He accepted this but when I told him that it was also because British women also want jobs, so as neither men nor women cook the food is bad! This stuck a cord and he enthusiastically agreed telling me it was the same in Japan...while his wife was busy cooking away in the kitchen. His wife asked him how she was and he graciously told her she was a good cook. I was a little surprised as on Izena at least women stay in the kitchen and cook and serve beer to the men who sit and eat and drink. If I am invited around to someone's house to dinner the wife stays in the kitchen, if another husband and wife come to the dinner the wife goes to the kitchen to help, the man sits down and tucks in. It may be different in the rest of Japan. Anyway he told me how food was very important and how it was important to get a girl who can cook. I agreed with him whole heartedly on the food thing and told him that was why I myself try to learn to cook. They both both this was hilarious and I don't think they quite believed me. Japanese men probably feel rather sorry for us westerners. He also thought it was very funny I was trying shodou asking me if I didn't think it was boring. Silly western men who don't have women to cook and serve them, who do silly boring things like shodou when they should be busy being served things like beer and sake and making great big sucking noises with their mouths. Silly western men! Hah! Whatever I like shodou and Kelly, although you have cooked me some delish things it is not a factor in determining whether I like you or not.