Indistinguishable from Magic

2.    You take me 今すぐ

Neither my brother nor I speak a word of Korean. Well, we managed to eventually get ‘thank you’ and had a phrasebook that we utilized principally by waving it around ostentatiously in the hope that someone nearby with some English ability would take pity on us and help out. But by and large we fell back on the tried and tested Brit Abroad methodology of waving, pointing, and talking in English VERY. LOUDLY. AND. SLOWLY. When in Rome, eh?

An Artist of the Floating World

Kazuo Ishiguro, 1986

(April 2013)

I did English Lit. for A-level (High School, for my non-Commonwealth friends). I may have mentioned this before. Every so often they’ll try to refresh the curriculum by including a book or two that wasn’t written by a dead white guy, so in addition to The Canterbury Tales, Othello, and Coriolanus, we also studied The Remains of the Day.

This is the News

Sportsman makes minor alteration to Twitter account. Headlines ensue. Sportsman is 'upset' by headlines, 'slams' and 'rejects' them. More ensue.

Indistinguishable from Magic

1.    Lukewarm in Ulsan

My first spell in Japan coincided with the the Japan/Korea Football World Cup. That was fun. England’s training camp was on this Bond-villain island lair somewhere, in keeping with their friendly and approachable image, but Ireland’s was in some rural backwater in western Japan, so I tagged along with a couple of Irish mates to see their team train and play a practice match against Sanfrecce Hiroshima.

The Exiled Blade

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, 2013

(April 2013)

So for all that I was patting myself on the back about getting the references (well, a reference) last time out, it took me a worryingly long time to realize that this was pretty much Hamlet with werewolves.

The Boys Vol. 5 and 6

Vol.5: Herogasm, Vol. 6: The Self-PreservationSociety

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, 2009-2010

(April 2013)

This is a pleasure that goes so far through guilty that it loops round the other side and feels almost virtuous. Well, perhaps not, but it’s still excessive, puerile, childish fun. Does a body good every once in a while.

…and a Weeding

2.    Achievement Unlocked

Americans, they know how to do a revolution properly. Well, almost. Even theirs wouldn’t have taken without considerable help from the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys (how soon we forget). Still, given the choice between national origin myths – the British desire for secret privilege granted by right of birth and the American kicking against authority and repression – and I know which I would choose.

  

More Weight

“The number of teachers hired for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program would be doubled in three years...”

As the old saying goes, “Quality not something something I forget the rest fuck it let’s just throw money at the problem.”

Doing Applied Linguistics

A Guide for Students

Nicholas Groom and Jeanette Littlemore, 2011

(April 2013)

  

In which I announce a new project.

  

Two Funerals…

1.    It’s what she would have wanted

I have no truck with the notion of an afterlife. If you do then good luck to you, but being of a somewhat lazy tendency myself I’ve always had to fight against my natural urge to put off until tomorrow what I really should be doing today. The prospect of putting off until the next life what I should be doing in this one strikes me as a step too far – I’d never get anything done.