“I open my heart to myself like a sort of vitrine, and examine one by one all those love affairs of which the world can know nothing.” Charles Swann, in Cities of the Plain by Marcel Proust In his fascinating book, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of [Read more…]
Eileen-chan has become keen on LEGO®. This is to be encouraged as LEGO® offers excellent scope for gamers. I am especially keen on the Kingdoms series and have dreams of building a large scale LEGO® campaign game loosely based on the Crusades, and drawing inspiration from the Microsoft Age of [Read more…]
In January 1990, William Blacker drove from England through Eastern Europe to see what life was like in new post-Communist era. He wanted to see the painted monasteries of Moldavia, Romania. When he got there he was astonished to find “wooden peasant cottages on the edge of forests inhabited by [Read more…]
Title: Birthday DinnerLocation: とり若Date: 2011-01-15 Here are a few photos of my birthday dinner. Just Hiroko, Eileen and myself, entertained by Toriwaka and his wife and son, Taiki. Photos We were the only customers for most of the time. A couple of doctors came in and sat at the counter [Read more…]
I received three excellent books for Christmas. Two of them were picked from a list of requests that I’d compiled from the LRB Christmas Books 2010 catalogue: William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way: a Romanian Story Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes The third was a complete surprise: [Read more…]
I am amazed at how well our Christmas in England went. We were due to fly from Tokyo Narita to Heathrow on 23rd December. On 18th a heavy fall of snow saw Heathrow unable to use its runways. On the 19th, “Heathrow airport continued to be affected with only 20 [Read more…]
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