Back in 2015 I posted a review of the Ogoola Karuta English poets card game which I had been playing in some of my English language classes here in Hiroshima. Ogoola Karuta is based on the traditional Japanese card-grabbing game of Uta-garuta, which can be translated into English as “poetry [Read more…]
We had the perfect weather for the cherry blossom season this weekend and so I went out on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon to see the blossom. Saturday Evening Hanami and Dinner Party Hatsukaichi is a suburb of Hiroshima. Actually, nowadays it’s a city in its own right. Anyway, it’s [Read more…]
Yesterday I attended the graduation ceremony and graduate party for the Heisei 30 graduates of Hiroshima College of Foreign Languages (HCFL). It struck me as I watched the formal Graduation Ceremony that these are the last students to graduate during the Heisei Era (平成時代) as the current emperor will abdicate [Read more…]
Last Wednesday I “unleashed” a surprise attack against my regular chess partner, Dr. M, by deploying the Jobava London system, after watching the first of Simon Williams’ YouTube videos on the topic. Simon is an erstwhile quaffing partner of mine. We met during the British Chess Championships in Llandudno in [Read more…]
Back in June 1981 I was revising for my English Literature and Communications A-Levels. One of the books we’d been studying was The Mayor of Casterbridge and one of the quotations I learned by heart back then has stuck with me ever since. The quotation is: Henchard’s act of violence [Read more…]
I did not intend to write about one of my A-Level teachers tonight. I was going to write about a quotation relating to The Mayor of Casterbridge that I committed to memory for my A Level English Lit exam and which has been buzzing around inside my head this week. [Read more…]
On Friday evening one of my English teaching colleagues picked me up at Itsukaichi station and drove up the hill to her clients at the Inokuchidai MASHU hair and beauty salon. The idea was to give her students a one-off 60 minute English conversation session with a native English speaker, [Read more…]
The first of February is Saint Brigid’s day, or Imbolc, the Gaelic festival of the beginning of spring, sacred to the goddess Brigit, many of whose attributes were later attributed to Saint Brigid of Kildare. One of her attributes is that she can turn water into beer, presumably without going through [Read more…]
Here’s a review of a game of chess I played against my regular chess partner, Dr M, at the conclusion of his private English class on Wednesday evening. I was White and opened with d.4, moving my Queen’s pawn forward two spaces. The opening moves led us into the Marshall [Read more…]
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