Captains Log; Star date 27092006

Lots of things have happened since I last posted so this is going to be quick run down. Maybe I'll write more if anybody cares to hear more about any of it.

I went into a primary school for a week and generally helped out by listening to readers and answering the kid's questions.

I started my course at uni. First two days was basically registering and getting introductions from everyone. I have lectures and seminars for three main bits. "Professional studies" is with all the PGCE students and it's abourt general being a teacher stuff. I have seminars with a class of mixed science PGCEers anout teaching science and then most of the seminars are just with chemistry PGCEers, who are like me. It's fun and not too pressurised at this point.

I bought a peugeot racing bike that was made in 1989, it's red and beautiful, I've been riding to uni through the centre of London every day. As well as the bike I bought locks, bike tools, new tire, helmet, lights & new mud guards. I just need water proofs and I'll be all set for the winter!

Been playing songs with spanish girl Marian. Hopefully we'll learn enough songs to get some gigs and some money!

Went rock climbing with some folks from uni, it was pretty fun, will be going again next week. Japanese course starts this coming Tuesday.

End Log

From the BBC News website: The Japanese Jesus trail


Local legend says Mr Sawaguchi (r) is a living descendant of Jesus

A Japanese legend claims that Jesus escaped Jerusalem and made his way to Aomori in Japan where he became a rice farmer. Christians say the story is nonsense. However, a monument there known as the Grave of Christ attracts curious visitors from all over the world.

I've been wataching, listening to and reading a lot of really interesting things recently so I thought I'd write about them here.


This book is a collection of essays by George Orwell. What is so brilliant is the same logical thinking and clarity of though which he uses to discuss anything from politics to boys' weeklys. I have to say that though I liked the essays 'The Spike'(about being a tramp), 'Shooting an Elephant' (about the madness of imperialism) and 'How the poor die' (about public health services) I most enjoyed it when he applied the same thinking to 'Books Vs Cigarettes', 'In defense of English cooking', 'Some thoughts on the common toad' and 'Confessions of a book reviewer'. It is clear that he thought any peice of writing should (and does) furthur some larger cause, but he also obviously believed that what you wrote should be very readable. I suppose his style of humour would be 'it's funny because it's true', rather like Alan Bennett (see below). Both men went form modest working / middle class homes into upper-class educational establishments. This give them both I suppose the wide-lense outlook on the world they used to comment on the situations both in the immediate surroundings and around the world.

I liked this bit at the end of 'Confessions of a Book Reviewer'. "However, everyone in this world has someone else he can look down on, and I must say, from experience of both trades, that the book reviewer is better off than the film critic, who cannot even do his work at home, but has to attend trade shows at eleven in the morning and, with one or two notable exceptions, is expected to sell his honour for a glass of inferior sherry".

I listened to both part one and part two of this on Audio Book because anything written by Alan Bennett can only really be apprecieted by listening to his accent and intonation. The CD is abridged and I would have liked to have read the whole thing, but I know I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. My dad says when he is reading the book (he bought it) he imagines Bennetts voice reading it to him.

In the first part he talks a little about his childhood in Leeds during the war but mostly about his mother's slow slide into depression, dementia and her eventual death. It's never light hearted but somehow it rides the balance of humour and tragedy brilliantly. Talking about his parents - "They stopped going to church because all to often the got roped in after the serviceto take part in a discussion group. "it was a discussion group on the 3rd world", dad wrote to me."well, yer mam and me don't even know where the 3rd world is! Next week it's Budism, we're going to give it a miss".

The second part is his diaries for the period 1997 to 2004. He is a self confessed luvie and he always drops names from theatre. You never think he is trying to show off though, merely that he likes speaking of the various characters he meets in the strange world of the theatre. The first entry is this "2nd January 1997: I'm sent a complementary copy of waterstones literary diary which records the birthdays of various contemperary figures from the world of letters......and so naturally I turn to my own birthday. May 9th is blank.Except for the note "the first British self-service launderette is opened on Queensway, London, 1949"".

Bennett lives in Camden, only a couple of miles from where I do now. I keep my eyes open at waitrose to see if I see him doing his shopping there. I often wonder what, if anything, I would say to famous people I admire if I ever met them. I'm sure I would make a complete arse of myself.

This book is two hundred odd pages long and I read the whole thing from start to finish in one sitting. It's the first Haruki Murakami book I've ever read. It seems to me that there are two sides to this book. The standard fiction side of the book reminded me of Nick Hornby. His characters are real but easily definable because they have extreme personality traits. The main girl in the story is a typical bohemian taken straight out of the 60's and put in the 90's. The main guy is nice and easy to associate yourself with, but he's essentially a hanger-on. It also reminded me of Nick Hornby that what you like is more important than what you are like (though the character in High Fidelity who says that rejects the idea). So we can tell what the girl is like by the books she reads and how she dresses. We can tell about other characters by the cars they drive or the clothes they wear. The main girl even changes her clothes when she changes her character (or is it the other way round?). The weird part of the book reminds me of Roald Dahl because it's like he's sat down and wrote on a pad "I'll write a story about a man who learns to see through cards" or "a girl with a magic finger". Basically the change is so small that the rest of the book grounds it in reality and it therefore becomes semi-believeable and therefore weird. It was a really quick read and it was fun. I was worried about the ending, but he came good in the end.

I'm reading 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle' now, it is slower going but his style is still easy and I'm in no rush. I liked this quote "It occurred to me that true believers in hard-driving jazz...could never become owners of cleaning shops in malls across from railroad stations." Is that true? You wouldn't have thought so but experience seems to suggest it. I guess it is the same question as above.

A couple of days ago I happened to notice that 'Tales of the Unexpected' was on ITV3 one after the other. Each episode was orginally a short story by Roald Dahl. The TV series was first broadcast in the late 70's and early 80's. The first two series were all Roald Dahl stories but the third and final season was written by a variety of authors who wrote similar stories. The episode I watched was called 'The Fly Paper' and it was from the last season. The story is set in what looks like the yorkshire moors with the small town grim bordered by rolling heath which is it's self enclosed in fog. It opened with a news report about a local girl who had gone missing, who about half way though turns up dead in a pond behind the church. The majority of the story is about another girl who is followed around by a strange man. The tension of the program is kept by keeping us guessing as to whether the man will in the end get the girl or indeed if he is a bad guy at all. It's all a bit too realistic and the one word that springs to mind is Sinister. Somehow even the old film footage seems to lend authenticity to the story. With this tale of the unexpected all we really care about is whether the girl will be o.k, so the ending is not entirely unexpected as the answer can only be yes or no. However you really don't know which it will be until right at the end. It scared me a lot, and you can read the short story here (written by Elizabeth Taylor - not the actress).

"insert artsy title here"

This is a picture from my new webcam. I chatted to my sister using it today, it was cool. Pictured is Chris, Ruben & me. Ruben is going back home to Spain tomorrow via Italy due to girlfriend troubles. pinch, punch, first of the month.