Monday 24th February

A cold wet morning in Tokyo. My boots splashed through the puddles on the way to the station. The city was sprouting with mushrooms of umbrellas that the rain always brings. Mushrooms thrive in wet conditions. The Japanese really love their umbrellas. Everyone carries one - the small child on her way to nursery school, the old man on his bicycle, the office workers dragging themselves to their offices. We have a closet full of them; some I have bought, some have been given to me and some I have found. The best umbrella I ever had was the one I brought with me when I first came to Japan in the summer of 1990. It had belonged to my grandfather. A beautiful black silk, cane handled umbrellas made by Fox of London. One day I foolishly left it outside a supermarket when I went in to do some shopping. When I came out it had gone. For the next few months I looked closely at other people's umbrellas, searching for my lost umbrella. I never found it.
It's a clich$B!&(B but true none the less, that the chances of loosing your umbrella (or leaving it on the train), is linked to it value - the better the umbrella the more chance you have of losing or leaving it. I have never lost a 500 Yen plastic convenience store umbrella, and don't suppose I ever will. After losing the Fox umbrella I never brought another expensive umbrella, and I've never lost another umbrella. (From the Latin "umbra", meaning shade$B!&(Bccording to one of the textbooks I use.)
The train seemed rather empty, even for 9:34 - I should travel at this time every day, unfortunately that is not an option. I thought about reading one of the two books I had in my bag - a book about "Babies!$B!&(Bor Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". But I read neither; I looked out of the window as a gray wet Tokyo speed past the windows. I kept my gloves on all the way to Ikebukuro and only took them off when I went into Andersen's to buy some bread.
Andersen's is one of my favourite bread shops in Tokyo, and the city has some pretty good ones. All the good ones are European, and mostly French. No matter what you think of the French, and we all think something, they do make good bread, and that counts for a lot in my book.
I bought five things - a walnut roll, a sesame roll, a macadamia nut bread ring, a banana and walnut cake and a chocolate muffin. I bought six things, and they came to 546 Yen, and I got two stickers. Yeah, we collect the Andersen stickers; stick them in little books, each book holds 50. Collect enough of them and you can exchange them for "gifts". We've got about 300 stickers just waiting to be turned into "gifts".

Changed lines - got on to the Yamanote and rode it down to Ebisu. Read the Hemingway:

"Now in his mind he saw a railway station at Karagatch and he was standing with his pack and that was the headlight of the Simplon-Orient cutting the dark now and he was leaving Thrace then after the retreat. That was one of the things he had saved to write, with, in the morning at breakfast, looking out the window and seeing snow on the mountains in Bulgaria and Nansen's Secretary asking the old man if it were snow and the old man looking at it and saying, No, that's not snow."

No, not snow, but rain. It was raining in Ebisu when I got off the train, and rained while a walked to the office. And now looking out of the window at the rain coming down and thinking that this is what it would be like every day in England. A small price to pay, you may think.

Yesterday we bought bread at Lenotre; I think it's called, another French bread shop. You really can't escape them. Another thing it's been difficult to escape from in Tokyo recently is the shouting and hard sell of the Yahoo BB people. They stand in every station, and on some street corners, dressed in identical Yahoo BB long white coats. They hold out white bags to passers by containing$B!&(Bomething, and beg people stop and talk about getting Yahoo BB in their lives. Like most people, I try not to make eye contact. But perhaps I am missing something here. I should at least find out what they are offering. I know it$BCT(B some kind of telephone service, and I know that people with Yahoo BB can talk to each other free of chare. If that were the case with international calls them it would be a good deal. But I don$BCU(B know if it does because I$BCW(Be never asked. There is life lesson in there somewhere, I$BCN(B sure there is.
I$BCN(B here in the office all day today, but far from being the long wasteland of time it could easily seem, I regard this afternoon as an opportunity to write reams of stuff which, hopefully, no one but myself will read. Even if I put this up on the blog no will find it, not amongst all those other, much older, well-established, better written blogs. But hey, they say if you want to learn to do something well then you have to practice. I know it$BCT(B true with learning a second language, because I see it every day. So I$BCN(B just going to keep on writing until, in the words of John Lennon on a track on Let It Be, $BE*(B got blisters on my fingers!$B!&(BWhich track was that? $BE0(Bne After 909$B!&(B

Outside the rain has turned to snow.

So, it looks like there is going to be a war $B!&(BAmerica vs. Iraq. I predict an away win for the Americans. According to a report I read on the BBC News website today, they$BCS(Be going to throw about 200-300 Cruise missiles into Iraq on the first day and then again on the second day and every day until the Iraqis decide they have had enough. Then the Americans drive into Baghdad to the cheers of the common people finally freed from the jackboot of Saddam Hussein$BCT(B evil regime, set up a democratic government and everyone lives happily ever after. Hurrah! For America!
I read somewhere that this war is going to cost the Americans one trillion dollars. That$BCT(B a lot of money. Bound to help the economy pick up a bit I would think.
So after they have dealt with Iraq, I wonder who will be next? France perhaps? After all Bush did say, $BE*(Bf you$BCS(Be not with us then you are with the terrorists$B!&(B And the French have been thwarting the Americans plans at the UN. Plus the French have weapons of mass destruction, and I$BCN(B not talking about their cheese. They have nuclear weapons! They admit it!
It$BCT(B so easy to develop an anti-American attitude, and it$BCT(B so easy to forget that the actions of the US government do necessarily reflect the views held by the majority of the people. Vietnam, Iran-Contra, supporting dictatorial regimes when it suits their purposes (e.g. Iraq), there$BCT(B a long list of actions which were certainly not doing $BAU(Bhe right thing$B!&(B did not reflect Christian family values. At least not as I imagine them to be. Perhaps the majority of Americans do support those kinds of actions, or perhaps they don$BCU(B think about them at all. Like the rest of us, they are just trying to get along.
Here in Japan the newspapers and TV news aren$BCU(B giving as much coverage to the coming war as their American and European counterparts are. The story of the baseball player Matsui playing for the New York Yankees is bigger news.

It$BCT(B still snowing out there. 2:30 and soon it will be time for coffee and that chocolate muffin I bought this morning. The heater has been cranked up too high as usual, so I$BCM(Bl be sleeping before the afternoon is through.
Got out the door at 6:33 and was home by 7:30 ready make and eat dinner.