"わたし の" いぬ

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Here are my latest attempts at "culture" ...

I'm currently reading the book "The River Ki" by Sawako Ariyoshi ...

and last weekend I watched the movie "Kikujiro" ...

I've also made my arrangements to visit Edinburgh in August to see some of the shows at the Edinburgh Arts Festival.

I've already booked tickets to see the play "White Tea".

If you're in Edinburgh in August ... *please* go and see this show at the Assembly Rooms.

Here's the publicity info:-

"White Tea is a complex, multi-layered piece of visual theatre in which the audience wear white paper kimonos and drink white tea as they sit within a cocoon of paper prayer flags and origami birds. Lush images of Japan (of Tokyo and Kyoto) are projected on all four walls and even the ceiling whilst cutting-edge LED and laser technology projects messages across the stage.

Within this otherworldly installation an absurd, eccentric story unfolds of beauty, brutality, giving and grieving. We follow Naomi (award-winning actress Gabriel Quigley) and Tomoko (Alisa Anderson) as they journey from Paris to Japan in search of Naomi’s sick mother and a long-lost sister that nobody knew existed.

The piece deftly uses the role of tea in British and Japanese life as a way to explore colliding cultures, clashing personalities and the sinister demons a daughter leaves unspokem. It will take influence from Japanese minimalism as well as Kakuzo Okakura’s one-hundred-year-old Book Of Tea, and Sei Shonagon’s one-thousand-year-old Pillow Book and even the artwork of Yoko Ono."

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The world is a *very* "small" place.

My ex- and I separated almost 10 years ago; and at the time we had to decide what to do with our 2 dogs and 2 cats.

My ex- made the decision that she would take the 2 dogs ( - ie *my* dog), and she "would let me have" the 2 cats ( - ie *her* 2 cats).

She went on holiday for 3 weeks in 2001, and she let me look after the dogs.

That was the *last* time that I saw the dogs.

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And then ...

I have a friend who is dog-crazy, or better said, dog-frustrated.

She wants to buy a puppy, but it seems that the breeders *don't* want to sell a puppy to her.

My friend recently went to the beach, and she took photographs of a group of dogs who were playing there ...

Of course, these pictures may not mean much to *you* ... but these are pictures of my ex-dog, Cala.

Of course, when my friend took the pictures, she had *no* idea that this *was* Cala.

I'm almost speechless about this.

- The world really is *so* small ...

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There's no air-conditioning in my office, and so means that it gets *hot* in my office in the Summer.

- So if you think that it's hot when you're sitting in the garden ... please have some sympathy for me.

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I have a colleague who is a little bit "highly-strung" ( - okay ... she's more than a little bit crazy).

Last week I said something to her about her recent run of bad-luck, and she went *bezerk*.

I would hope that anyone who knows me, believes that I'm *not* thoughtless, mean or uncaring.

- Unfortunately my colleague didn't seem to share that opinion.

You can know people who are "nice" ... but that *doesn't* mean that they're not *crazy*.

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I use 3 different e-mail addresses. and I've started to receive a *lot* more Spam on all 3 of these addresses.

I really detest the Spammers.

They really don't understand me.

I usually don't react positively to television/radio adverts - if anything, if I hear an advert, I'm more likely *not* to buy the product !

Q: Has *anyone* ever reacted to Spam positively, and bought the product ??

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Several of "my" bands have released new CD's: Black Sabbath, IQ, Dream Theater.

It's been great to listen to their latest "ideas".

Dream Theater.

But I also saw a documentary recently on television about the Jazz-musician, Toots Thielemans.

Toots started his career playing jazz-guitar, but then he evolved into one of the world's top jazz-harmonica-payers.

Several years ago, a friend loaned me one of his CD's, and it opened my ears to this style of music.

I'm quite different from "most people" ... (in fact, I'm *very* different from *most people*, apparently), and I like *all* kinds of music.

But okay ... I admit that I *don't* like African-drumming ...

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I went to an Open Day at a new Drumming-School in my home-town.

The school will give lessons on a rock drumkit, but they will also give combination-lessons in African-drumming and Japanese-drumming.

Unfortunately this is a problem for me: I want to have the lessons in Japanese-drumming, but I don't want to have the lessons in African-drumming ...

I've sent the school an e-mail telling them of my preferences.

- And if they ever have lessons that are *only* about Japanese-drumming ... then I'll be there.

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