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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
 Apple have just released a new iPod, and very shiny and lovely it looks too. Annoyingly, the new one has more games on it, but are we loyal owners of previous iPods able to download these? Hah! Even more annoyingly, they've also launched their online music store, through which you can download 200,000 songs for 99 cents each. No, I'm not annoyed that they've launched this service. It looks fab. It's just that it's only available to people in the US. I guess we British Mac owners should be used to it by now. The stupid thing is, no matter how many times Apple disappoint me with their atrocious customer service, I could never consider buying a PC unless Apple went bankrupt (which they might if their customer service doesn't improve). I suppose we Mac fans must be masochists. It's a bit like having a beautiful girlfriend who treats you really badly, but you keep going back for more because, well, she's pretty and when she's good, she's very, very good. Speaking of girlfriends (but not ones that treat you really badly), Butter has now been in Toronto for 4 days, meeting bigwigs, eating cheese omelettes and swimming in the hotel pool. I, meanwhile, am going mad with boredom. Yesterday, I was so bored that I visited my grandad and spent an hour watching birds visit his feeder. Actually, my grandad is very nice and has many interesting tales about the war, which are still interesting the tenth time you hear them. It's the eleventh telling that really does your head in. Monday, April 28, 2003
 Book recommendation time: Happiness by Will Ferguson. It's a satire on self-help books and is very very funny. The author's Canadian. Which links very nicely to this... I've received my first despatches from my girlfriend who, for those of you who aren't keeping up, is in Toronto for two weeks, training for her new job. Over to Butter: "Flight was fine, no one in the seat next to me, but there was a guy in the seat next to me (? - Mark) who had a genuine blood sugar attack during the flight and had to have oxygen. V exciting. Had to wait 10 mins at the airport for the car to pick me up. It turned out to be a limo - a real one. It had 4 windows down each side and had champagne flutes and a telly inside. I was speechless. Apparently all the ordinary cars were in use, so they had to send the limo. I felt a bit sheepish getting out of it at the hotel." Ah, to think, last year she was driving a Renault 5 (the Buttermobile), and now she's swanking around in a limo! I had an email from a MarkCity visitor asking if I knew where to buy pink bloody-clawed Gloomy Bears. I got mine at a character fair in Tokyo just after Christmas so I'm not sure. If anyone has any ideas, please leave a comment. Saturday, April 26, 2003
After a few days of worry, and trying to decide whether her new job is worth dying for, Butter is going to Toronto. Actually, she made the decision after talking to her new bosses, who assured her that Toronto is safe as long as you don't allow any doctors with close links to Hong Kong to sneeze on you. Or something like that. The residents of Toronto are raging at WHO's decision to tell people not to go there. So she flies tomorrow morning. She's a lot braver than wimpy Elton John and cowardly Billy Joel, who've cancelled concerts in the city. OK, maybe it's actually a lucky escape for Toronto, a reprieve from having to entertain the rock geriatrics, but couldn't they have just borrowed some face masks from showbiz pal Michael Jackson? Staying on the subject of horrible things that threaten to spread across the globe and consign us all to a fate worse than death (no, not Michael Jackson), I saw an ad today for teaching jobs in China. "Positions available in Guangdong." I wonder why. Nottingham Forest are in the play-offs. Arsenal could only manage a draw with Bolton. All is not doom and gloom. Wednesday, April 23, 2003
 Brian Molko - does a lot of good work for charity Last night, we went to see Placebo at the Brixton Academy. Placebo are much maligned in the music press in England, mainly because Brian Molko was in a bad mood once during an interview. The savage way in which the NME turned on him was alarming, like a pack of school bullies jumping on the weird kid at school, chanting childish insults. Last night, the infamous Molko bald patch, the subject of most of the NME's taunts, was nowhere in sight and the sell-out crowd didn't give a damn anyway. 'You've come to see a rock show,' yelled Brian. We had. But first, we had to stand through The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster. The Disaster, as I've fondly come to think of them, lived up to their name. They're stuck in the eighties. They could fit their talent in a matchbox. And they had most of us making a beeline for the bar. They sound a bit like a goth band fronted by Vic Reeves' club singer, with some odd rockabilly bits thrown in. They played lots of songs that sounded exactly like one another followed by their big ballad. We knew it was their big ballad not because it sounded any different but because some nice fairy lights lit up around one of the amps. Pretty.  The Disaster The first time I saw Placebo play live, the boy standing next to me threw up all over his shoes. Back then, during the 'Without You I'm Nothing' tour, Placebo had great songs and played loud enough to make people vomit spontaneously, but Brian often seemed to be rooted to the spot. He's rooted no more. Now he bounds around the stage, looking as if he's fighting off some pesky invisible mosquitoes, dances on the amps and strikes the poses of a miniature rock god. It's fantastic to see. They start with 'Bulletproof Cupid', the blistering instrumental opener from new album 'Sleeping With Ghosts', then rip their way through their blazing back catalogue, mixing it with more songs from '...Ghosts'. 'Every Me Every You', 'The Bitter End', 'Black Eyed', the dance-tastic 'English Summer Rain' - classic songs from the more androgynous end of Britrock. Actually, Placebo have never really fitted in to the British rock scene, which may be why the press can't stand them, with their international upbringings and weird looks. Did I say weird looks? I'll say it again. Brian is dwarfed by bassist Stefan, who is playing tonight against doctor's orders. I imagine he does a lot of things against doctor's orders. Six-foot-god-knows-what with a mohawk that makes him look even taller, silhouetted against the backdrop he looked like he'd beamed down from some Planet of the Weird and Willowy Apes. Another break from Placebo's past was that Brian kept stopping to make little speeches. The War. George Bush. Nina Simone, to whom he dedicated 'Centrefolds' - I'm sure she'd be very bemused: 'Who is this strange little man?' The longest speech was about The Samaritans, who the band had invited to collect money at the gig. Brian had some important figures to tell us about, but he couldn't find them. Finally, we were informed that two teenagers commit suicide every day in the UK. I hope this isn't just an attempt to jump on the bandwagon driven by socially aware bands like Coldplay. It seemed heartfelt. But like I said, this was a rock show, and as the gig neared its climax, new single 'This Picture' booked its place as a future favourite and an incendiary 'Special K' showed that Brian had had his Weetabix. Encore time: 'Taste in Men' sounded much better than it ever did on record, 'Pure Morning' sounded just as good as it did on record, and they played a funked-up version of 'Teenage Angst'. There's always been a dance element to their music, you know. They finished with a magnificent version of the Pixies' 'Where is my Mind?', 'a song we didn't write but wish we had.' And now for something completely different. As I mentioned previously, Butter is meant to be going to Toronto on Sunday to train for her new job. The British Foreign Office are telling people to only go to Toronto if they have essential business'. It's dilemma time. Monday, April 21, 2003
I've added a couple of links on the left. Bamboo Life is the weblog of a Japanese girl who lives close to where I used to teach in Tokyo. Strange Place is run by a guy who's going to Japan in May. I found both sites because they had linked to MarkCity. One of the nice things about the Blogosphere is that people help one another, adding links, etc, without wanting anything in return. Lovely, innit? Although we're all obsessed with how many hits we get. The main reasons people come to this site are to read my Gloomy Bear page, after searching on Google, or to read the Teaching in Japan article. Hopefully, a few of them stick around to read the diary pages. It's slightly baffling how this site's audience has doubled since I came back to England. The end of the football season is proving to be almost unbearably tense. This is what I want to happen: 1) Nottingham Forest will cling to their place in the play-off zone, then beat Sheffield United in a thrilling final, glory days returning to the City Ground. 2) Manchester Utd will beat Real Madrid 2-0 this Wednesday, Beckham scoring with a last-minute free kick. Zidane will trip over his feet and Ronaldo will have another strange fit. United will go on to win the Champions League. 3) On the last day of the season, Arsenal will lose to Sunderland and Man U will thrash Everton, clinching the Premiership. What will probably happen: 1) Forest will lose on penalties to Wolves. 2) Real will beat Man Utd 2-0 then go on to win the Champions League at Old Trafford. 3) Man U and Arsenal will win all their remaining league matches and Arsenal will win on goal difference. Saturday, April 19, 2003
To make the most of yesterday's glorious weather, Butter and I took a trip to Brighton, the veggie capital of England. We went in and out of every shop in the North Laines - twice - but I couldn't find anything I wanted. Well, apart from some Emily the Strange underwear, but I'm not paying £40 for pants. We drank beer on the beach and tried not to be dazzled by the sun shining off all that sheet-white flesh. One of my former students visited Brighton last summer and was shocked - and perhaps a little excited - by the amount of hairy male skin on display. 'I thought English gentlemen were very reserved,' she said.  Toronto - Sars central Butter has found a job. She will be (and I have to be careful to get this exactly right) a Trainee International Relocation Coordinator. A young TIRC. The downside is that, from next Sunday, she has to go to Toronto for two weeks to train. This is not only a downside because Toronto is a Sars hotspot, but because I'm going to miss her. Sob! Still, it's great news. I'm not at all jealous.  Oh Mark, don't you love me any more? Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on TV right now. I hate to say this, but it really isn't as good as it used to be. What happened to the wit, the tension, the brilliant one-liners? And the plots are daft. In the episode I'm watching at the moment, the high school principal has lots of knives hidden behind the whiteboard. How unrealistic. At my school, the principal (I mean, headmaster) would never have dreamt of butchering his pupils. That was the chemistry teacher. And there's an Asian girl in it who's been included solely for comedy value: the joke being that she can't speak English. Hilarious. Oh, it's a tragedy - when great shows turn mediocre. Thursday, April 17, 2003
Yesterday was a record day for hits on MarkCity, which is currently growing by between 50 and 75% every month. Amazing. Anyway, the article on ELT News brought more emails from people asking me, as the world's No.1 authority on all things Japanese (ho ho), for advice. Like this one: Q: First, how hard is it to get by not knowing Japanese? Is it difficult to go down to the store to get a gallon of milk? Or getting directions across town? A: My Japanese is terrible - just about good enough to say 'my Japanese is terrible', in fact. Watashi no nihongo wa hidoi desu. And I'm not even 100% confident that that's right. If you live in Tokyo it's pretty easy to get by without speaking Japanese. In shops, you don't need to speak at all - the Japanese don't speak to shop assistants. They don't even say thank you. So buying milk is no problem. If you wander around Tokyo with a map, looking lost, someone will usually stop and practice their English on you. Some things, though, can be hard - buying concert tickets, getting parcels redelivered, complaining that your coffee's cold in Doutor, explaining to railway officials that you did buy a ticket, honest, but that you've lost it... All these things happened to me. But I got by. Q: Also, I don't know if this is anything you would have looked into, but is it hard to find an English-speaking Christian church? I'm not a Bible-thumping evangelist, but I wouldn't feel comfortable going several months without church. If you could shed any light on that, I would appreciate it. A: There are quite a lot of Christian churches but I'm not sure about English-speaking churches! The American Embassy in Japan might be able to tell you. I'm sure they have a website - you could check on Google. In fact, I've just done it for you: US Embassy site. Tuesday, April 15, 2003
My personal guide to teaching in Japan has been published on ELT News. And there's a picture of me on the home page! Ah, fame! If Hello! or OK! are interested in some shots of me lounging around at home, they should contact my agent. Despite reports to the contrary, the Iraqi Information Minister's site is still online. In fact, it looks like he's up to his old tricks:  Actually, I hope he's right this time. I don't want West Ham to go down. While we're on the the subject of teams that aren't as good as they used to be, Forest play tonight, and barring a drastic end-of-season wobble, they should be in the play-offs soon. The glory days of Brian Clough are long gone, unfortunately. Cloughie was my boyhood hero, along with Adam Ant. I really knew how to pick 'em. One's a corrupt alcoholic, and the other's a gun-waving nut. At least Han Solo never let me down. Monday, April 14, 2003
Here's another reason to spend endless hours online: Blogshares, a game in which you buy and sell shares in blogs. The value of the blogs goes up and down depending on the number of incoming and outgoing links. MarkCity's registered but not available to trade yet. Remember Dear Raed, the blog from Iraq that became the latest internet phenomenon - possibly the biggest since the I kiss you site, back in the Stone Age? Dear Raed hasn't been updated since 24 March. Hopefully this is because the internet is down in Baghdad and nothing more serious. In the meantime, the war has thrown up another cult hero, the Iraqi Information Minister, as seen on We Love the Iraqi Information Minister.com. My littlest sister is home from uni for Easter. Last week, she and her football team played a tournament in Dublin. Last year, they were victorious, and met Beckham, Ryan Giggs and, rather less excitingly, the Neville brothers on the way home. This year one of their players tripped drunkenly up the kerb on their first day, spraining her ankle, and they had to play the tournament with ten women. They still got to the semi-finals, by which time they were down to nine after one girl got whacked in the eye. The injuries could have been worse. Some women in a Dublin chip shop taught them a song that went 'Ooh ah, up the ra, I said ooh ah, up the ra'. They walked around singing it without knowing what it meant. Then somebody told them it means 'Up the IRA'. Oops. Saturday, April 12, 2003
 Girl and boys: the Britpop love triangle There's a really interesting article in today's Guardian about the love triangle between Suede's Brett, Elastica's Justine and Damon from Blur and Gorillaz. It confirms many of my suspicions that Damon is a nasty piece of work. The article doesn't mention the juicy pop fact that Brett wrote 'Animal Lover' about Justine after she came home with scratches all over her body - scratches inflicted by Damon. I've finally got into my novel - the characters are developing and I have a good idea of where I want it to go now. And I wrote a bit today that made me laugh aloud, which is always a good sign. Whether anyone else will find it funny is something else entirely. It depends on how funny you find talking cockroaches. Broke the 10,000 word barrier today. Only about 90,000 to go! I'm debating whether to post an extract on here. We had an email from the Buttermother this morning, recommending this site: Booksurfer: "Hitherto, I had thought that blogs were not really for serious, thinking people," - ouch! - "But this one is quite good!" Friday, April 11, 2003
Received this by email this morning: Dear Mark: We are creating a TV pilot about blogging. We want to bring this phenomenon of personal expression to television for the very first time, and have been scouring the web for appropriate sites. Your web site seems like a potentially great fit for the show. If you would like to be a part of our pilot, you can do so by submitting a video that encapsulates you and your blog. Whatever you want to say and show in your video is fine. The key is to capture the essence of your blog in video format, and if it's interesting enough, we'll include it. If this is something that you want to participate in, please go to our web site for more information, and follow the instructions: Hoffmannetter.com Thank you so much. Sincerely, Hoffman Netter Entertainment But I don't know anyone with a digital video camera. And they probably sent this email to every single blogger in the world. It also says on their website that the more outrageous your video, the more chance you've got of appearing on the show. This will be ideal for Raymi, but what could I do? Read out a sex scene from my new book? I haven't written any yet. But maybe... Oh, I sorted out my archives problem. Just before Butter confiscated the iBook. And just after I beat her at tennis. Aaargh! The gremlins have looted and pillaged MarkCity, causing chaos and much wailing and gnashing of teeth... First, the template was toppled and I hadn't backed it up since February, so some of the links on the left are lost. And the archives have - yet again - vanished into the cyber-ether. They're still there - you can still get to them if you look for something in the search box - but the links aren't showing. This is the worst thing about Blogger. I hope they start spending the money Google gave them when they bought them soon, because these technical problems are making me go prematurely bald. I realise that the last sentence in that paragraph makes it seem like I care a bit too much. Congratulations to Claire @ Toast and Coffee who got the JET co-ordinator job. Thursday, April 10, 2003
 There's a programme on TV right now called The Biggest Women in Britain. One of the participants is Britain's only female sumo wrestler (not pictured above). It must be pretty lonely being Britain's only female sumo. Who on earth does she fight? Anyway, the show prompted me to research the subject and here's what I came up with: (the following is translated from Russian - um, not by me - so you have to excuse the errors...) Despite sumo seeming to be the most masculine sport, as early as in the 1700's women sumo ("onna-zumo") did exist. It started in Osaka and was performed in connection with prostitution houses. Matches were organized between women and also between women and blind men. Some of female sumoists were actually skilled wrestlers. By 1744, onna-zumo's popularity had reached Edo (Tokyo). Tournaments were held at Asakusa Temple until authorities closed them down on the basis that it was immoral. Not to mention unsightly. This week, I have read Twelve by Nick McDonnell, a fantastic book about a group of teens in New York. And I went to see The Rules of Attraction, adapted from the Bret Easton Ellis novel. Ellis is one of my favourite writers - there's something about his deadpan depiction of amoral scumbags that really appeals to me; it's like staring into a moral vacuum; very scary. But, somehow, very funny too; laughter in the dark. He is the greatest satirist on the planet. And it's a shame that most people only know about him because of the awful, mostly unnecessary scenes of violence in American Psycho. Anyway, the film was cool and bleak and funny and also pretentious, and I loved it. James van der Beek - Dawson from the Creek - is extraordinarily evil in it. The only thing the film lacks is female sumo wrestling. Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Last night was the big Dinner with the Beeb - there were lots of us there: my co-author, our agent, the producer, her assistant, the scriptwriter and script editor. The producer explained the way the process works: the scriptwriter has produced a treatment which they're going to have a meeting about this week. If that goes down well, he'll be commissioned to write a script. If that's any good it will be shown to - I think - the department head. If she likes it, it goes to the head of the channel (ie BBC1 or 2). Once we've leapt all those hurdles it will stand a good chance of getting made! Flamin' eck! But enough of that... I'm sure what MarkCity readers really want to know is 'what was the food like?' Answer: well worth a couple of people's licence fees. Some little goats cheese ball things dipped in honey. Then cannelloni as a starter, followed by a baby vegetable platter. The vegetables were arranged in a kind of wigwam shape, which had to be dismantled before I could tuck in. There was a blob of what seemed very much like ice cream on the plate. Surely it wasn't ice cream? There were truffles too, apparently, but I couldn't identify them. The wine flowed. The journey home was less pleasant. I don't want this to become a Connex-bashing site... well, actually, who cares? Let's bash. The trains were in a state, as was I, and after a 20-minute-late start (from the wrong station) we were finally on our way, every lurch of the train making me think I was going to throw up, the orange liqueur that I'd foolishly had instead of dessert sloshing around in my stomach. Made it home, fell into bed, couldn't sleep, spent the night adrift in strange, waking dreams and felt surprisingly okay this morning. I'd just like to say, I really hate Real Madrid. Sunday, April 06, 2003
 You dirty bird Butter got crapped on by a pigeon today. The feathered fiend splattered her jacket and jeans as we walked home from town. Still, she's got an interview tomorrow, and they do say that being plopped on by a bird is good luck... It reminded me of that old, appalling joke: Q: What would you do if a bird crapped on your shoulder? A: Well, I wouldn't go out with her, would I? The White Stripes album, 'Elephant', is No.1, showing a rare outbreak of taste among the British record-buying public. Nice to see the MOR Queen of Yawnsville, Norah Jones, dislodged from her perch. London tomorrow, and lunch with the Beeb. Exciting! Saturday, April 05, 2003
 Wow! Look at these - the latest lounge and bedroom wear for the discerning lover of vicious cuddly toys. Gloomy Bear slippers! Found these on eBay and, amazingly, no one has bid yet. Oh, if only my birthday wasn't such a long way off... Butter is getting better at tennis. After several 6-1 thrashings, yesterday I had to save three match points to eventually beat her 7-5 (hey, we don't do three or five set matches). If she keeps improving at this rate, it'll be me on the receiving end of a drubbing next week. Still, that underarm serve can be quite tricky to deal with. This is what my life consists of at the moment: job applications, tennis, telly, trying to work out if I can afford to buy luxuries like pints of beer and Heat magazine (no, according to my girlfriend), writing (a bit) and more job applications. I've been home four weeks now. The weather is glorious. Japan is a receding memory. Thursday, April 03, 2003
There's a letter in today's Guardian from a Mr Turner who is rather fed up with the newspaper's "obsession with blogging." Every time I open the Guardian or check the online site, I am continually reminded of the fact that there are people with nothing better to do than tell the world what they had for breakfast. Well, Mr Turner, this morning I had two slices of toast (brown bread) with honey and a mug of coffee, with milk and one sugar. After last week's unseasonable sunniness, it's felt far more English this week, the sky a palette of greys. The gloom was brightened by last night's Sven-sational (yeah, it's an oldie, but a goodie) victory over Turkey. The press pack were starting to gather around Sven like wolves, hungry for blood, trying to think up puns to rival the all-time great - Swedes 2 Turnips 0 - when Graham Taylor was boss. Turkey 2 Turkeys 0? But, of course, The Sun were able to drag out that old favourite: We Stuff Turkey. I've just taken an online psychometric test, to ascertain my personality type and find out what kind of job I'm suitable for. The results, I'm afraid, are confidential, but if you want to take the test yourself, click here. Tuesday, April 01, 2003
 Oh, what a night! Today's Japan Times carries the story that David Beckham is going to play in the J-League next season. So is Becks that fed up with Sir Alex, knowing that a Japanese coach is likely to be too busy fawning over him to chuck a boot at his head? Does Victoria want to live in a country where Louis Vuitton will never go out of fashion? Do they want to put Brooklyn and Romeo through the wonderful Japanese education system? No, of course not. It's an April Fool. I received the following email this morning: My boyfriend is thinking of teaching English in Japan and wants me to go with him. I have a dog that is very well behaved and sweet. Would it be reasonable to take her with me? Love Geri Halliwell. OK - it wasn't really from Geri. I have to say, I'm not au fait with the pooch accommodation situation in Japan, but I would imagine it would be quite hard to find a landlord to take in a foreign dog, no matter how well behaved and sweet. Most of them won't even take in foreign people. I'm quite enjoying my role as England's resident Japan expert, with people emailing me all sorts of difficult questions. Why stick to questions about Japan? Ask me a question - no matter how random - and I'll do my best to answer. My areas of expertise include eighties pop music, the life and times of Brett Anderson, Gloomy Bear, Nottingham Forest 1980-1990, modern literature (esp. anything set in New York) and lurve. To ask me a question, just click here: Dear MarkCity. |