The BBC loves its quirky Japan stories, but this is quite a good one. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hearing all this ice-cream cartel news in Japan, one slight problem when buying konbini ice creams is that the freezers are not super organised and it can be hard to see the prices. Once I'd think "well, it's not going to be too much above ¥100" but nowadays no idea what the price might be.

*Sigh* Isn't this guy ever going to shut up about his sudden, mind-boggling success as the translator of a massive best-selling author? #Uketsu #StrangePictures

Taking the opportunity to walk through central Tokyo.

Kazuo Ishiguro has a "spy caper" coming out next year. Intriguing certainly. Somehow the title and description makes me think more of a Jonathan Coe novel than an Ishiguro one, but I'm sure it will turn out quite Ishigurish. (Btw, a fan of both authors). www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Recently seeing auto-translated results turning up in Google searches specified as "English only." (For example from Japanese blogging platform Note).

Happy Chocominto!

I feel like that poem going around that tells you to call people up when you need a recipe rather than using AI wouldn't be getting as much attention if you substituted searching online for AI.

Tfw you do a rapid scroll up to the top of the page on desktop and end up closing the browser again.

In the competitive family restaurant sector, you have to find a niche.

I thought I might want to turn it off after two or three, but this playlist of 30+ versions of Wichita Lineman is pretty good. www.qobuz.com/us-en/playli...

Today I learned that these kinds of hydrangeas with the round "balls" of flowers, are known as mopheads.

Be careful out there translating "kagayaku."

Once again learning more than I thought I ever would about the Japanese imperial succession question. #translation

大山鳴動して鼠一匹（たいざんめいどうして、ねずみいっぴき）= "the mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse" meaning "a big fuss over nothing" What a lovely phrase. jisho.org/search/%E5%A... Further digging finds it's originally from Horace. parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/p...

"Would you like to know more about delicious acorn dishes, or shall I do a deep dive on how to feel more refreshed after hibernation?" www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2...

I don't care who you are, there will always be times when hell is other people. Not because other people are horrible - quite the opposite! Other people are *wonderful*, but boy are they ever *stubborn*. 1/

The Mainichi has an English translation of last month's piece on the giant cockroach statue at Rinsenji temple in Kamikitayama, Nara. Includes comments from the pest control firm which commissioned it, and the sculptor. mainichi.jp/english/arti...

From the review: “If the original makes you laugh, cry, feel excited, get goosebumps, feel puzzled, get bored, be charmed,” she says, “then the translation should try to create those effects.” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

My personality type is that when I see a question like "What would you do if you were a trillionaire?" I want to ask "How did I become a trillionaire?" Because if I was born one, I'm not me. And if I earned it, how? (Again, not me.) Or did I somehow magically become a trillionaire?

I enjoyed The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall, which has an interesting premise about reintroducing wolves to a small area in northern England. Maybe I should say that it's quite a literary read, with a lot about the personal life of the wolf expert - and I enjoyed these parts too!

I’ve written more about statistics of the Guardian’s 100 best novels list, including: – Books that just missed out – Two errors in the data (Cather and Camus lost out) – Best novelists – Alternative rankings – Weirdest and least-weird ballots mpaldridge.github.io/blog/guardia...

Kazuo Ishiguro’s top ten train films - the title's all I need to make me want to take a look. This is a fun read. www.bfi.org.uk/lists/kazuo-...

Found these rather psychedelic murals when I went into central Yokohama the other day.

Good news for horror, if no-one else.

Watching the Guardian 100 best novels of all time list as it gets rolled out. (Picked by 172 authors, critics and academics). No Japanese representatives yet (at 100-61). The Vegetarian by Han Kang (tr. Deborah Smith) at 85 looks like the only Asian one so far. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

Today I'm learning to spell naphtha.

Ordered some delivery curry yesterday and it came with a free dessert of naan filled with an (sweet bean paste).

I noticed Don Quijote has quite a range of its own brand beers now, but wasn't brave enough to try buying any.

I've been studying Japanese for twenty years. YES. TWENTY! To celebrate the occasion I thought I'd share lessons I've learned about studying another language. jtalkonline.com/what-20-year...

I was sorry to hear the sad news that Juliet Winters Carpenter, a great Japanese-English translator, has passed away. I saw a number of people post about this on Facebook this morning, and have also received an email via the SWET mailing list.

Fun how you can check out what's trending on Bluesky and then search for those terms elsewhere because all the "related" posts are completely unrelated.

Following its successful Lafcadio Hearn morning drama, NHK has announced the spinoff series The Great Japanese Bakebake Off.

The traditional Japanese healing art of itaino itaino tondeike.

Wacky Races got a mention in a Kanagawa Shimbun front page column yesterday, so I feel obliged to share that it's called チキチキマシン猛レース in Japanese. Also mentioned were Penelope Pitstop (aka ミルクちゃん) and Dick Dastardly (ブラック魔王).

I very much enjoyed this translation of Hōjōki by Matthew Stavros, who takes an interesting approach by setting out the text in lines like poetry. I think this really works, bringing out rhythms, and I guess a greater focus on individual lines.

I'm finding a new appreciation for clumsy writing with some degree of sincerity. (In the AI era)

Great to wake up to news of Orban conceding. www.bbc.com/news/live/c2...

New review: Daniel Hahn on "The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation", in 𝐼𝑓 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝐵𝑒 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑐 www.complete-review.com/reviews/tran...

I keep vainly hoping that Anje, the new Okaasan to Issho presenter with a British dad, will suddenly for no reason say "Blimey" or "Turned out nice again."

Elton John's hit "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" goes by the Japanese title 土曜の夜は僕の生きがい, or we might say "Saturday Night is my Ikigai"

When translating, it's so important to think about whether your translated sentence makes sense. True, sometimes the original doesn't make sense. But often (more often than not?), thinking it out and double-checking the parts can reveal what the problem is.

Enjoyed a bit of a party this evening, but don't have the energy to stay up until midnight and toast the new fiscal year.

Parklife.

崩れる（くずれる）usually means something like "crumble" or "collapse," but I like that it can be applied to the weather (天気（てんき）が崩れる) to talk, for example, about a forecast of rain later in the day.

I really enjoyed There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. One of those books that starts out good and then gets better along the way. Genre: SF/horror/bureaucracy

Let's see how this plays out. Got to admit I was a bit addicted to old Twitter... www.bbc.com/news/article...

I never can keep track of when Easter is while in Japan, but here's a hint it's on the way. (April 5, it turns out). Has Japan given up on Easter tie-ins? www.theguardian.com/food/2026/ma...

A Tale Unasked is the memoir of Lady Nijō, born in 1258 and who was a court lady and later a wandering Buddhist nun. It’s the latest translation from classical Japanese by Meredith McKinney, published in October last year and very much worth a look for people interested in classical works.

Some English speakers complain about "blue" traffic lights in Japanese, but my son was telling me he didn't understand why it's called a "red" fox when it's actually orange. (I didn't go into the history of when oranges arrived in England etc., but told him that sometimes orange things are "red.")