Currently reading MAN ALONE by John Mulgan. #books #booksky 💙📚

The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.

London is proud to host Japan's Grand Sumo Tournament this week - it's fantastic to see the the teams using our cycling infrastructure to get around.

OMG, how cute is that pic with the squirrel?! 😍🐿

Looking forward to reuniting with these weirdos (most of us first met in Numazu, Japan in the mid 1990s) in a couple of weeks. Photo is from the last time we got together in LA in 2016.

Post you from a different era. During my first trip to Japan 40 (!) years ago.

Happy birthday to Katherine Mansfield! Born on this day in 1888. Read her timeless stories: christchurch.bibliocommons.com/v2/search?qu... ^MT

This is me every month when I go to the pharmacy to pick up my unfunded cancer medication

Ōtautahi/Christchurch local election results: www.electionz.com/LGE2025Resul...

A nice reminder to those prematurely declaring Takaichi Japan’s first female PM that it’s far from guaranteed

Gutted that this post about the world’s oldest transporter bridge only got one like.

Always nice to catch sight of this place when I pass through Narita Airport. "The residence [...] stands as a stubborn reminder of Narita's turbulent history and a testament to the power of community, hosting gatherings [...] ranging from activist meetings to wild all-night raves."

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Currently reading GABRIEL’S MOON by William Boyd. #books #booksky 💙📚

Our book is released today. It's edited following the "grand elementary principle of pleasure". I love all the poems and critical essays we've gathered together, found much insight & delight in my co-editors' insights as poets, & hope youse can too. aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/te-whariki/

I heard they're gonna have a national day of mourning for Winston's window. They're gonna put up a statue of it in parliament grounds. Danyl has a piece in The Listener saying that Winston's window did politics properly.

Made takoyaki for the first time the other day. Took a while to get the hang of turning them over, but once we did it was a lot of fun.

Seeing a lot of people from outside of Japan lauding the election of Sanae Takaichi as leader of the LDP. And potentially, therefore, her being Japan’s first female PM. I urge you to do some research about her before holding this up as something wonderful.

Foreigners, it turns out

Currently reading POINT OMEGA by Don DeLillo. #books #booksky 💙📚

Oops. One of the helium-filled wedding anniversary balloons became untethered and is stuck on the ceiling. Upon reflection, it probably wasn’t a good idea to use them as punching bags.

Where writers write: 12 Booker Prize 2025 nominees share their writing spots

Some background on how the film got "unofficially banned" in Japan: www.indiewire.com/news/general...

"Mishima: A life in Four Chapters", directed by Paul Schrader, will get its first screening in Japan at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival. Schrader plans to attend. That's 40 years after its release, and the 100th anniversary of Mishima's birth. www.yomiuri.co.jp/culture/cine...

Incredibly depressing that "promoting the enduring artistic qualities of complexity, ambiguity, and innovation" can only be understood as "snobbery," which denotes "taste discrimination by people with status anxiety." www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

A lovely day up at Tussock Hill Cellar Door Restaurant for our 35th wedding anniversary. 🥂

Welcome home to the toroa/albatross. May you nest safely, may your eggs hatch, and may your chicks get fat and fluffy. www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

Live footage of Open Ai and Chat GPT “contributing to the betterment of humanity”.

My sister just shared this photo of me from the early 1970s. Seems I was going through a “street urchin” phase.

Pleased to see "rark" and "rark up", surprised "cuzzy bro" wasn't there already. The examples are charming: Fitzy (Sean Fitzpatrick?) giving everyone a "bit of a rark-up" in 2001, someone quoted as wanting to "give these chaps responsibility" (the cuzzy bros) in 1991: www.1news.co.nz/2025/09/24/o...

With my dying breath, I will wheeze, “Interpreting’s the talking one. Translating’s the writing one”, knowing full well that, just as in my life, no one who is not a translator and/or interpreter will take heed of these words after my death.

I have taken the Tylenol that was in the medicine cabinet and which they think probably is the reason you like trains forgive me but that’s bullshit you got autism from your dad

Japanese men's fashion and culture magazine POPEYE began publishing in 1976, and now 49 years later, I helped the editors put together the first-ever all-English issue. This Tokyo guide is pure POPEYE: extremely deep recommendations and arguably the highest info-density of any magazine on the planet

Currently reading WILDCAT DOME by Yuko Tsushima. #books #booksky 💙📚

Adding "but in a not cheesy way" to all of my ideas for a story.

'The House at the Base of the Power Pylon'. A new poem in 'Action, Spectacle'. ⚡ www.action-spectacle.com/summer-2025-...

When speaking to Tommy Robinson at the far right demonstration in London today, Elon Musk wore a t-shirt saying "What would Orwell think?" So let's dive in - what would George Orwell think about Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk? 🧵

One day you’re lying on the track with someone’s spikes in your face, then a few days later you’re the world champion. Well done George Beamish! 🥇

DE-MON-STRATE!

Checked out the cherry blossoms at Kurashiki Garden at Halswell Quarry (Kurashiki is Christchurch’s Japanese sister city)

Sakura season has begun in Ōtautahi! 🌸

When the #Kikorangi feed crosses streams with the #totp feed

Come on man. This is a movement based on triumph of the will and grab them by the pussy, on force and domination. To treat any of its member as champions of free speech or an open society governed by dialogue and rationality and debate is fucking idiotic.

- you clean up that banksy? - sure did, your honour, leaving a perfect, permanent outline, imbuing the work with real fuckin gravitas while making its point better than the artist did himself just like you asked

Tokyo 68 – a fictionalized graphic novel focusing on women in the Tokyo University struggle of 1968-1969. Rebellious Japanese students of New Left protest movements. By artist Hélène Aldeguer and historian Chelsea Szendi Schieder. Future versions in English and Japanese. @chelseaszendi.bsky.social

"...the way he ran, even in the cold, he ran, even in the smoke of the coal they burned for heat in those miserable tarpaper shacks, he ran the bases like a champ, and Erica learned it and loved it all." My lord, this award-winning story is perfection by @pahoehoe.bsky.social 💙💙💙

Just remembering this quick escalation in signage on a trail near Takao-san.