Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), his singing defined a day out of joint. The slow old-fashioned music though remastered affected us during breakfast. We felt strange and nothing went well. We could not get ready for leaving home. Something else …

The hedges damaged last year have been ruined again. Vandalism. We are wondering what to say to our gardener who has done very well to make us happy.

It was a great day. The author, Professor David Wright, came all the way from Canada; the translator, Ohtani san, and his friends came over from Kansai. David's book is DOWNS: the History of a Disability. I joined them at the party at the …

It was a fine autumn day. Katsura Rikyu villa and Sho So In exhibition were waiting for me. The beginning was just like a mistake. I intended to click 21 or 22 Nov but the system was not working maybe because of the flood of applications. …

The All Blacks won the World Cup 2015. I am very, very happy to know that. To my sorrow I did not watch the game as it was played. My daughter sat up all through the midnight game -- as it was broadcast live from 1 am or something like tha…

This is the best comment. The announcer who broadcasts the match does not believe in victory but he is ever ready to regard our team as a striving team faced with the giants on their way to another glorious victory; from the speaker's view…

It was purely something nostalgic. We bought two dozens each --or more? - of udon de sky and soba de sky recently. In B's memory, JAL has been held in such a special place. More than twenty years ago, we took a JAL flight to go to Italy fr…

Kamikouchi is full of wonders. One of the remarkable flowers there is Kitsurifune (noli-tangere ). Its unique shape can be easily identified by an amateur walker like me and for its conspicuous colour it can be easily recognizable . With t…

I fill the fuel tank in my car when there is less than a quarter. This is partly because I commute by car to my work place more than 40 km away. b waits until after he claims he drives to and from the station a few times after the indicate…

I have not been familiar with this kind of wet tissues, but I know find it very useful. The fridge, the work table top in the kitchen, etc. are know good to see and touch. And what I like about this is the additional lid. The blue lid shut…

What is being done in our garden is thoughtless demonstration of disrespect to the toils of a professional gardener we have chosen. After the professional began his work in our garden a few years ago, the plum tree revived and especially l…

A lamentable decrease in responsiveness or a desirable increase in tolerance? I've got used to B' stubble. What made the situation worse was the previous day's research seminar followed by delightful drinking with young promising scholars.…

This is frustrating. I wrote an entry a few minutes ago, but I could not find the right button to publish my entry. The entry was in the end gone. In fact the same disappearance occurred with the ほたる entry. Let me try to remember my ent…

This has been a natural history of my neighbourhood. What we saw today was a firefly. The pale green light was weak and on the ground, but it was surely on and off. It was just beside the Gertrude Jekyll rose. I do not know when the insect…

This morning, about 6 in the morning on the 14th June 2015, we heard アカショウビン, Halcyon coromanda. It must have been in the mountain across the rice fields or maybe down along the houses as it moved from west to south west. How eagerl…

Not every year but sometimes a giant pale green moth visits us. It is too large but beautiful. I do not want to imagine its larva. B told me that his father regards it as his dead little sister. The awesome beauty yet something a little cr…

When I was doing some paperwork in my office, I heard tsuki hoshi hi hoi hoi hoi in the morning. I went out to see but in vain. After I gave up, I went from my faculty building down to the coop shop. On my way what I came across was a fero…

How many days have passed without even opening the blog app!I am back.

People bagan to talk about the results of Kakenhi applications a few days ago. I opened my page at jsps, but it seemed it was not ready yet. I made myself believe that applicants for the bigger projects get their results sooner and I just …

Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied. -- Ngaio Marsh, 'My Poor Boy' Death on the Air and Other StoriesI will have a writing course to teach this te…

The title Still Life seems to be an impression of the film gives but the intention to use it may be something else. I do not intend to write a spoiler. What I can write is that John May was incredibly sincere to something very important th…

One of those who were at Mariko gawa hanami is running an agricultural farm/firm in Mie. He said agriculture bears much and he can earn three times as much as those engaged in indifferent cultivation. According to him, rice growing cannot …

I wrote lines about hanami but every thing was deleted. The delete button ran mad. I wrote about iwamotoyama. Iwamotoya with pale pink patches is good to see; 外濠公園 was good to look up at. Cherry blossoms at their best are seen from som…

I went to a documentary film on Rijksmuseum's closure and refurbishment. What is striking is the length of time the closed the museum. In my impression, the Dutch people are practical and able to get things going but it was wrong, In the o…

The young Turing looked like 堺雅人.

I watched the film Imitation Game five times: on the outbound journey twice and on my way home three times. As I had to accommodate my sleep during the flights, especially on my way to US, I slept most of the time and I do not know if I co…

I went out to Getty Villa before I set out for the airport. By Metro bus services it would take about two hours, while by taxi only 40 minutes though it is a long journey enough. I passed by Santa Monica. There were Manu cars and probably …

I have not walked on the street. The conference was held in the hotel I am staying at. Yesterday I went out for an excursion to visit the Clark Library and I walked in the beautiful garde I breathed outdoors for the first time since I arri…

I got acquainted with a musicologist, Mozart opera specialist, Laurel. She was next to me on the excursion bus to UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The library was superb with very nice people working there. And it was a nice tr…

One of the speakers in today^s sessions was Stella Tillyard. She is in the programme introduced as author and historian but she herself said she was a literature person. She talked about historical truth, showing some extracts from the Ari…