I am sorry to keep writing about bags. I don’t really know why this should be but it is. Check out:

http://spikekalashnikov.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/my-bag/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/one-of-the-lads/

Here is another bag. It was given to me by my learned friend Barbara Warmbein which means warm leg. What a wonderful name. I don’t think there is an English version. Anyway Barbara was an intern in the Communication mill at CERN. It is a very deceptive bag. It is very attractive with an embroidered logo of a nerd reaching towards a sign floating in the ether which says “Science on Stage”. Do not trust this bag.

Innocuous but deadly

This bag has no less than 11 separate compartments – here lies the danger.

Switch scene to San Francisco in December 2010. Another intern the very  very learned Davide Castelvecchi now an editor at Scientific American. I lent this bag to Davide who was in town for a conference. Just before leaving SF he realizes he has lost his Raybans – expensive as prescription.  We both search. We both search the bag. Nada.

Today I use the bag for the first time since I have been in Okinawa and decide to clean it. I therefore empty out all the the pockets- compartments- pouches- secret stationery slits. I find misplaced earphones various important letters and Davide’s glasses.

Still Life: Raybans and Gorilla

Beware of bags with many pockets.

I get up with the sun and cycle over to Zakimi Castle. This 15th Century site is only 5 minutes from where I live and is surrounded by a park where everything is covered with Morning Glory and butterflies. The latter refuse to stay still for photography

Yes in my back garden

Wise warrior keeps spear in cupboard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakimi_Castle
One wonders how such an amazing site survived the war as the Americans landed only a couple of miles away. Methinks it has been extensively rebuilt. Sitting in the trees near the castle is an slightly older than me man with a huge telephoto lens pointing skyward from the camera mounted on his tripod. I think, following much mime,  that he was trying to photograph the Japanese Sparrow Hawk. He pointed out the nest and we smiled and grinned and shook hands. Forget not that I am an illiterate idiot. However I now look forward to a peaceful morning in the trees also trying to get a shot of the bird.

Rare

Then I went diving.

Spot the happy bag

Strolling down a street in Oran, Algeria in 1975, I screech to a stop in front of a shop that sells sports stuff. In the window there is a yellow ‘Spirotechnique’ diving bag. It looks incredibly cool and somehow I feel it will make me look incredibly cool if I sling it over my shoulder and boulevard around the place. It is also amazingly expensive. Anything imported was crazily expensive in the struggling economy of pretty newly independent Algeria. I don’t have the money. I wait until the next pay day, terrified that someone else will buy it and steal my cool.

I have had this bag for 36 years. I don’t think I possess anything else that dates from that era. The bag is incredibly tough. It  carried everything I owned for several years and then babies played in it,  it transported books, toys,  guinea fowl chicks, but never hardcore diving gear. It never did what it was made to do. It was always on the outside. It was never one of the lads.

one of the lads  (British & Australian informal) also one of the boys (American informal)

Ally McCoist: I can’t be one of the lads anymore if I’m to be the manager

Being one of the lads is very important in British culture. You belong, you are supported, you are right. My bag was none of these things until today. Filled with hardcore diving gear, heading out over the East China Sea, after 36 years, my bag became one of the lads.

At last!

Paul Gascoigne

Saturday – it is all planned, we go by boat to the Kerama Islands, about an hour sail from Okinawa, to do 3 dives. The  reef around the isles churn with turtle and other monsters of the deep, silver beaches, swaying palms, bright blues and  turquoise. Hmmm not to be. Saturday morning I awake to driving rain and howling wind. I go to the port anyway and there is Jan with other divers loading up the boat. It is early morning, there is a strong lack of enthusiasm. However off we go  into the waves. Slam crash bang slam bang crash splash, wham kapow we glide on towards our tropical paradise. Spray breaks over the bows while the boat pitches and wallows. We remain very gritty with no one  suggesting that maybe this isn’t the right day to go diving. Two young Chinese women are especially gritty, grinning and joking to keep our spirits up.

Sea always looks calmer in photos

The further we go the worse it gets. “Turn the helm Mr Helmsman, lee ho!” cries the Captain. “Hooray!”  cry the passengers.

Hooray no diving! Man on right is so happy he needs the toilet.

Okinawa is absolutely covered in Morning Glory. Lamp posts, houses, hillsides are bedecked with the plant. It climbs tens of meters up trees and the drive to work in the morning is a joy as all the flowers are out and pointillist splats of blue are everywhere.

Post outside my house.

An entire hillside of Morning Glory. Poor mid afternoon photo I am afraid

Anyway,  during the day I was cogitating on this blog  when my learned friend Hideo Yamasaki, by amazing coincidence during a great visit to theUniversity of the Ryukyus this afternoon, gave me wonderful information on the Morning Glory. This was unprompted – he just started to talk about Morning Glory. Isn’t life strange.

So, the Morning Glory was the object of intense research and development  during the Edo period in Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period
Hundreds of new varieties were bred. The Rose to England, the Tulip to Holland , the Morning Glory to Japan.

Classical paintings of Morning Glory c. 1817

Many thanks to Yamasaki san for these beautiful paintings

Here is a web page about Morning Glory.

http://mg.biology.kyushu-u.ac.jp/

It is Japanese but if you click around you will find everything you ever wanted to know about these beautiful flowers.

Try the links below:

旧掲示板

　画像カタログ（大型）

I still have nightmares about failing exams. These  nightmares are never staged  in the examination room  itself but some days or weeks before and are characterized by a realization that I have not done sufficient work and I am going to fail, resulting in unbearable humiliation and exposure. There is nothing I can do. It is too late. Charlie Drake expressed a similar dread of the inevitable in his classic, “Please Mr Custer.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl1RltqVK4I

So imagine my joy when I sail through my open water diver tests. The first exam I have passed in over 30 years! Hooray I am now a qualified diver. Thanks here to my very capable instructor, Jan.  You want to learn to dive in calm, personalized,  non-gung-ho-way?  Then come to Okinawa and sign up with Jan.

http://www.piranha-divers.jp/

Jan the Man

We do two great dives off Maeda Point, the second one taking over an hour. The surface of the sea is the perfect disguise. You stare at it yet have no idea what is the true nature of the sea. Underneath there is a world completely other. In my dotage I have no desire to do anything extreme or challenging. I just want to hang out down there and observe. The water was very transparent and we ambled along the reef just looking at stuff, freaky fish, crazy coral,  sinuous sea snakes, and current favorite  –  the nudibranch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudibranch

I had never heard of these things before but they are my current proposal for Nature’s best bits of jewelry work.

See what I mean?

Anyway I reward my success with a big tropical fish.

Unknown fish, big radish, spicy garlic and an onion

I like it here!

In Okinawa there correct formal dress in the Summer months is not the ubiquitous shirt and tie, I am told, but the Kariyushi shirt. These a highly patterned affairs with lots of flowers and things. I bought my first one to wear on a visit by the President of the University of the Ryukyus. It is beautifully woven from thread made from cotton and er leaves. This is how the lady I bought it from explained it.

Early morning Kariyushi

I was the only person at the meeting wearing one. The rest had suits and ties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kariyushi_shirt

This shirt talk reminds me of Ken Dodd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CejKxTc3sc4

WHERE’S ME SHIRT ? Ken Dodd – 1965

Well it all began in the year of one When Adam was the first man And a girl called Eve, so we believe Was made to be his woman She led him up the Garden of Eden, by a tree Then she offered him her apple And he cried out suddenly (eee-eeee-eeeee)

SPOKEN (Liverpool Accent): Where’s me shirt? Where’s me shirt? I feel a proper twazzer without me shirt I’ve got me tickling-tackle and me nicky-nocky-noo But I must confess I feel undressed Like this, in front of you

SPOKEN (Liverpool Accent): Where’s me shirt? I can’t find me shirt anywhere. It’s twenty-five past five in the Garden of Eden and I can’t find me shirt. Fancy leaving me in a garden with no shirt on, like this. Look at all these creepy-crawly things here. Ooh, look, there’s a serpent. Go ‘way. Go ‘way you nasty old serpent. Go on, shoo! Go on, shoo!

Since the days of old, we’ve all been told Of men like Bonaperte His great retreat and his first defeat Was the thing that broke his heart He stuck just outside Moscow and then made history He stuck his hand inside his coat And cried out bitterly (eee-eeee-eeeee)

SPOKEN (Liverpool Accent): Where’s me shirt? Where’s me shirt? I can’t go on like zis, wizout my shirt I’ve had my tickle-tonic on my nicky-nocky-nee But I just can’t go through all this snow Without a shirt on me

SPOKEN (Liverpool Accent): Where’s me shirt? Oh, sacre blue. Sacre flippin’ blue, where’s me shirt? By Jove, t’ain’t ‘alf frosty. Ooh, ooh, this tent isn’t ‘alf drafty. I don’t know where the draft’s comin’ from, but I know where it’s goin’ to.

Back in eighty-one, in the mid-day sun In Tombstone, one September Wyatt Earp was due to go into A gunfight he’d remember The Clanton’s and McLourys started firin’ suddenly As the gunsmoke cleared and the twonsfolk cheered Wyatt Earp said quietly (eee-eeee-eeeee)

SPOKEN (Liverpool Accent): Where’s me shirt? Where’s me shirt?

As I ate lunch by the sea shore yesterday I noticed people coming up to a freestanding stainless steel box against which I had leant Big Red. The box has a very long tube attached that leads up to the first floor of an adjacent building.

Fruit machine.

It is a mega ice machine. It is a bit like slot machine on a big scale. You put 500 yen  into slot way over on the building.

They (slot machines) sit there like young courtesans, promising pleasures undreamed of, your deepest desires fulfilled, all lusts satiated.

Every time it fulfills your darkest desires as you always win. It grumbles and groans and suddenly loads of ice comes swooshing down the pipe and crashes into the box.

Jackpot!

How amazing to construct a whole building to supply ice to the general public.

See how big it is. I wonder what the symbol means. Ice?

I like to go for a ride on my bike on Sunday morning. Nothing too athletic but a gentle snoop around the region that hopefully includes eating fish and some discoveries. It is a beautiful day. I head off behind my home and soon stumble upon a bakery. It is nestled in  a little valley and serves meals and bakes bread. What it is called is beyond my abilities to inform you.

Okinawa's gentle ways grow on you.

The kindest people. Spot the Le Creuset.

Notice hand stamped brown paper bag and cellophane tied up with string.

The owners keep a donkey.

Nice ears

Off towards the sea through fields of sugar cane.

Just a little beach with a breakwater

Trapped in an irresistible vortex I spin towards the fishing harbor and en route pass a little shrine.

Rice, salt, money, maybe awamori and an ancient stone

I get to the harbor.

Look at the water

Very clear

Let’s buy some fish and maybe have lunch.

Assorted sashimi, plump fish of unknown name, seaweed and fish on rice accompanied by sashimi and perfect fish broth. The meal is 500 yen.

My favorite restaurant. I wonder what all the signs say?

Stop off at a shop that sells fisherman’s trousers in amazing colors. I buy some blue ones and a wooden flower.

trousers

Trousers and flowers

Flower assembled

These are handmade and painted flowers from Indonesia. Ludicrously cheap

Good way to spend the morning.

Just a quick one on Okinawan waste management.  The Japanese are admirably disciplined about their trash. The trash world here is divided into two kingdoms, you know a bit like Gaul but one less. One world is burnable,

Vercingetorix

the other is non-burnable.  Burnable goes into special  bags that you can buy from local convenience stores. Each town has its own bags so don’t go using Onna-son bags in Yomitan. These bags have red writing all over them. Non-burnable goes into clear plastic bags and there is  an exception for plastic bottles, which, O best beloved, will burn but must also be junked into clear plastic bags.

Bag it.

Outside my apartment block there are two little sheds. You got it. One is where you put the burnable, the other is for non-burnable. Apartheid trash.

Joe D'Allesandro

I notice that the top story on Britain’s Daily Telegraph website is:

‘Immoral’ bin fines by council ‘rubbish police’ to be outlawed

Don’t you love British journalism.