railsquid

It'd look the part on a model of the Woodham Brothers yard.

'twas just a little innocent Latin conjunction. ＣＵＭ. Let's see if that gratuitous use of double-width characters outwits the censor.

I have banned Mrs. Squid from all cleaning-related activities in my office-######-railwayzone after she attempted to remove a bag full of bits of polystyrene on recycling day. Also the other day I was tearing up an old spiral-bound notebook when I realised the spiral binding and the plastic covers might be useful for... something. On the plus side Mrs. Squid did announce the other night that it would be nice to travel across the US from coast to coast by train some day. A sentiment which I found it hard to disagree with.

Snaffling some "fish and chips" here at my favoured happy hour "British pub" here in Tokyo. The trick to living in Tokyo is to know where the "quiet" places are, this is one of them. Only customer in the joint until just now. Feeling mellow in part because on my perambulations I scored a new boxed set of Tomix track containing two motorised curved points of the type I was after for about a fiver, or 1/10th of RRP. One of the local electronics department stores has a "hobby" floor, which is mainly full of that freaky anime figurine stuff Japan is infamous for, but there's also a model railway aisle which contains what appears to be mainly very outdated stuff which they're selling off bit by bit.

I hate to break the news to you, but I would do if it were Friday already... which it isn't yet, even this far east.

Morning from a bright and sunny, slightly chill Tokyo. The threatened snow has once again failed to turn up. Baby (in a better mood this morning) is off to hospital for a checkup, remind me to give him his bus fare.

Yup, but like I wrote they're not "street numbers" but "plot numbers" on a block of land Certainly no shortage of guitar and other music-related shops, but that's outside of my area of expertise.

Nothing which can't be cured by modern antibiotics.

Did someone mention nuts?

A new N-scale collaboration: GRAHAM FARISH CLASS 55 DELTIC 'THE FIFE & PORFAE YEOMANRY" (by Lima).

Not surprising as their native habitat is the desert. Mind you I had a gerbil (also a desert rodent) which fell into a mug of water once from the top of its cage (genuine unforeseeable accident, I still have the mug, come to think of it) and evidently gerbils can not only survive water but propel themselves out of it back up to the top of their cage in an awful hurry. Not sure which of the three it was, but two of them reached their allotted lifespan and one clung on for another year.

There was mention of Berliner doughnuts upthread in confusion with pancakes - the doughnut known as a "Berliner" is also known (in Berlin at least) as "Pfannkuchen", literally "pancake", which often causes confusion to those not from the Berliner dialect zone. Wikipedia has details. Wet cold miserable day, cranky baby for much of the afternoon. But I'm lucky to have an indoor job with no heavy lifting involved and moreover mainly work from home, which has its downsides (cabin fever!) but which does enable me to spend so much time with my newborn son (even if some of that time is spent half-jogging through the house in an attempt to get him to sleep).

Morning... grey, damp, chill, threat of snow in an "OMG it might actually settle! In Tokyo!" kind of way. I learnt yesterday evening that there had been another biggish earthquake yesterday in the same area as the one which caused the tsunami alert, albeit closer to land, which brings no tsunami risk but much more shaking, "5+" on the Japanese scale of 1-7, which is enough to cause real damage (not that any was reported) and is quite alarming to experience (it's about the same intensity felt in Tokyo after the big 3.11 quake). Also a series of aftershocks in the same area, which seem to have tailed off (it's always alarming to see quakes listed for that area as it's the same region as the main 3.11 quake's epicentre). No pancakes, I had no idea of the Shroviness of Tuesday until you lot started on about it. Here's hoping the latest updates to my desktop computer's operating system (Linux) have resolved the annoying tendency to "crash" that yesterday's updates seem to have introduced...

A 20cm wave was observed, nothing dramatic and no damage reported (though in the wrong place a sudden 20cm rise in sea-level could cause some problems, especially at high tide, and bear in mind that the northeast coast is somewhat lower that it was before March 2011).

3/4 Grand Union in Berlin Tram roundabout in Berlin (Both links to Google satellite views, you may need to remove the option which overlays roads to see the tram lines clearly).

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you news of an explosion in the nappy department. Turning on the TV to see if they had anything useful to say for themselves, the Blue Natural Disaster Information Surrounds were up, seems there's a tsunami warning in place for NE Japan following an M6.9 quake. Never a dull moment in the Squid household...

Correction. Baby, now sleeping like a baby has been placed on a futon on the floor and seems not to have noticed. Meanwhile actual flakes of snow are falling. And they said it wouldn't be cold enough on the weather yesterday.

Will there be a Swing-O-Meter? Fine spring day here. Oh, that was yesterday. Back to chill damp rain. Would write more but Mrs. Squid off to hospital for checkup, one arm occupied by baby.

You could cut out the carriage from the picture, paste it onto a background of your choice and sell it on as a "Handcrafted Original KIT BUILT! RARE!!!".

Welcome to Japan... they do things... differently here. Like... no road names. Well, many more major roads do have names, but they never form part of an official address, and your average residential street will merely be a strip of tarmac between numbered blocks (which are numbered subblocks of a numbered block of a subdistrict), upon which sit houses numbered in seemingly random, and often duplicate fashion. Such as Chez Railsquid. The way to differentiate between identically numbered houses is by the nameplate, which is usually displayed somewhere visible. On the plus side, identically numbered houses will be contiguous. Oh, and names are a whole other ballgame of fun, to which point I shall return later. First, an example address would look like this: 150-1234 Tokyo-to Nantoka-ku Meiromachi 4-15-22 Tananaka-sama which is: Postal code City name (in this case Tokyo) Borough name Subdistrict name, block 4, sub-block 15, plot 22 (which may or may not be unique) Honorifically Mr or Mrs. Tanaka If the address is a block of flats, the flat number and usually the building name (which will often be some semi-random combination of foreign words, I use to live close to a block of flats called - literally - "Ripe One"), will be appended. Clear? Now, about the names... they're usually written in Kanji (Chinese characters), and especially when it comes to names, Japanese is a total fustercluck. I refer you to the famous Monty Python "Raymond Luxury-Yacht" sketch ("it's pronounced Throatwobbler-Mangrove"). This is Japan. Every. Clucking. Day. Let's zip back to the "subdistrict name", in my example "Meiromachi". The "machi" literally means "town" or "settlement". Logical, you might think. Yes... but for historical reasons it has two pronunciations, "machi" which is etymologically Japanese, and "cho", which originates from Chinese. Aaaaand... there is no earthly way you can tell from the Chinese character for a given location whether it's"machi" or "cho". You just have to know. True story - one place I was living, it took me about 6 weeks before I realised I was pronouncing part of my address incorrectly. Any questions?

Pfft. I'll shortly be listing a printout of a screenshot of an auction selling a photo of an empty box.

Oh go on then He'll grow into it I suppose. Until then it makes a nice warm sleeping bag.

Congrats to Oldddudders. Erm, long time no post or something, congrats or commiserations as appropriate. Semi-permanent baby-lag. Though I found out that by storing him in a semi-fetal position in my hoodie/fleece-thingy supported by a cushion on my lap, I can keep both hands free for surfing Ebay (dangerous place). Anyway I hate to sound like one of those parents who say things like "oh, little Jasper is soooo intelligent, he was criticizing Proust by the time he was 3 months old", but the little blighter (Squid junior, not Proust) has already grasped the concept of the bottle (we need to supplement) and is fully aware what it looks like and whether he's managed to empty it. Also spent some quality time with him showing him various random objects which attracted his interest (including several doors and walls) and even elicited a giggle/laugh. Now, where did I put those Oxbridge application papers...

He might be Scottish...

I first heard of the concept of ekranoplanes in an SF short story collections by Charlie Stross but didn't realise they were real until quite recently. Technically good morning, 'tis Saturday here in the Orient, have taken over Baby from an exhausted Mrs. Squid and given him his good-night feed. Interestingly he seems to have grasped the concept of "bottle is empty" and dozed off the moment it gave out.Now watching something called "The Voice Thailand" on Youtube for some reason.