roganjosh

last week I went to Hungamunga at bethnal green working mens’ club. It’s a kind of bar, cabaret type thing where everyone sits around making stuff. It’s almost exactly like being at primary school except there’s beer and people singing “fly me to the moon”. Anyway, it was the most fun I’ve had with an empty milk bottle in a long, long time. Sadly my monster wasn’t dry by the end of the evening and I was too drunk to handle carrying him home on the bus, so I left him out there in bethnal green, ready to terrorise the neighbourhood.

Here’s an epistemological problem: I flew back from Amsterdam the other day and took £50 out at the airport while waiting for my bags to turn up on the carousel. It was a bank holiday so when I got home all the shops were shut and I ended up going to Chicken Cottage and spending £3.29 on some chicken nuggets and chips. This left me with two £20 notes and one £5 note and a few pieces of loose change. When I went to the local greengrocery type shop the next day that’s all the British money I had on me. I bought some groceries and a quiche for lunch (how healthy!) the total cost of which was £6.18 - so I hand over one of my £20 notes and a 20p piece and get back £4.02 change…

I look at the girl, the girl looks at me… and I say “I gave you a £20 right?”

And she says, “no, I’m almost certain you gave me a £10″, and takes the £10 she thinks I gave her out of the till to show me.

And then I start to think, did I give her a £10 note? If I did where the hell did it come from? Maybe I only got £40 out at the airport?

Since I go to that shop quite a lot she said they’d check the takings for the day and if they were £10 over then they’d give it back to me next time I visit. So I go back in today (twice, they hadn’t done the count this morning) and they tell me they weren’t £10 over and so that’s that.

Only I did take £50 out at the airport, and I’m certain I gave her a £20. Certain beyond any doubt? Well yeah, pretty much - as certain as I am that I’m not a brain in a vat at any rate. Oh well, it’s only money. It’s just that I did like that shop.

Last year in Tokyo I went to an acting class about fighting with samurai swords. It was one of the most fun things I did in Japan, so to spread the word a bit I thought I’d stick all the info I’ve got on it in English here in case anyone else wants to go:

their english page:
http://www.tate-do.com/en/index.html

They say the tourist introductory lesson is only available in Osaka, but if you email them I’m pretty certain they could sort something out - they were really friendly and helpful. The instructors in Tokyo don’t speak much English, but we just about managed to understand each other.

Tokyo class

Geinou Kadensha
6-12-30 Nishi Shinjuku,
Shinjuku ku,
Tokyo.

(but all the street signs are in kanji, so that’s not a lot of help!)

Nishi-shinjuku station (M-07)
Tokyo METRO Marunouti Line
Take exit 2, it’s 8 minutes walk to the class

here’s a link to a japanese google map - the tiny red dot in the centre is basically what you’re aiming for:
Tokyo tate-do class map

Here’s a link to a google earth location file - handy if you’ve got google earth!
Tokyo tate-do class
(The entrance is to the left of the running track/playground bit in front of the school)