Project Corvid!

I have always loved wildlife. My stupid, busy life has stopped me getting more involved in watching and finding out more.

Rediscovering Astronomy

Tags

Astronomy, Jupiter, Moon, Science, Solar System

For as far back as I can remember, I have been interested in space. Not in an IKEA way, I have tried unsuccessfully several times to assemble BLOK or SQHWK or whatever they call their latest mash up of light pine and chrome. I am of course talking about the kind of space where stars, planets and galaxies call home.

Online Gaming

Tags

forza, gaming, online, playstation, xbox

This blog is a bit like my life, and can be summed up  as simply ‘organised chaos’.

I have multitudes of interests, in fact the older I get the more interests I seem to fall into. The world fascinates me, and I am so keen to experience as much of it as I can before the hooded bloke with the scythe looks at the watch on his bony wrist and blows his whistle, signalling chucking out time on this fabulous planet for me and its off to the next one.

My Sakura tree 2016

Tags

Blossom, Cherry, Gardening, sakura

Hi all, yes its that time of the year again!

Spring (apparently) is once again in the air, not that you would know it looking out of the window today; it is cold, grey and of course, drizzling. However my plucky little tree is showing signs of life!

My love of Shortwave and all Radio

Tags

AM, DX, Radio, Shortwave, SW, SWL

Before the days of the internet, before mobile phones and digital music there was a technology that could pull the whole world into your ears.

My Sakura tree has bloomed!

Tags

Blossom, Cherry, Cherry Blossom, flowers, Gardening, Japan, sakura

The clocks go forward and springtime is officially here!

Not that you would think it looking at this cold and lousy weather we are having right now, but I have to report that its true, my little sakura tree finally has its first blossom and by the look of it more are on the way!

Hello March! Sakura season… START!

Tags

Blossom, Cherry, Cherry Blossom, flowers, Japan, sakura

March!

Oh how I have missed this time of year. Seasons in England seem to have merged in to ‘the cold season’ from late September into ‘the warmer season’ that begins around March.

1978

Tags

1970's, Childhood, Chopper, Cycling, Nostalgia, Raleigh

I was in Halfords the other day, buying a few bits and pieces when I wandered upstairs to their cycle shop (known as ‘Bikehut’). As I arrived at the top step I saw a sight that pulled me back to the never ending, always sunny, halcyon days of the late 1970’s when I was 10 years old and everyone on the estate had a bike made by Raleigh.

Ghost Trains and Stations

Tags

Abandoned, Beeching, Branch, Disused, Locomotive, Railway, Station, Train, UK

Regular readers of my blog will know that I have a bit of a train passion. Not the kind that most people associate with ‘Densha Otaku’ (train nerds) I don’t have a notebook full of train numbers and dates and only know the names of a few famous engines rather than the usual encyclopaedic recollection of serial number and designation those known affectionately as trainspotters have.

Proud to be a Japanologist!

Tags

Culture, Japan, Japanese, Otaku, Weeaboo

 

Geek. Nerd. Anorak. Weird.

At some point in the past I have been called all of them, in various levels of bitterness from people that just don’t understand the things I enjoy. The word ‘Otaku’ is a Japanese term for a person that is interested to the point of obsession in a certain thing or subject and when a person is tagged an Otaku it is seen (in Japan at least) as derogatory and insulting, reducing the person to a member of a sub class of society.