Thank you

Just a quick note to thank all of you who sent messages. We are, by the grace of God/Buddha/whoever is up there, alright. The light of day this morning has brought more awful images of the terrible damage this earthquake has wrought. Like ourselves, I think the whole of Japan is in a state of collective shock as we try to grapple with the enormity of what just happened. For the moment I just grateful for the thoughtful concern you have all shown and to be able to allay those same concerns.

Earthquake update

I am very relieved to write that Sanae is safely home and enjoying dinner with Daddy and Cian. Her school is right beside the ocean and after the initial earthquake NHK (Japan's equivalent of RTE), there were initial forecasts of a 6 metre tsunami to hit our part of Hokkaido. Thankfully this didn't come to pass but there are still tsunami warnings in effect and intermittent aftershocks continue to reverberate into the evening.

This afternoon's earthquake

As I write this the after shocks from this afternoon's devastating earthquake are still rocking our part of northern Japan. It is indicative of just how powerful the earthquake was that here in Muroran, some 400 miles from the epicenter, we got tremendously shaken. As I write the television news is showing live pictures from Hiroo-cho where both Sanae and I used to live showing a tsunami submerging the harbour. Mind you, this is mild compared to the huge 7 metre waves that broke over the Pacific coast of northern Honshu.

I should, of course, say that we are all fine - myself and Cian are at home while Sanae is still at school. She is fine but incredibly busy trying to allay the panic and fears of all the kids. Hopefully she will be home soon.

I will write later more this evening.

Movies

As part of our ongoing Friday night movie series (or 'The Compromise Rules' as a I like to call it), myself and Sanae watched 'Rachel getting married'. This film, it turned out, was not a romantic comedy, though it did involve a wedding and the lead from 'The Devil wears Prada' (up there in Sanae's top ten list), so I figured we, or rather darling wife, was on to a sure thing. Darling wife no longer trusts my judgement, despite my attempting to make amends the following week with 'Going the Distance'.

(Incidentally, if you haven't seen any of these films, then (a) the rest of this blog may prove a tad abstruse and (b) there is, to be honest, no real reason to see them either - though I'm probably going to catch all sorts of karate hell for writing that.)

'Rachel getting Married' is a sort of 110 minute long ad for United Colors of Benetton with some imposed moments of personal tragedy to rough out the otherwise smooth edges. The director, Jonathan Demme, in a sense can't help himself - he did, after all, win an Oscar for managing to humanize a serial killer - so a liberal love-in where a successful, big golden labrador owning, Mercedes driving, WASP family marries into what seems to be most of the artists from the Blue Note Label, shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. But, ultimately this paean for cosmopolitan liberalism doesn't work because Demme can't contain help himself and pushes his advocacy for multiculturalism too far into an exercise in samba dancing wish fulfillment. In short the movie becomes a dream rather than a form of reality it needs to ground itself in.

Now, if this is (a) a tad pretentious; and (b) a tad unfair on Demme, then I hold up my hand on both accounts. However, watching this I couldn't but make comparisons with 'Winter's Bone' (which, by the way, is also not a romantic comedy, but I think the title may have tipped you off to that fact), a film I had seen back in December. The comparisons were not necessarily of the relative merits of both films as pieces of film making, but rather the type of America they detailed. Whereas 'Rachel getting married' was rich, north eastern liberalism at its best/worst, 'Winter's Bone' was dirt-poor southern gothic (at one stage we see a squirrel being skinned in preparation for dinner). Trying to reconcile these two versions of America made me wonder if they ever could be reconciled. Much is made the US as the land of possibility, but it is also a land of shocking disparity, particularly when you are looking at it from Japan (which it isn't to say that such disparity doesn't exist here - it does, and it is increasing, but relatively speaking, Japan is still a considerably more meritocratic country).

And I'm rambling.

Anyway, there is a brutal honesty to 'Winter's Bone' which, for all its characters' emotional breakdowns and tearful confessions, 'Rachel getting married' never allows itself to descend to. Its ingrained optimism won't permit it. This is not to say its a bad film. I enjoyed both. Though perhaps 'enjoy' is too favourable word. Rather, more precisely, both films made stayed with me as good films should.

Nowadays though, very few do (though this could well be due to (a) the limited number of films I actually watch; and (b) having just cleared 41, I am beginning to slide into early senility). Back in December I threatened you with a list of my best films from 2010, though again 'best' is way too subjective a term. These are the films that stayed with me and which I would rewatch (though, given their content, probably not in the company of my wife):

'The Messenger'

'The Other Guys'

'Million Dollar Baby'

'Winter's Bone'

So there you have it. A grand total of four, and two of them weren't even made last year, but as I said, these were the most impressive movies I watched last year. And yes, I do like a good, "Christ. Isn't life shit" movie, but that's just me. I will return to these at a future date - probably sometime in 2012 - but does anybody out there (though this begs the question: 'Is there anybody out there?') want to share their belated best of 2010 with me/us?

Howzat!

Being a true blood and soil supporter of the GAA, I have never had much time for cricket. Its colonial origins, ever present air of barely contained superiority, ridiculously complex rules and equally ridiculous terminology (wicket, crease, googly, overs, unders, Ian Botham, etc.) are seemingly designed to repel rather than attract the casual sports fan.

The closest I ever got to the game was the occasional summer evening spent on the sun dappled steps in front of the Pavilion Bar in Trinity College. There, overlooking the green swathe of the university's cricket pitch, I would attempt to engage in witty, Waugh-like banter with impossibly slim girls from the distant heart of south Dublin whilst desperately trying to hide my lowly DIT origins. In passing I would note white clad figures seemingly aimlessly ambling about the pitch, now and then toffing a cap to cries of "Oh, I say, well done Henry". All of them seemed to be called Henry. It must have been a membership requirement.

Later on, as the skies darkened, the game ended and the lights from the buses rumbling by on Nassau street reminded you of where you were and more unfairly, where you had to go, I would resentfully curse these Henry's as they ambled into the bar and effortlessly led Fionnuala from Foxrock away for a night of overs and unders.

But.

But after last night's remarkable events in Bangalore my hitherto staunchly republican heart now thrills to the sound of ball on bat, derives immense pleasure from a well executed drive to mid-slip, and I yell with abandon at an obvious LBW speared down the inside leg.

Cricket, yes cricket. You don't need to know anything about the game per se, just that right now, as of the 3rd of March, Ireland (cue Amhran na bhFiann) are better at that quintessentially English game than, well, England.

Scorer of the fastest century in Cricket World Cup History, Kevin O'Brien (or as he's fondly known around these nationalist parts, Caoimhin with the gruaig rua).

Muroran Line Man

On Saturday, for lack of anything better to do, whatsoever, your humble scribe, his reluctant wife and Boxcar Cian took to the rails and made that lonesome journey on the southbound train from Muroran down to Toya. Felt like I was in a Bruce Springsteen song, circa 'Nebraska', 1982. Outside there was lots of cold, windblown, winter scenery; the steel mills shining dully in the brittle light, the endlessly smoking towers of the cement factory; the bare, brown fields lined with skeletal trees. Inside the train people crouched in their seats, their lives hard worn, their luck, what little they have, hard won.

Actually, I don't know what their lives or luck were like. I was on a descriptive roll and I thought I'd just go with it. In truth, there was actually a rather boisterous group of pensioners, out for a day trip down to the hot springs in Toya. They spent the journey sharing a naggin of whiskey, so by the time they reached the station they were in fine form. And I met three of my students from the nursing school I teach in, who spent most of the journey embarrassing Cian with their constant squeals of just how "sooooo cute" he is.

Excitable student nurses aside, Boxcar Cian loved it all - two hours riding the rails, excitedly pointing out the various express and freight trains that sped past as we made our leisurely way through the badlands of west Iburi.

Saturday

The 'contrast' I alluded to in my previous blog was a reference to the Saturday after Friday's visit to Sapporo. After eight hours of unrelenting urbanity, my sensitive soul cried out for the high mountains and blue skies of Muroran.

Kind of.

It was a nice morning, I didn't have much else to do and Sanae felt guilty after her day of department store indulgence, so she let me head to the hills for a couple of hours. So up Mt. Muroran I went. I wasn't alone. According to the register kept at the hut at the start of the climb, there were 42 other fellow climbers wending their way up and down the mountain. Of these 24 were over 60 years of age, with the oldest a sprightly 82. And he started off at 7.30 in the morning when the twinkly TV weather woman told us the temperature in Muroran was -4. Now, that was down at sea-level, so up here it would have been closer to -8. And he got up and down in just over two hours, which, if you consider Mt. Muroran is only a 120 metres or so lower than Carrauntoohil, was pretty impressive.

Anyway, not only did I enjoy the climb, the scenery, and the fresh air, I also enjoyed being the third youngest person on the mountain.