Our Man in Abiko

CLEAR THE DECKS

2012-02-09T02:04:00.000+09:00

Our Man has been clearing the decks ready for action. A few additions even the able-bodied should be aware of:

You can now receive your orders directly from Our Man by email at the handy pillbox on the top left.
Do make yourself known to the two new blog additions who have joined the fray on the left, It's Not Just Mud and TheKishiCut.
Feel free to avail yourself of the Abiko Free Press button on the bar at the top.
And see all the folk who have agreed to work on the 3/11 Anniversary Project. Our Man is sure you will agree there are some pretty heavy hitters, even if not all of them are very pretty.

As you were.

NEXT STOP, HOLLYWOOD

2012-02-07T04:13:00.000+09:00

So, Our Man survived his brush with fame (still awaiting the fortune) with TV Asahi yesterday. Our Man was interviewed to talk up Quakebook and how foreigners got information about earthquakes and generally boost awareness for folks who need help.

He fears he got sidetracked and ended up talking about twitter far more than he meant to. But he reserves judgement until the broadcast on Sunday, March 11th. The anniversary, you know? There will be a 10-hour special on it on TV. How much of that will feature Our Man is unclear. He was given the speech about "We don't have much time and we never know what, if anything of the interview will be used." Probably thirty seconds of the five hours of Our Man's life that it took to record him fake-tweeting and meeting strange men in Abiko parks, but whatever.

If it means a couple more people hear about Quakebook then it will be worth it. Maybe.

We'll see what inanity makes it from the cutting room floor. But Our Man has taken pictures and made notes, so we can compare after the fact. Whatever. Our Man tried his best to add a little humour, but it won't be nearly as amusing as this piece of great TV:

RETURN TO FORM, OF SORTS

2012-02-05T04:46:00.000+09:00

So, blogging is dead and social media and your ebook platform are all that matter in the online world. Well, at this time in the morning, Our Man is feeling decidedly anti-social and unprepared for any train of thought (platforms, do keep up) beyond that which leads from his Bordeaux to his bed.

But he is glad to say a few projects are moving along nicely. After racing through the beta reader process in a under a week, he's taking readers' comments seriously and is leisurely reworking the novel Half-Life 2:46, now in it's fifth or sixth draft, Our Man forgets, with a little help from his editor.

Our Man's learnt a few things along the way. One is that there are no shortcuts. Our Man skimped on the character backstory process and various other bits too tedious to mentions here, suffice to say kids, less haste means more speed.

But... there is the small matter of the anniversary of the March 11th disaster coming up, and Our Man would like to have the novel out for publication by then, along with the 3/11 anniversary ebook.

Is this all riding the coattails of the disaster for fun and profit?

Our Man sincerely hopes not. The 3/11 anniversary project is a serious attempt at independent journalism to explain what has and hasn't happened since the disaster. And the novel, while not so serious, does tackle some serious themes that need tackling about 3/11 and what it means to be a foreigner in Japan and identity and stuff. And there's a shopping bicycle chase scene.

The fact is, the world's attention will be focussed on Japan for a fleeting moment once more on March 11th, 2012, and after that it will be back to how social media has changed the world beyond all recognition, such as US Presidential elections, Wall Street greed and our collective intelligence --nothing of substance, obviously.

So, this slim window is Our Man's moment to make his mark.

That is all.

Oh, not quite all. Our Man redesigned the blog a bit. Although he liked the Dynamic Views deal from blogger, it didn't allow him to post bits and bobs from his agent provocateurs around the web... and he always wanted to edit a red top.

BACK TO SERIOUS STUFF

2012-02-01T13:46:00.001+09:00

So, between flu, shepherd's pie, a picture almost everyday, Our Man's novel, oh, and the cover life, this is what Our Man has been doing... The Abiko Free Press. There's a certain little 3-11 project he needs to get done. Do drop by for a look-see.

RACISM, JAPAN AND SELF-PUBLISHING: 10 Q&As WITH @LOCOHAMA

2012-01-26T20:37:00.002+09:00

Our Man is delighted to host a Q&A with Baye McNeil, aka Loco in Yokohama. He's even more delighted to say he's written a damn good book -- it's honest and compelling. But don't listen to Our Man, listen to The Man of the moment:

1. Tell Our Man about your book. What's it about?
In a sentence, It's about how my bitter responses to the behavior of people here in Japan (whether it is due to their racism, xenophobia, or any other fear-based feeling my presence inspires) informed me in no uncertain terms that I was a racist, and that if I wanted to be rid of this dark social virus -- that I believe many of us are afflicted with whether we're aware of it or not -- then I had better locate its source and confront it head on!

2. Why did you feel compelled to write this book?
Mostly it was out of my love for a woman who just happened to be Japanese, but also because I think I had learned some very valuable lessons while uncovering the source of my own racism. Lessons I thought others might benefit from as well...

3. Why did you go the self-publishing route?
It's the "in" thing, isn't it? I try to keep up with the hot new trends... just kidding.I'd have to say it's part trauma / part impatience / part business decision.

Trauma because I've been there done that. I went the traditional route with my first book. Went out, found myself a stellar agent on the strength of a stellar manuscript (her words) and my confidence was soaring. Then, the rejection letters started rolling in via my agent. All these fancy logos and letterheads, signed by editors who'd clearly read and given my work a second thought; Harper Collins, Random House, etc, all spoke with different variations on the same message: we're not quite sure how to market this. Each letter felt like a nail on the lid of the coffin my career was being laid to rest in. I was much younger though, and at the time didn't have three years of blogging and real encouragement from intelligent and thoughtful readers behind me. But, I suspect, some of the trauma of that period lingers even til this day.

Impatience because even if the traditional publishers did dig my manuscript, we’d still be looking at a minimum of a year and possibly longer before my book saw the light of Barnes & Noble. And with the technology available now, that just doesn't make sense except to the publishing companies themselves and whatever goes into their decision-making process as it pertains to timing.

And business-wise, I believe in my product! I've written a very good book. Could it use the eyes of a top-shelf editor? Of course. But, there are traditional ways to catch the attention of editors and nontraditional ways. This is a nontraditional way, and has been done successfully so there is precedent. I've read some of the books that have crept in the back door of the publishing industry and I think my book is at least as good as those, though it may still suffer from the same issues as the first book I wrote; that of being difficult to genre-ize. Is it a memoir? Is it a social commentary? All I know is it’s good enough to build off of, and if I keep grinding good things will happen!

4. Anything great or terrible about the experience so far?
Yes. One great thing is I've made what I believe to be at least one excellent, borderline brilliant decision as far as the production of this book is concerned. I don’t know if you've ever visited the blog, "Spooning with a Schoolboy" created by a lovely young writer and model named Caroline Josephine. But, before redesigning her blog, she used to have a banner with a scene from a subway car in Japan, and the first time I saw it I knew I wanted whoever did that banner to do my book cover. From CJ, I learned his name is JJ McCullough. He is a professional cartoonist and showcases his work over at filibustercartoons.com. I got in contact with him, told him what I had in mind and you've seen the results! I couldn't be more thrilled with them! And he's great to work with as well. Big shout to CJ and JJ!!

As for the terrible, shit, aside from the writing, MOST of the rest of it is terrible. I mean, it could be worse, but I'd surely love to be in a position where I could leave the rest to people more qualified to do it. I'm talking of course about editing, proofreading, promotion, marketing, advertising, publicity, etc... In all of these areas I've had to be the front guy. The guy with a dozen hats, the man on the phone, the guy putting in 15-hour days, social networking my ass off, trying to develop a strategy to get my book some press and some of that all important word-of-mouth. Luckily for me, the book is pretty good so the word of mouth has been sweet so far, but that could have easily gone another way. And I'm pretty sure I could be making more of this ongoing buzz if I had a machine behind me. I'm learning as I go, though, and I'm a quick study at times.

I have a couple of friends on the ground helping out, and the Japan blogosphere has responded tremendously, including people like yourself. So maybe it's not so terrible after all... I mean, it's only been two weeks and I have a feeling the number of people that know something about this book has to be a solid percentage of the people who could potentially know about my work at this point if I had gone the traditional route.

5. Any advice you'd give to aspiring self-publishers?
Yeah. Make sure the product is as good as you can make it and then some, because word of mouth will be the kiss of life or death. And before you even think about self-publishing anything, you had better build up some solid relationships founded on mutual respect and admiration. And preferably some that are willing to help out with those above mentioned tasks...or go out and learn about them on your own because they are realer than real. And don't count on friends to help you out of the kindness of their hearts. Some will of course but plan around that. Whatever they do ought to be gravy. They should not be part of the meal. That includes family, as well. You are the rudder. Give people a good reason to help you, like for example they stand to benefit as well, then you'll get a more robust response. And learn how to be grateful. How to stay humble and say please and thank you, and SHOW appreciation.

We writers are quite often hermits and spend a lot of our time alone with a keyboard and our thoughts and feelings. So, wearing the social hat often takes us out of our comfort zone. Try to learn to be comfortable in that discomfort zone BEFORE you publish! And never make the mistake of believing 10 bucks or 5 bucks is nothing and people will just part with it for your product like it's nothing. The onus is on you to make them feel that it's nothing. The value of the product they're getting for that price is what makes the money easier to part with. And that, my friend, returns us to the product. Make it great!

6. What are your hopes for the book?
I hope that people will read it, love it, learn something valuable from it about themselves and about how they can make their world better which in turn will make OUR world better. Then, I hope they tell everybody they know about it, and some of those people will pick up the book, read it, love it, and... Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.I also hope to earn enough money to finance its translation into Japanese in the near future so that our Japanese brethren can also feel the love.

7. How many people were involved in the project (feel free to drop names here to thank the faithful!)?
Aside from JJ McCollugh, there was also Amanda Taylor of whoaiminjapan.com who helped me out a great deal with the editing and proofreading, which I suck at. It was grammatical train wreck before she volunteered her services. There was also Jeny, from The Fast Fingers, a formatting service I worked with (for I know jack about formatting). She made a number of tasks involved in publishing this book so much easier. Her knowhow helped me tremendously. There were also a couple of friends back home that gave it reads and helpful tips.

8. What have you learnt about yourself as a result of writing and publishing the book?
I've learned that I can complete tasks that I begin, including pretty daunting ones. Sounds pretty basic, I know, but after you've left a number of tasks incomplete over the course of a lifetime, and live to regret not following through on them, then you learn that you are the type of person that can fail. Failure becomes part of your repertoire. Beginning with my blog and now my book, I can now add to that repertoire that I've learn I can be successful if I put my mind to shit and don't give up! I want to say I've learned I can do anything I put my mind to, but honestly I'm still learning that one. But I think I'm at least enrolled in the right school to learn that lesson.

9. What's your next project?
Another book is in the hopper...I plan to publish it this year, as well. This will be my last "Japan" book and will be lighter... more for the fun of it than for atonement and reparation. I think I'd like to write a Japan book that is essentially a thank-you card to the Japanese for all this wonderful land has done for me. And after that I'll probably take my leave of Kawaiiland and see what else the world has in store for Loco. Maybe, if I get rich, I'll keep a little spot here so I can return as often as I like, though. Oh, and I may go ahead and publish that first book...the ones the big boys couldn't figure out how to market. Perhaps if I had a "name" and a reputation for compelling storytelling then I won't need to genre-ize it.

10. Anything else you'd like to say?
Yes, there is. Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist is essentially a mission statement. I AM a racist. There's no doubt in my mind of that, but that's not the end of my story. And I don't think it needs to be the end of anyone's story. I think most of us deal with these types of issues at some point in our lives and I believe it's essential that we face them and not lurk in the shadows like pedophiles or some other kind of degenerate. Demonizing racism only chases it underground. Surrendering to these proclivities, like it’s human nature and thus inescapable, only perpetuates it. We can't concede victory to this social virus. I'm of the mind that it CAN be beat, and with constant vigilance and conscious abstinence it WILL eventually go into remission. We may even find a cure. That’s my personal mission and I ain't ashamed to say it out loud. Thanks for having me, Our Man!! It's people like you that make my battle all the more easier!

Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist is available from Amazon here.

WEEK IN PICTURES

2012-01-26T01:36:00.001+09:00

By the kids, Sunday, January 15th

License renewal Monday, January 16th

Daughter's radioactive elementary school playground,
Tuesday, January 17th

Packed lunch, Wednesday, January 18th

Run round Teganuma, January 19th

Know your prefecture, January 20th

Run through the jungle, January 21st

PUBLISH AND PERISH, THE ABIKO WAY

2012-01-19T23:43:00.002+09:00

Probabaly as much to your relief as Our Man's, he's not going to be posting his Daily Snapshot every day as he's got a couple of Very Important Projects on the go (he will still take a picture a day, just not post them everyday - he's not that busy). But he is busy. Just look at tonight:

Do a Q and A with Locohama over his new book
Write a news release for Half-Life 2:46
~~Send a conglatulatory email to the beta readers who have found yet more holes in his novel manuscript~~
~~Download Scrivener so Our Man has some software to format the novel.~~
Do the two-hour Scrivener tutorial.
Put some more thought into the Abiko Free Press, remember that?
Chase up contributors to the next TOP SECRETish publishing project after his novel.
Sure there was something else.
Get more memory for his Mac.
Yes, but no, that wasn't it. Oh yeah...

Get some bloody sleep.

SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE BUNKER...

2012-01-14T21:43:00.001+09:00

... means high stakes Skip-Bo with the girls. Then revising first third of Half-Life, before the beta readers raise the stakes. Hope Our Man doesn't crap out.

LAST ORANGUTAN STANDING

2012-01-12T23:47:00.000+09:00

The problem with posting a picture a day for a year comes when Our Man's spent 12 hours indoors working (between tweeting, obviously) and by 11pm he realises he hasn't taken a sodding picture all day and it's dark out. Why not go here and look at some good pictures of the last man (and ostrich) standing in the Fukushima no-go zone. Because the only other picture Our Man could possibly take is of a pissing orangutan on the back of his daughter's schoolbook that just happens to be on his desk.

Is orangutan piss the story of the day? Actually no, although if Our Man were a broadsheet columnist, he could probably string out a thousand words on the metaphorical significance of orangutan piss to the situation that Japan finds itself in a la corporate corruption, nuclear nincompoopery and political, er, puissantism.

But he's not, so he won't.

In fact, today was a pretty good one. Our Man has lined up 10 beta readers, good and true (well, breathing at least) who have vowed to give his novel Half-Life 2:46 the once-over before it is released into the Amazon wilds to fend for itself.

And he's making headway on Project X that should make an even greater, er, splash than his novel and... oh sod it. Our Man has gone and written that column that he said he wouldn't.

Sigh.

Bring out the monkey.

CALLING ALL BETA READERS - ABIKO EXPECTS

2012-01-11T23:30:00.000+09:00

If you were one of the kindly, naive types who volunteered for beta reading duties, way back in the dog days of summer when Our Man really thought he could write this novel in a month (hah!), well your time is finally up.

You will be receiving your first orders by email in the first post. If you don't receive an email in the next hour or two, but want in on reading what Our Man has cobbled together so far for free (well, there may be serious suffering on your part) and you reckon you can free enough time from Tuesday to Sunday to read and comment on 50,000 words of Ourmani's on-screen scribblings...

...make yourself known to Our Man by email here.

Carry on.

THE WRITE STUFF, GEDDIT???

2012-01-10T23:30:00.000+09:00

On the occasion of completing the second draft of Half-life 2:46 in the early hours of this morning.

As you were.

STRIKE FORCE...

2012-01-09T23:30:00.000+09:00

... or a spare pair?

BOOK FANCY

2012-01-08T21:53:00.001+09:00

This sign reads "BOOK fancy" which means, er, "book fancy."

As you were.

STEAL A BUCKET OF LARD...

2012-01-07T20:04:00.001+09:00

... and win a free trip to Australia.

Our Man was thinking of frying crepes tomorrow with the kids and this story came to mind. One of his illustrious ancestors was transported to Tasmania for stealing 52lbs of lard back when governments were tough on crime. (It was not his first offence, after all). But probably was best thing that ever happened to him.

Know the feeling.

DAY 6: LARGE STEEL BALL

2012-01-06T23:44:00.000+09:00

What is this? A view of the future (from the 1960s) or a big steel ball in the Abiko Water Museum? Both and more: it's the ideal spot for a killing in Half-Life the novel what Our Man has been slaving over since Quakebook. Yeah, still working on it. Just a bit more now and then Our Man will stop the oblique posts and maybe even write something worthwhile, you never know.

Carry on.

THE DETACHMENT: A SEMI-DETACHED REVIEW

2012-01-05T23:59:00.000+09:00

This is the shot of the day. Our Man finished Barry Eisler's The Detachment. And here's a half-ass review because he's gotta save his creative juice for finishing the second draft of his own novel Half-Life 2:46 tonight. Guess you are not supposed to do book reviews as numbered bullet points, but Our Man's in a hurry, and, er, bullets seem apt for the continuing adventures of a half Japanese, half American assassin, John Rain (smooth, like whacha did there - ed.)

It's a page-turner.
Plenty of twists to keep ya guessing. And character arcs. And locales that Our Man has been to (like a chase scene through the bowels of Kanda, where Our Man used to buy books (back in the far off days before he got this Kindle, er, two weeks ago). And hot half-Japanese soccer moms.
Good point: It's got high testosterone, gun-toting American Special Ops boys and their toys action throughout.
Bad point: It's got high testosterone, gun-toting American Special Ops boys and their toys action throughout.
Our Man supposes that's the nature of the genre, but he liked the backstory (is that the right term, ed?) of political intrigue that informed all the gun-toting action more and wanted to see more of the conspiracy that was afoot... but, er, he doesn't have clearance to say any more.
Though Our Man made the mistake of reading a few reviews on Amazon and seems some fans were perturbed that there was so much political talk and stuff about US liberties being eroded and the police state and so on. To Our Man, that stuff lifted it from just being a bullet to the head like Rambo III - back when the Ruskies were the baddies and the plucky Muslim braves were the goodies. Remember those days? They really happened, children. But the first Rambo movie, and book, was really good, honest. (No really, it was).
You've got this far, dear reader, so Our Man should fess up: You shouldn't trust a word of this since:

Mr Eisler, and yes, he does deserve the courtesy title, was awesome enough to include an advert to Quakebook in the back of the book, for which Our Man is extremely grateful.
This is the first John Rain thriller Our Man has read, so he's not qualified to compare it with the other seven in the series.
Never trust a reviewer who puts bullet points within bullet points.

Sod it, Our Man has lost the thread here. Bottom line, it's a good read. It gets Our Man's unqualified thumbs up. And if you weren't concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties since 9/11, you will be after reading The Detachment. And, by the way, some great links at the end of the book to the journalism that informs the writing.

As you were.

FALSE ECONOMY

2012-01-04T16:43:00.001+09:00

Our Man is killing time waiting for his ¥1,000 haircut. Two and a half hours to be exact. That's the estimate anyway, for the queue for the cheapest haircut in Abiko.

So naturally, Our Man found his way to Mister Donut, a close personal friend of his, to kill an hour or so. Just spent ¥409 for a coffee and a doughnut, and suddenly the hour-long full service barbers (haircut, massage, smoke and a chat) sound like a snip at ¥3,000.

2012 DAY 3: TSUNAMI WARNING

2012-01-03T16:13:00.000+09:00

Had a couple more pics of Our Man's latest Kamakura trip including pretty flags on the beach and a World Peace/don't let your dog mess the pavement sign, but this one got the most reaction on Twitter.

On the train now back to the bunker and it's getting dark, so this will be The Photo of The Day. So, er, here it is again.

2012: DAY 2, ER, PRETTY COLOURS

2012-01-02T23:44:00.001+09:00

Myohonji temple in Kamakura.

OUR MAN'S NEW PROJECT FOR 2012...

2012-01-01T23:05:00.000+09:00

So here's Our Man's latest project for the year - to take a snapshot - nothing fancy mind, just something off his phone - that tells a story of each and every day of his 2012. He will post it every day. That's the plan, anyway. He may even write a caption too.

Individually, the shots will probably amount to little more than five minutes of his (and your) time... but the collective merit of the mass of 365 days' worth might be, er, something worth more than each individual part. Our Man has no idea. We all will just have to wait and see... anyway, here's the first instalment:

Our Woman in Abiko holds the family's fortunes from Nenokami Jinja, Abiko. A snip at ¥100 each, Our Eldest's was in the best category, Our Littlest's in the second and Our Man and Woman's were exactly the same - in the worst of the four categories. Ho hum.

HOW MANY ZEROS?

2011-12-22T02:19:00.000+09:00

Keen followers of Our Man know he is a Chizzit.

The term, coined by seaside merchants sick of stingy daytrippers from Our Man's hometown forever asking "How much is it?", sprang to mind on the news that the Japanese government (the folk who levy taxes on Our Man) is going to buy a couple of F-35 fighters. Forty-two to be exact. At ¥9,900,000,000 each. That's, er, hold on Our Man's calculator can't handle all the zeros... just under ¥420,000,000,000. And that's excluding maintenance and printer cartridges, which Our Man knows from bitter experience add a couple of zeros onto the price.

But the reviews are in: US Ambassador Roos says it's a best buy (although he never got round to buying any Quakebooks for his embassy, by the way):

God bless interoperability. The link goes to a US Defense Department news release in which the Canadian Defense Minister (???) says the aircraft's capability is "eye-watering". As is the bill, which even the Japan Probe, self-appointed lapdog of the Japanese establishment, lets slip "is very expensive."

And the cost might be more, according to the Japan Times, seeing as the plane doesn't actually work yet. And it's invisible. But Our Man swears he saw a picture of it in the JT. Anyway, we can trust Lockheed, they've got such a glowing history.

Eye-watering indeed.

JOINING THE NUCLEAR CLUB

2011-12-16T03:49:00.000+09:00

There are times when Our Man is happy to be out of the loop, and times when he wishes he could find his blinking Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan honorary annual membership card. (The last club that allowed him in was the Dennis the Menace Fan Club, and he had to pay for that. But he digresses.)

Today was one of those latter days Our Man wishes he was at the FCCJ's lunch shindig to hear an undercover journalist pitching his book about the corrupt work practices of the TEPCO thugs who "manage" the Fukushima plant and the yakuza thugs who line up workers willing to die for a decent wage.

Our Man urges you to read the tweets written at the press conference by @Nictos and archived here by the mysterious Tokyo Outsider. Seems our hero journo, Tomohiko Suzuki, worked undercover at the Fukushima plant until his cover was blown from taking notes during company meetings (the fool!). There are lots of salacious details and broader points that you really should read - such as the "we're all in it together" narrative of 3/11 being exposed for the bullshit that it is, but Our Man would just like to add his two-yen...

The claims of official foot-dragging and turning a blind eye to ensuring workers are kept ignorant enough to endanger their own lives strike Our Man as entirely believable and consistent with his own experiences of covering the Vertac plant that was tasked with incinerating 30,000 drums of Agent Orange in Jacksonville, Arkansas, back when Our Man was a cub reporter in the '90s.

What does it all mean? Our Man, as usual, hasn't the foggiest. But he would just like to remind folk as they ching their microwaves, recharge their iphones or, ahem, read spurious blog posts: all this electricity comes at a price. A hell of a price.

1 BANANA, 2 BANANA, 3/11 BANANA MORE

2011-12-15T02:38:00.000+09:00

That pesky earthquake has changed everything. And nothing, of course.

Our Man misses the halcyon pre-quake days when he could wax lyrical about the ineptitudities of the higher ups, you know, Japanese pols billing taxpayers for bullet train tickets so they can go shag their mistresses for free; fiery Yomiuri Shimbun editorials about the desperate need for more panels, committees and ad hoc panel committees.

But in the dog days of 2011, Our Man's lost his funny bone. There's plenty of nonsense for sure in the strange post-quake Abiko. But the rounds of digging up the schoolyard to bury the radioactive topsoil under the regular soil, while absurd, are not that funny when Our Man knows it's his daughters' playground.

And Our Man is tired. Tired of suggesting that nuclear power is far too dangerous thing to allow the libidinous octogenarians who constitute the higher-ups of Japan to manage; and then getting shouted down by the nuke-heads on twitter that whatever latest radioactive sea water, contaminated rice, beef or baby milk formula is only as radioactive as one banana. Or two bananas. Or three.

And the worst of it is, they are right. But Our Man isn't keen on bananas.

So, Our Man read this opinion piece on the Japanese government funneling billions of yen of quake relief into protecting the whaling fleet, and he just thought, has everything changed? Has it?

Because the view from Our Man's bunker is nothing has.

Anyway, enjoy the purrrty music while you can.

NO WONDER 90% OF NEWS IS BULLSHIT

2011-12-06T02:13:00.001+09:00

Source: Frugal dad

ICING ON THE CAKE

2011-11-28T01:39:00.001+09:00

Our Man is pretty chuffed to announce that the Let Them Eat Cake fund to put Christmas cakes into the hands (and mouths) of tsunami survivors of Ishinomaki has reached and surpassed its goal of raising ¥640,000 (about $8,000?) in under three weeks. We happy few in the bunker wish to thank everyone who gave something.

The fund is now officially more or less shut. If you were going to give, but didn't pull your finger out in time, tough. Continue your vice-like grip on your pennies, there will be more chances to do the right thing. Right now, we are figuring how many cakes to order and thanks to your limitless kindness (well, some of you) we will probably get a bouncy castle as well for the kids. But you didn't come here for such life-affirming sweetness, did you?

Nahh, if you are anything like Our Man, you came here for snide potshots at the higher-ups. Well, how about this piece from Jake Adelstein on Tsuneo Watanabe - Japan's Rupert Murdoch - one of Our Man's many top-tier former bosses. Stick that in ya cake hole, Chairman.

PEPPER SPRAY IN EYE OF BEHOLDER

2011-11-22T01:10:00.001+09:00

Our Man will return to radio silence shortly to crack though more novel rewrites, but before he does, can he just post his favourite piece of Casually-Pepper-Spray-Everything-Cop art?

OCCUPY, ARAB SPRING, SOCIAL MEDIA: THE LIMITS OF FREE

2011-11-21T01:10:00.001+09:00

Free. Like this blog. Our Man is free to write what the hell he wants and you are free to take it or leave it, at no cost. Free, right?

Free for all to see - the inhumanity of the University of California at Davis. A horror? Yes. An aberration? No, not by a long stretch. Forget for a moment the heavy-handed police response that is official policy now in much of the Free World to deal with dissent, or the full-body X-ray scanners in US airports and other acts in the security theatre that we are but players, not to mention the Collateral Murder video (oh, but we don't mention that now because the messenger is an arrogant arse, so we are free to disregard the message)... this was on American soil, dammit.

Soil that is not fit for tents, which are a health and safety hazard, according to the university chancellor, thus warranting the sending in of the campus cops in riot gear. Well it was for the students' own good, that pepper spraying. Pepper is a vegetable, after all. Like pizza.

Our Man watched the two longer videos at Boing Boing, and was struck by three other thoughts.

He gets the "Shame on you" chants but not the "Don't shoot children" ones. If you want to effect real change, to be taken seriously as a force for good, why would you willingly put yourself down as being just children? Unless you want special treatment.
What a lot of students taking pictures. But only a dozen or so martyrs protesting. Our Man would like to think if he were there shooting a video, he'd bloody well sit with the protesters. If not, it's just protest theatre, as meaningless as the 100ml contact lens solution limit to protect us from terror at airports. Unless these band of brothers, these happy few, actually wanted the cops to overstep the mark and be filmed doing it? Gosh, perish the thought.
The cops. My god, Our Man watched Mr Donut's finest surrounded by chanting students shortly before Pike sprays the vermin and he saw not the jackboot of authoritarianism (although they were all wearing black and had those Nazi/Alien helmets) but the amateurism of privately paid mall cops.

Is Our Man siding with the forces of oppression? Well, not if he can help it, but something strange does come over you when you hit middle age. It started in his 30s and now is rampant in his second score of years: he, er, finds he has more in common with the powers that be than the revolting students. Speaking of which, according to this petition, the whole demonstration was organised by a university teacher who wants the chancellor's head.

But, all that is by the by. It's free speech, right? As American as Hawaiian cobblers:

Perhaps we should look elsewhere for moral leadership. How about Egypt? Our Man certainly enjoyed looking at Aliaa Magda Elmahdy's website here, but after he and three million other "readers" checked out the entirely liberating nude pics of a 20-year-old girl, he did finally get it. In the land of the veil, to go nude is a radical statement of free speech. And terrifyingly brave. Sorry, no shot of her courageousness, you'll have to brave the NSFW link yourself. Oh, but here are her words (that's all you were really interested in, right?)

Words. Which brings Our Man to Social Media. That means Facebook and Twitter and a whole bunch of other bollocks that don't cost a thing (in cash, not necessarily in time or sanity). Free, right?

We've long known that Facebook was evil and is selling every link you click on to advertisers, whether you are logged in or not, but now Twitter is joining in the snoop-a-thon with that bloody stupid activity bar. You can now snoop on all activity of your followers, a power Mubarak could only dream of.

But don't worry, it's all free, isn't it?

STOP FAFFING ABOUT AND SPEND SOME MONEY

2011-11-16T01:05:00.001+09:00

Things you really should pay for:

1. Get off your arse and commission (that means pay) Quakebook's own Mari Kurisato NOW to do some art for that project you've been meaning to do for ages because, well, she's facing eviction if she doesn't make rent by December 3rd.

2. A cake for Christmas for the long-suffering tsunami kids of Ishinomaki.

3. A hardback bilingual edition of Quakebook for Christmas for loved ones (and others you are obliged to buy presents for. Might as well make it a good book that is for charity and all).

Yes, yes, it's tedious all this right-on stuff, but dammit, what else were you going to spend your disposable income on (since Our Man's novel is still in a quagmire of rewrites...)?

TSUNAMI SURVIVORS: LET THEM EAT CAKE

2011-11-11T00:46:00.001+09:00

Been a while, huh? Apologies, the novel and the cover life have been taking their toll on time for the deep reflection that readers (of other blogs) have come to expect. There was also another matter that has been taking up Our Man's time these last couple of nights, and maybe you could help him out.

It's those tsunami survivors of Ishinomaki. They have survived and all have (pretty shoddy) temporary homes to see them through this winter, somehow, or their partially livable damaged homes. The need for immediate relief has, Our Man believes, past. But there is a small matter of Christmas coming up.

Specifically, Our Man's. See, he can hardly in good conscience sit around supping 7-Eleven Bordeaux watching the half dozen copies of his by then complete e-novel flying off the virtual shelves if he knows that plenty of kids are miserable this Christmas and he is in a position to do something about it. Well, he is and he will.

Our Woman in Abiko made a promise to the kids of Ishinomaki that she would return, and, by MacArthur, she will. This time bearing cakes. It's all part of a fiendish DIY Keynesian plan to support a community and blah blah blah you are not really reading this are you? Our Man will skip to the numbers:

1. Give Our Man and Our Woman some money (direct to our charity bank account or via PayPal)
2. OWIA orders cakes, cookies and shopping vouchers from two bakeries just reopened in the tsunami zone.
3. Agents Provocateurs infiltrate the tsunami zone and give them to the needy on Christmas Eve.

We help put a smile on the face of kids, we put some cash into the local economy and Our Man can enjoy his Christmas in peace, dammit.

Sound like a good idea? Go here and read more or just donate some loose change at the right of the blog.

Check out the running total here. Oh, just one other thing...

We need ¥640,000 by December 1st to order 100 cakes, 100 biscuits and 100 shopping tokens. If you are in a position to help, please do. Our Man would appreciate it. Almost as much as the people of Ishinomaki.

ABIKO 2011: BEND OVER, YOU WON'T FEEL A THING

2011-11-02T02:56:00.000+09:00

Oh. There seems to be something happening on November 13th in Abiko. The blank signboards are up outside key means of public communication and Our Man's letter box has been stuffed with pictures of smart-casual folk in hard hats staring into the middle distance. Either the Abercrombe and Fitch catalogue has gone amateur hour or there's a city council election afoot.

Of course there's only one issue this election: which candidate can dig up the most soil. See, Abiko is a hotspot for radiation. Possibly because of the rain storm that swept through these parts back in March when the meltdown that wasn't a meltdown but actually was a meltdown happened, or didn't happen, depending on who you read or what you can remember about 3/11; or because they keep burning radioactive stuff and creating radioactive ash at the incinerators down the road in Kashiwa; or because everywhere is irradiated, which means nowhere is, relatively speaking, right?

Right.

So anyway, candidate A promises to remove more soil than candidate B from Abiko's schoolyards, parks and other public land. Thank goodness radiation only affects public property with easily accessible topsoil. Our Man wonders where they plan to put all this soil? They wouldn't just dig it up and bury it on site in schools in a big hole would they? Because that would be counterproductive and downright silly. So they won't do that.

Anyway. Our Man will try* to keep up to date on all the local races so you don't have to.

By the way, the novel. #halflifebook remember? is coming along. On the second draft now. Hoping it can make a public appearance in December. Working on it.

*"try" in the sense of "if a leaflet lands through his letter box and the picture of the candidate looks like a potato or some such equally comical non-candidate-like thing, he might, MIGHT, consider taking a pic of it and posting it here."

RADIOACTIVE SOIL: DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS

2011-10-23T16:23:00.001+09:00

Our Man was on his way to a Halloween Party for 40 little devils this morning, when he noticed the kids' football club was playing a tournament at his local primary school. Nothing odd there. Except this is the schoolyard they are digging up next month because it's too radioactive for kids to play on.

Right.

So why are kids playing an officially sanctioned footy tournament on the grounds? Our Man is not good at logic when he is sober, but all he can come up with is the following:

It's not really dangerous. If so, why are they digging up the topsoil from next month?
It is dangerous. So why encourage kids to play football?

Our Man can only conclude that, logically speaking, a) the authorities want all future footballers to die, or b) a city councillor has just gone into the soil removal business.

(There is a Third Way: nobody has a clue what they are doing. Perhaps you should consider that, logically speaking - ed.)

ODE TO (POST-FUKUSHIMA) AUTUMN

2011-10-17T14:29:00.001+09:00

Season of misinformation and mellow fruitlessness! Close bosom-friend of the radioactive sum; Conspiring with TEPCO's record to play on our fears With Geiger counters round the thatch eaves run; To bend with incompetence and doubt, And fill all statements with suspicion to the core; To swell the profit margin and plump the regulators With sweet payoffs, to set budding more plants, And still more, later poison for the generations Until they think radioactive ash will never cease For Fukushima fear has o'er-brimmed our clammy selves.

Original poem here. The rework was inspired by the bagging of the last of the persimmons from the tree outside Our Man's bunker. In previous years he would have distributed the fruit to friends and neighbours. The fruit is probably perfectly safe to eat. But "probably" doesn't cut it in these post 3/11 times.

As you were.

ABIKO PREOCCUPIED

2011-10-12T01:03:00.000+09:00

Can't stay long. Our Man occupied Abiko, but Abiko was preoccupied with the daily grind. Which Our Man is, on his novel, don't you know. But it's getting there. Anyway, saw the above cartoon from here and thought of you. Carry on.

OCCUPY ABIKO, SUNDAY AT NOON (UNLESS IT RAINS)

2011-10-06T01:40:00.003+09:00

Occupy Abiko is on for this weekend. The revolution starts at noon, Sunday (weather dependent).

Our Man has no demands, but he does have a BBQ and a tent. You might ask, fellow agent provocateurs, do you have any famous lefties with books and/or movies to flog who will come out to speak and/or flog their latest book and/or movie?

That is a good question, brothers and sisters. But a better one is: Will anyone hang around long enough for the sound of a thousand stories about how the media are ignoring Occupy Abiko to saturate the media? OK, that isn't as good a question as Our Man might have hoped for. Come on, you can do better.

Or, maybe not. Can anyone get Michael Moore or Naomi Klein to explain the significance of Occupy Abiko to Our Man? You can mock, but this is the face of change.

Come to think of it, Our Man is kinda leftie (at times) and will have a book to flog soon. In fact, he has exciting news to report, comrades. Not only is he done with the first draft of his novel, code name Half-Life, but he has started work on the rewrites. Only, er, there are so many, he needs to write an overview of the rewrites before he can rewrite them. Talk about mirrors within mirrors to infinity. Or not.

What can he tell you of the novel? It will feature a hafu heroine (Half-Life - see what he did there?). At least one person dies in the course of the novel (not the editor). If you are looking for a novel featuring the Abiko library, ice skating on the TV and a shopping bicycle chase scene - this is the one you have been (and will continue to have to) wait for. It's all there baby, all there. Only problem is the book is a bit too cinematic (in a shopping bicycle kind of way), needs more details, according to Our Man's still living editor, Dan Ryan. The meat and potatoes are there, it's just lacking the side portion of alfalfa or something.

Our Man will not rest until the alfalfa is inserted where it belongs. After he's finished this blog post and occupied Abiko, obviously.

BTW, you did know you can buy a hardback English language Quakebook and have it shipped anywhere in the world for free? But what do youuuu think?*

*Our Man doesn't care, just buy the sodding book, OK? Screw hypocrisy. Just do it.

HALF-LIFE WHOLE LOT CLOSER TO THE END

2011-10-02T03:32:00.000+09:00

Our Man has finished the first draft of his novel, working title Half-life, or #halflifebook on twitter. But there is still a bucket of rewriting to be done before he can let it loose on the beta readers*, let alone you, gentle non-beta readers. Right now, Our Man is toying with getting the narrator's voice right. Then he'll have to get stuck in to clean up the draft, make sure the characters behave themselves and the story makes some kind of sense. Although he may skip that last bit. Give him a week or two, eh? Anyway, many thanks to Dan Ryan who is labouring away as editor in Brisbane, California, trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the book, as Our Man potters about here.

What's this novel-writing lark all about? Damned if Our Man knows, but he saw the poster, lifted from here, and thought that was something to do with it.

*Not sure what beta readers are, but whatever they are, they will have to wait a bit more.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL (AND I'M NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU A BOOK)

2011-09-27T02:55:00.001+09:00

Yeah, yeah, it's a bit rich Our Man pontificating about how to write a novel when he is still (still, dammit, still) writing his first one, but he's seen a fair few shysters out there who will tell you how to write a novel, market it and make a $1,000 a second - even though they haven't written a novel, but have written a how-to-write ebook that you can get for $2.99 from Amazon. And they do speaking tours too. (And probably teach creative writing courses in universities and everything - ed.)

Well, Our Man ain't flogging no how-to-write book. But he was asked to recommend some useful advice on how to write a novel. The best advice, Our Man has learnt, is to just bloody well write and stop reading fuckwits trying to sell you their book about how they sold you their book. (As featured on twitter).

All that said, Our Man was asked by a writing damsel in distress for his advice on where to get some good writing advice. So here are three links that have helped Our Man:

1. How to write a novel in 100 days (excellent, practical advice on writing and not too much of it. Though the publishing stuff is way out of date).

2. The Passive Voice (excellent stuff and links to all aspects of publishing and self-publishing and writing too)

3. Terrible Minds (Yeah, his comical swearing gets a bit laboured at times, and yeah, his main published works are how to write books, but... his free advice is solid.)

Or save yourself some time and just follow these seven points from Kurt Vonnegut. And Our Man didn't even charge you $0.99.

Pic lifted from here (where there's even more bloody advice).

BEWARE THE OZAWA AIDES OF MARCH (OR SEPTEMBER)

2011-09-26T18:31:00.000+09:00

So, three aides to Ichiro Ozawa, the power behind the throne of Japanese politics, have been found guilty of being in the pay of a politician or something. Our Man doesn't get it. But you can be sure the papers tomorrow will be full of anti-Ozawa propaganda that will further weaken the ruling party (if they can indeed be weakened from their position of weakness).

No doubt the Yomiuri will have the answer to Japan's woes - lemme guess - a return to the status quo of 55 years of inept Liberal Democratic Rule? A nuke power station in every pot? Gee, I dunno, howabout a return to feudalism? That seemed to do the trick, so much easier than this pesky democracy lark.

If anyone thinks Ozawa is an odious toad who is the root of all evil in Japanese politics, perhaps you should read this before swallowing the spittle from the Yomiuri Ministry of Truth.

THIS JUST IN - but, according to someone who watches such things, it looks to be all over for Ozawa. Ho hum.

BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS FUKUSHIMA REPORT AND SUCH

2011-09-24T22:05:00.002+09:00

Evening all. Our Man has come into some intel he thought you might want to know. It's from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Not sure what all it means, but they are the folks with the atomic clock they are forever tinkering with. It's always running a bit before 12 for some reason.

Anyway, they have just released their six-month scholarly report into Fukushima and I won't pretend it makes for comfortable reading. Mainly because I haven't read it. But are you sitting comfortably? Then you may begin.

Here it is here in English. And koko in Japanese.

Now, back to the novel writing...

NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED. SOMEDAY

2011-09-21T23:42:00.000+09:00

Deadlines suck.

Or more accurately, missing deadlines sucks.

Or more accurately still, setting yourself impossible deadlines and then not meeting them sucks.

Yes, Our Man was supposed to have had this novel-writing monkey off his back by now, a full month and a half after declaring he would be done with the novel in a month. But Our Man has been busy. In between earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, there was this mission to Ishinomaki too.

But enough excuses, no more distractions. Not even from this blog, sadly, starting from now. Honest. There's probably another 10 hours of work to get the novel first draft finished, and Our Man intends to find those hours this week. And this twitter account could be Our Man, but sadly isn't. Honest.

And quit bothering Our Man for 10 hours (one Ourmani hour is about 24 in human hours).

As you were.

3/11 REMEMBER? NUKE CATASTROPHE REMEMBER?

2011-09-14T02:59:00.004+09:00

Our Man has been accused of doing a Woody Allen - going all introspective and being not very funny (not, he assumes of shagging an adopted daughter). Guilty as charged (the humour thing, not the adopted daughter thing).

But then, in mitigation, may he say life's pretty funny, just not funny hah hah at the mo. The bunker is a right mess, with various supplies for a children's fair in Ishinomaki Our Woman is organising spilling out from under the stairs; Japanese politics seems to have not bloody changed at all with the same old bickering and non-scandal scandals simmering.

And remember all that power-saving sacrifice that the plucky Japanese stoically bore? It's all over. Saving energy is so last season, baby, this month it's bung another plutonium log on the fire and march on to the 3DTV shop to spend for the betterment of Japan.

Oh, and no-one is to blame for the nuke catastrophe, according to operator Tepco - it was a natural disaster beyond anyone's control, although it's a wonder anyone can read between the nuke power lines, they are so redacted.

Sigh. But the novel is coming along. It'll be done in less than one Japanese Prime Minister, and should have a few funny bits in it (funny strange or funny hah hah? - ed). Nearing end of first draft, but it's still, how you say, unfocused (oh, I get it - ed).

As you were.

WHAT FUKUSHIMA MEANS

2011-09-10T18:43:00.004+09:00

"I sympathise immensely but regret that I cannot offer the comfort of clarity. The nuclear disaster has been terrifying, but not as expected. If someone had told me a year ago that three reactors would melt down simultaneously, I would have assumed an apocalypse. Yet Japan today is not like any doomsday I imagined. Instead, there is a kind of slow decay. After three visits to Fukushima, I am less afraid of radiation than I was a year ago but more worried about Japan."

This is the conclusion to a very moving, balanced summary of what Fukushima means now to Japan, its people and all who give a damn.

Full story here by Jonathan Watts.

ALMOST TO THE DAY

2011-09-10T01:12:00.009+09:00

Ten years later.
Almost to the day.
Time for TV to fake mourn
and fake reflect for the fallen.

What evil genius abroad that takes lives
Also forces viewers to take sides,
So that what has been lost is not only
our innocence, but also perspective.

The victims of 9/11 are rightly remembered
mourned and invoked.
Have we done them justice by stockpiling
bodies 24/7 around the globe?

Bankrupted, corrupted, morally suspect.
A war machine running on empty.
Bin Laden is dead!
USA! USA! USA!

But who has carried the day?

(Appologies for this attempt at poetry. For a proper poem worthy of 9/11 victims, go here.)

#quakebook INTERCEPTED NON-REDACTED CABLE

2011-09-07T01:19:00.000+09:00

I'm here today with the man known as Our Man in Abiko. Welcome, thank you for taking the time today.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

So I guess we're here to talk about Quakebook.

Our Man: That's right. That's why I'm here. Um, shall I explain a little about Quakebook?

Please do. Now the title of the actual book is 2:46?

Our Man: Is 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake. That's right.

OK, please tell us a little about it.

Well, sure. And really, we call it, uh, Quakebook. Uh, that's how it's known. It started out as just a crazy idea. I was having a shower one week after the earthquake, and I thought, “What can I do to help? I'm just an English teacher, uh, in Abiko, uh, on the outskirts of Tokyo. Um, so what can I do?” Well, I used to be a newspaper reporter and newspaper subeditor, so I have some skills. Uh, not, nothing that I thought was useful, but I could make a book. Um, so, I have no staff; where can I find some staff? Aha! I have Twitter. So that's really a very simple idea, and so I thought I would collect people's experiences of the earthquake, put it together, sell the book, and all the profits will go to the Red Cross. That's the basic idea, and it's just grown from there.

Now you were fairly active on Twitter before this, right?

I was, yeah. I had a, a crazy blog, uh, “Our Man in Abiko,” uh, and it was a way of, uh, letting off steam from being an English teacher. I sometimes, I wanted to talk about politics, I wanted to talk about media and things that maybe my students were tired of hearing about. So I had this, uh, crazy character, this anonymous character who, um, was a kind of, uh, out-of-work British secret agent. Uh, that was the idea. That was the character, um, who could just talk about any, any silly stuff.Uh, then, you know, so I had a, I had a following of at least some journalists and, um, artistic people, and people interested in Japan, so that was a good base to start with. Uh, then when the earthquake happened, suddenly I thought, well this character, instead being a wa-, a waste of time, could really spring forward and become a real, almost a real person. And, uh, lead the resistance against the earthquake.Uh, it's, but of course, I can't do that. I'm just an English teacher. But maybe Our Man in Abiko can, can lead the troops. And that's how it all began.

I, I know the fact that you were using this alias, it almost left some people suspicious. They were worried that this Quakebook thing might be a scam, that, uh, the money would be going to you. I mean, why did you choose to remain anonymous?

Um, many reasons. I mean, you know, people are suspicious and naturally suspicious, especially when you ask for their money. So, I've been, I've been very clear right from the beginning, no money comes to me or to Quakebook. And we don't even touch the money. It all goes straight to the Red Cross. It goes through Amazon. Um, I, I don't even know exactly how much money there is because we don't touch it.Um, but, yeah, why did, why be anonymous? Again it's to be a character. I, if I tell you my real name, it's just, “Oh.” You know, nothing interesting there. But if I say, “Well actually I'm the, I'm the leader of the, of the resistance movement to the earthquake and my name's Our Man in Abiko,” you may think I'm kind of crazy, but you think, “OK. Tell me more.” And that's what I wanted. “OK.” You know, ha-ha.So, and knowing, other reasons are I want to be anonymous, um, so that my family is not involved in this. I didn't know how big this would become. Um, or, you know, I didn't want to bother anybody. So that was another reason. Um, and also, frankly, it's just more fun this way. And it's a, it's a, it was a project born on the Internet, so it deserves to have a sort of Internet identity. So people use crazy names on the Internet, um, but that's why I've, I've been happy to do interviews like this one to prove I am a real person and this isn't a scam. Um, all the money does go to the Red Cross, um ... and that's it.

I understand that, uh, Amazon was quite helpful through this.

Very helpful, yeah. Um, right from the beginning, we thought, “Well, we've got this book ...,” um, and we could have done one of two things: we could have put it out as an e-book on our blog and just asked people to, to donate. Uh, because it's a very complicated system on how to get the money. But I thought, “No. This book deserves to go higher.” And I thought, “Well, what's the number-one place to go? Well, everybody knows Amazon. Uh, what, we'll try Amazon.” Uh, it's a crazy idea. Who, I mean who, they're not going to listen to us. And at first, they were a little resistant. They thought, “Well, you know, we don't want to be seen as being ambulance chasers.” Um, so, on Twitter, I, I announced, “Well, look, the way around that is you don't take any money. Then you're not being an ambulance chaser, you're just helping.”I put that idea out, and one of the followers, um, an American businessman in Tokyo said, “Oh, wow. Yeah, I, I understand that. Let me help you.” So he got on the telephone. He said, “I've got a few connections with Amazon.” And he just kept going up the chain of command. Allegedly, the president of Amazon. Um, uh, but it got pretty high up, uh, and the, that meant that we could, uh, get all the fees waived. So, um, we raised, uh, over $30,000 just from an e-book, which, uh, lots of people don't know what an e-book is. And to raise $30,000 from it was great. Um, and then we had a, another idea which was to make the e-book free.

Yes, this happened quite recently.

Uh, yeah. Two, two weeks ago, was it? Two weeks ago. One week ago! Anyway, recently we decided to change the style of giving out the book. I think most people who wanted to buy the book on an e-book had already done so. And everybody else was waiting for the real book to come out. Um, so we thought, well let's use this to our advantage. “OK everybody. Hey, we're going free. If you're interested in this book, download it!” A lot of people say “You're crazy. How can you raise money for charity by giving a free book? You know, we want money.”Well, the idea is that you look at the, the book, uh, online and think, “Oh, that's great!” And then you go and you say, “Oh, I want to buy the real copy.” The real copy's coming out, uh, next week. By the time this interview's out, it will be out there. Uh, and I'm just so amazed that we've got a bilingual English and Japanese version that's coming out, uh, which you can buy from any, or most Japanese shops and, of course, Amazon. Um ...

So the only print version is going to be the bilingual version.

The first print version.

The first print version.

There's another print version, a hard-back English version, in the works which, again, by the time this interview gets out, it should be in the shops. That's a print-on-demand, so you ha-, you go there and you say, “I want this book,” and they print it and send it to you. But you can buy it from a bookshop.

OK. So it's going to be stocked in major shops?

Yes. The, um, well, I hope so. Uh, we have no, we have an advertising budget of zero. So we're up against the, we need word of mouth. We need people to say, to go to their local bookshop and say, “I want to buy Quakebook 2:46.” Uh, and they can order it. There's an ISBN number―in publishing, every book has an ISBN number―they can look that up for you. They can order it and you can get it through, through the bookshop. The more people that do that, the more shops will stock it, and then we can make more money for the, uh, Red Cross.Something to say about the, uh, the, the book, you know, when you put out an electronic book, the costs are almost zero, so you can give all the money to charity. Uh, with a real book, there are real costs―you've got the paper and the printers, you know, and people can't work for free. So, people should understand there are, a lot of costs are coming out of that. But it's written into the contract that a minimum of 44 percent of the cover price will go to the Red Cross, which, if you know anything about publishing, is an amazing proportion.

Yeah, that's a pretty good number.

Yeah, well, if I can give a shout-out to Goken, our publishers, they waved all of their profits, um, and of course, no profits go to Quakebook, so all of that goes to the Japanese Red Cross. Uh, which is the best that we can do. Um...

I think that even e-books, if they're coming through a regular publisher, of course, you have to pay staff and they have, you'll have a certain amount of production costs but …

Yeah you do. But, you know, usually Amazon and other publishing companies take 30 percent, um, for costs and profit. So, you know, Amazon waived all of that. So, you know, it's just been, a lot of people want to help, and this is how big companies can help, um, and how ordinary people can help, by buying the book.

So how many people were involved in putting this together?

That, that's a very good question. I have no idea. It is the honest answer. Uh, in the back of the book, you'll see, uh, I believe 40 names, and they are people that I know exactly what they did, and I can say yes, they, they helped. You've got 40 people there, you've got, uh, 89 contributors, so that's 129, right? Uh, but then you've got so many other people on Twitter who've been talking about it and sending messages of encouragement, and they play a role. You've got lots of people who downloaded, uh, posters and put them up and told their friends, so they're kind of involved. Um, you've got friends of friends who have just chipped in and said, “Oh, it's OK,” you know, uh, “Can I help with the translation, and, oh, you don't need to put my name in.” So, you know, a rough estimate 200 people have been involved directly with this book. Um, amazing.And, you know, of those people, I think I knew one person before this began. Everybody else, I met on Twitter, and it was just a bizarre situation. You, you'd, you'd write, I'd say, “I want to have some people writing,” and they'd send in some, some stories. “OK, I've got these stories, I need to sub-edit them. Are there any sub-editors out there?” And somebody in California: “Yeah, yeah. I, I can do it. I'm free.” “Oh great, OK. I'll give it to you ... Oh no, I've got this all, all in Japanese, my Japanese isn't good enough. Any translators out there at a, at a loose end?” Somebody in Ireland'll say: “Yeah, my wife's Japanese. She'll do it.” “Great!”And, and, and so we had a global operation going, you know, uh, uh, a 24-hour operation, headquartered in Abiko. Um, and, and, and part of the, part of the, the purpose was to get people to help because I'm sure you remember one week after the earthquake, everybody's feeling a little helpless and scared still―there were still aftershocks. And everybody wants to know, “What can we do to help?” So this was one way.So I encourage people to, to do what they can. My only criteria was, what can you do? Um, you know, can you help? That was, that was it. And people'll say, “Yes, I can.” “OK, you're in.” Um, you know, I, I didn't need to see a resume, or, you know, if you tell me you can translate, OK, here you go. Translate it. And that's how it worked, so we pulled it off in one week, we got the book written.

Wow.

Yeah, it was great.

You had, uh, two or three major names, fairly famous people, get involved, and that was all through Twitter as well.

Yeah. That was, that was crazy. So I, I thought, you know, this would be a nice record, a history from the bottom up, uh, from ordinary people, which was fine. Uh, and then one day, uh, about three days into the project, uh, I got a tweet from, a message from, just, uh, one of my followers on Twitter who said, “Hey, did you see that William Gibson, uh, is, uh, tweeting about Quakebook?” I was like, “Wow. William Gibson, the science-fiction writer?” “Yeah.” “Ah. Wow, that's great.”And, uh, and I didn't think anything more about it. My followers said, “Hey, why don't you ask him if he wants to contribute?” I thought, “Well, he's, he's Mr. William Gibson. He's not gonna contribute of ... but all right, yeah, what, what the heck. I'll do it.” Bam-bam-bam-bam, sent off a[n] e-mail, heard nothing from him, and I just thought, “Oh, it's, nothing's going to happen.”So, we just joked about it on Twitter, you know, like, “Oh, we've got everything in this book, uh, but we don't have a famous science-fiction writer. Anybody know a famous science-fiction writer who'd like to write for us?” Uh, but I didn't realize, uh, he'd gone to bed. He was in Vancouver. He didn't see all this stuff. Uh, but when he got up in the morning and he read the message, h-he just sent me a direct message saying, “Yeah, sure. I'll do it. What's my deadline?” I thought, “Wow! Great!”And so, uh, that, that felt like victory. Uh, suddenly I knew a, a famous name was, was joining us and he didn't have to, and he n―there was no talk of money, there was no talk of anything, just “What can I do to help?” And I thought, “Well that's exactly the same spirit that, that everybody involved has been doing this.” So he said, “What's, what's my deadline?” And I said, “Well, uh, three hours?” I just picked a number out. And so I gave William Gibson a three-hour deadline.

You're a fierce editor.

Yeah. I was in, I was in editing mode, you know? Uh, and he did. Three, I, I went back to bed and, and, and caught three hours' nap. When I woke up there was an e-mail from him with a, a, a 300-word piece, a one-page piece―an original that he'd written in three hours. So that was, that was the beginning, Uh, uh, I knew it was gonna be a success.Our Man: Um, so the other famous people, uh, you may have heard of Yoko Ono ...

[Laughing] Perhaps. Yes.

Yeah. Uh, again this happened through Twitter. One of our followers contacted, uh, Yoko Ono. 'Cause she was tweeting a lot about, you know, she was doing a lot of helpful things to try and raise money and awareness for Japan. And one of our followers said, “Oh, have you heard about Quakebook?” Um, and she said no, and she, she started tweeting about Quakebook. And then my follower said, um, “Hey, why don't you write for us?”And I don't know if she saw that tweet or, you know, she's got lots of PR people, but somebody passed the message on to her, and she, one day, she sent a message back, said, “Yes, I'd love to.” And she'd written a piece, um, that was, when was that? On the, on March 11, on that same day, that she'd presented to people in New York, uh, in, uh, I think, Central Park. I'm not sure. Uh, but she'd written a piece, ready, uh, she said, “You can have that.” And she sent that with the Japanese.

I see. So this was something she'd written...

She'd written, but in the same spirit?

… for the event.

yeah, for another event, but in the same spirit as Quakebook. She just sort of, like, “What are my first emotions and feelings?” And she, and she wrote a very nice piece, uh, about, uh, experiencing an earthquake in Tokyo, uh, when John Lennon, when her husband was alive, with Sean when he was a baby. So she was sharing a, a common feeling. So, you know, it's been amazing. We've, I've, this thing called Twitter has, and, and Quakebook has linked. My, my wife, she wrote something. My mother-in-law, she wrote something, my neighbors. Um, uh, with people around the world, uh, and famous people like Yoko Ono and William Gibson.

And of course there's some stories from, from the, the worst-hit areas, as well.

Well, uh, yeah, exactly. I mean, it started off as a small thing just to share experiences. And then I realized, well, you know, I'm getting a lot of, um, foreigners writing, because I'm writing in English, of course. Uh, we need more Japanese. So my wife said, “Well, we'll, I'll ask my neighbors.” So we got some, some of our neighbors. And then we thought, “Well, you know, we need more people who've really suffered to tell, tell what's happened.” My wife said, “OK, I'll have a look on the Internet.” So my wife got in touch with people from some of the really hard hit areas, um, including Sendai, um, where there was a, a, a family who, uh, had to be evacuated, um, and they had a very, uh, harrowing story. Um, also, uh, near Fukushima. So, we had some people, not a lot, but some people who really, really did suffer a lot, and just gave their point of view, and, uh, the idea was to pull everything together, so no one person's experience is better or worse than another's. It just tells the story of what happened to this country, and the world, uh, on 3/11. That was the idea.

What was the most difficult thing you had to face in putting it together? Were there some, some challenges you didn't expect?

Um, I didn't realize how much work it was going to be. Um, a-and I didn't realize how little I knew about publishing. You know, I have a background in local newspapers, so I thought that would be enough. Uh, but it isn't. There, there are a, an army of people involved in making a book, even an e-book. Um, uh, but, you know, every time I came up against an obstacle, I'd just get on Twitter. I'd say, “Oh, you know, apparently I need a translator. Let's get a translator.” And, “Oh, we want to publish this book. I need a publisher!” “Oh, we want to do this in Japanese and English. Um, can anybody do that?”So every time there was a problem, we'd ask. And we started off, I, I didn't know what a literary agent was, but I thought I needed one. So I asked Twitter, and they said, “Oh, talk to this person.” I went, “Great.” In the end, we, we, kind of, didn't need a literary agent. I still don't know what a literary agent is or does. We just sort of did it ourselves, and I think that was the philosophy of Quakebook, was, um, “If you don't know how to do it, ask.” And “Do it first, and then figure out if it's possible later.”Because, uh, and, the, the, you know, the wonderful thing―if I can say is wonderful about something terrible like the earthquake―is it really focuses everybody's minds, and we all stop our petty problems and, you know, “Oh, I don't want to do that because I can't make any money,” or “I don't want to do this because I'm not really very good at this.” No, everybody said, “What can I do?”So I had a designer in, in, um, Denver, um, who, she, she, she's an illustrator. She can't lay out books, but I didn't have a layout artist. I said, “Can you lay out the book?” She said, “OK, I'll give it a go.” And she did a great job. So she did our first draft. And she's just an illustrator, you know. Uh, and, and I'm not an editor, I'm an English teacher, but I, you know. So, so there's something strong about, uh, an earthquake or a, a national disaster, uh, that everybody stops worrying about little things, and, and wants to help.

So, I know you recently visited Tohoku in person. Tell us a little about, uh, what you saw and what you did.

Sure, I'm still getting over the emotions of, of what I saw. I we, we went, uh, this last weekend. Um, uh, we went to Ishinomaki, which was a, a very strange situation. I mean parts of Ishinomaki are like a war-zone. Uh, a, a large chunk of the city, about, I don't know, three, three or four square kilometers, it's just horrific. Uh, and then, you go out of that area and it's normal life. There's 7-Eleven, and, um, people going about their business. Uh, and it's just really strange, the, the, to see. Some people are still living in, um, as I say, w-war conditions. Um, most people have left. It's a very depressing place. Th-there is no life there in that, in the, if I can call it “ground zero.” I mean there's, there's nothing, nothing happening there. And yet there are still people living on the second floors.Um, so, yeah, I, I know, you see the, if you go to someplace like Ishinomaki, and I guess Kesennuma, it really focuses the mind, there are still people that need help. And more than that, we've got to rebuild this area, or, or do something with it. Or re-house the people, and it's an enormous task.Before I went, I was very critical of, uh, bureaucracy and, “Oh, why haven't they given more food, quickly! And why haven't they built houses for all these people?” And you go and you see how big a problem it is, and I'm a little bit more patient. And I realize, you know, OK, you're giving, giving charity to people. Who do you give, who do you give first? What do you give? Do you look after the old people first? Or do you look after the young people? Obviously the old people. But if you look after the old people, the young people will go look for a job somewhere else, and then the town has no, has no income. So maybe you should―you know. Uh, these are big questions. The―there's not an easy answer.

Do you get a better sense of the scale, being there in person?

Yeah, you do. Uh, you know, and you sit here in Tokyo and you think, “Oh, yes, we suffered so much.” We didn't suffer at all. You know, the lights went off for a while, and, and the building shook, and we got a little bit scared. Uh, but you go up there, and they, you know, I walked around, uh, I, I ga-, well, to explain, I went there with my wife and some neighbors and we, we collected some clothes and food and basic things, and gave it out to the, kind of, free flea market. So just a little thing that we could do on one weekend. While we were there, I thought, well, I'll just have a look around. And I walked around this area, and there are houses with names pasted onto the side of the house saying, “I'm no longer here, but please look for me. I'm in Yamaguchi,” or “I'm somewhere else,” “I'm with my parents.” There were other signs that say, “I'm looking for the person who lived here. Um, they may still be in this building.” You know, and you go, “What?” “There, there may be a body in this building.” You know. “Please check.”I, it's just, and you think, well how can that be happening in, in Japan? And you reali-, it's just so enormous, and, you know, there are people there, the, the, the self-defense forces are there, the police are there, and they're doing their job, but it's just such an enormous job. Y-you have to prioritize and say, “Well, these houses are gone, you know, but we can work on this.”So, you know, you see that and you think, “Well,” you know, “what can I do?” you know. So, um, I'm not sure what the answers are. I think that's the challenge for everybody is, “What can we do?” Um, I can write a little, I can edit. That's what I can do. Other people can, can run a marathon and raise some money. Other people, you know, I don't know, they can teach an English lesson or, or volunteer or, or something. But I think everybody has to ask themselves “How can I help?”And don't wait for the government. You know, they've got their own problems, and, you know, rightly or wrongly, they're doing the best they can, or maybe they're not. I don't know. It's not really relevant. They do what they do. But we can do what we can do, and that's, that's, that's the point.So I think, I think that anybody listening to this, I would, I would ask them ― obviously to buy Quakebook, but that's not even so important. More important is find a way to make a difference. Uh, this was how I could make a difference, but you can find another way. And it's our duty to do that for the people who are really suffering.

(Secret handshake to interviewer Owen Schaefer) For audio, go here from the English Journal interview. Out now at all good news kiosks. Interview: June 8, 2011.

JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER SCANDAL: ALREADY?

2011-09-05T02:44:00.000+09:00

Take me to your leader

Crikey, that was quick. Is it a week into Noda's premiership yet? Seems he has a money scandal - a foreign national or two donated cash to his political campaign back in 2003 or so.

Well, "foreign national", but it was a South Korean permanent resident of Japan with a Japanese name, which is code for a Japanese person but because of having Korean parents cannot vote here, the only place he or she has ever called home.

Complicated isn't it? Well let's just call them foreigners who eat spicy, smelly food and carry on waving our little flags shall we? Sorry. Focus Our Man, focus.

So, not that scandalous, but really makes Our Man think:

1. Whoever is running this country is not doing a very good job at it.
2. Is there any pot of shit the Yomiuri won't stir?
3. Can we just replace the entire ruling elite with a ouija board or something. It would make decision-making far more democratic, efficient and, er, more betterer too.

Secret handshake to James of the Probe for the intel. And bonus points to the Yomiuri for doing its bit to stir Japanese nationalism and de-stabilise the government at the same time. Well done. You complete me.

I AM NOT A SILHOUETTE, I AM A FREE MAN

2011-09-04T21:48:00.000+09:00

First Steve Jobs, then Naoto Kan (remember him? Former prime minister of a middle-ranking country in the Far East near China and Korea... oh, never mind) and now Our Man's armed silhouette.

Yes, they have all been retired from active duty. In Our Man's case, his license to lift silhouettes willy nilly from practical joke shops has been revoked. So, while iconic, his avatar was not his own and, in these oh-so-serious post-quake days, had to go.　　

So, you may have seen a new face round here. That would be the excellent silhouette done by Mari Kurisato. The full effect at avatar-size though looked a little too much postage stampian (although Our Man preferred to think of it as Roman Emperoresquean), so with a little extreme cropping, Our Man came up with this cut.

The twitter reaction has been nasty, brutush and short. "Bit Hitchcockian" "It's a mashup of Hitchcock and Harry Potter. I like it."

That sounds like good company for Our Man to keep.

But you are all wrong. Look at the white, not the black, it's half a one-eyed space rabbit of course. Ohhhhhm.

Enough detail. You know Our Man never discusses matters of intelligence, and he's not about to start now.

As you were.

ABIKO FREE PRESS: A MODEST PROPOSAL

2011-09-02T02:52:00.000+09:00

So it's September 1st, and, er, Our Man hasn't quite finished writing his novel let alone published it within a month as he vowed all those heady four weeks ago. He was younger then, dammit. But he's sniffing-distance close now. He's writing Chapter 8 as we speak (there are only 10 chapters) and he will have it done in draft form in a matter of days. Dan Ryan is allegedly editing what Our Man has done so far, though he is a busy chap, as all we unpaid folk are. And Mari Kurisato has done a stunning cover. But you didn't come here to hear all that...

Our Man went for a few lengths up and down the swimming pool this evening and he got thinking.

In the age of the ebook, we all have the keys to the printing press - there is no-one telling you you can't get that book you have in you published.
Everyone who is so inclined can do, and you don't need Our Man or anyone else to get in your way.
But if you want a good quality book, the best that you can produce, you can't do it alone.
At the very minimum you need a proof-reader. An editor (someone who is looking for more than typos and style inconsistencies) would be desirable too. And a cover illustrator. Hell, a designer would be nifty. Oh, and a couple of beta readers (is that the right term?) before you let the book loose on the unsuspecting public.
Oh yeah, then there's marketing. Telling folk you've got a book, and it's good, and they should buy it.

OK, so what? Go cap in hand to a traditional publisher and stand in line for a decade or two until you have mastered how to write zombie fiction or 180 pages with footnotes. Go find some pros and pay them to do the thinking for you and you go back to sweeping the floor, Cinders. Or do it all yourself, and let your book find its level in the abysses of the virtual bargain bins of crap.

If you are waiting for Our Man to find the universal round peg that will fit in the square hole, he can't do it. But seems to him:

There are an awful lot of underemployed folk with some of the right skills who could improve the manuscripts no end.
Quakebook proved that with the right mindset, a bunch of skilled or at least keen amateurs working together can produce a professional product. Two hundred half-decent folk can outshine one brilliant one.
Yeah, but that took a lot of sleepless nights with a lot of selflessness because it was for charity baby, for the earthquake survivors.
True. But Our Man is proposing the glue that holds the non-charity project together may not be as strong, but could be longer lasting.

We do it for 1. Education (folk join the project because they want to learn how to be better writers, editors, proofers, narrative thingy whatevers. It's not for the experts who can command a higher price anyway) and 2. Money (as much as you want to devote countless hours to it, ya gotta get paid something.) Oh yeah, and 3. Love. Love of the written word. Because otherwise, what's the point?

OK, some back-of-the-envelope calculations:

Just going through Amazon, if you sell an ebook at $2.99, they keep 30 percent, but you, dear author keep 70 percent. That means, er, $2 or so. Less tax, you are looking at $1.80 or so. Now, if you have even a smallish blog/twitter/facebook following, a large family and a handful of friends willing to shell out the cost of one Starbucks coffee on your opus if you promise to shut up about it, you surely could sell 50 to 100 copies - $90 to $180.

How about instead of blowing that money on a frothy milkshake coffee every day for a month you used it to improve the quality of your book? You get a better finished book (which may well sell better over time), the rest of the folk get the warm fuzzies for helping you, working with words (which they love, remember?) and they get paid.

Not much - there is only 100 odd bucks in the kitty.

Our Man is not sure of the mechanics at the moment - how the author pays, and who gets paid and how much for different services. Maybe a database of folk offering services and folk needing services. But the idea is we keep publishing as hands-on as possible, as cheap as possible, as accessible as possible, with the onus on self-improvement. It's not a replacement for proper publishers, or a full-time income for those involved. It's just a way of improving what we all do. You learn, and then move on. Something like that, Our Man's not completely sure at the moment. These are just details.

But he does know two things:

1. This is no hippy collective, Our Man is boss, and there will be no goofing off while others do the heavy lifting.

2. He has nabbed the twitter name and .com already.

What do you think? What's he missed here? A lot no doubt, tell him.

YOSHIHIKO NODA: MADE IN JAPAN

2011-08-31T07:59:00.000+09:00

This Independent cartoon was doing the rounds of twitter last time Our Man had a tea break from writing his novel, and he thought you long-suffering blog-readers could do with a laugh.

Is it fair? (the cartoon, not long-suffering on this blog, that clearly is indefensible). Are all Japanese prime ministers churned out from the same factory? Depends how sharp a focus you take, Our Man supposes. Zoom out, and it's, what, 61 prime ministers since 1900? Highly productive, one must say. But zoom in close and you can see the differences. We had one with long hair (Koizumi, last seen in 2005) one with glasses (Fukuda?), one with the funky shirt (Hatoyama) and a vilified one (Kan) who just got booted for being as incompetent as the last half-dozen in as many years. At least Kan actually tried and almost managed to initiate a change - away from nuclear power - but failed to move the ship of state off its course set circa 1961.

Maybe the new guy will be better.

All hail Yoshihiko Noda! Here's what Our Man knows about Noda filtered through a newspaper and a neighbour who read one. He comes from Funabashi in Chiba Prefecture, just up the road from Abiko. He was good at judo in middle school. He wasn't good at public speaking in high school. But has improved somewhat since then.

It will all be so different this time.

Back to the novel. As you were.

KAN'S OUT. WHO'S NEXT?

2011-08-26T13:57:00.012+09:00

So, that's it then. Naoto Kan is officially about to be no longer prime minister of Japan. He has finally succumbed to what exactly? Being uncharismatic? Doddery? Unpopular? Passing a budget? Just like the rest of his unmemorable predecessors, except for the one with the cool hair. In the end, he did actually achieve something - turning off the nukes as a matter of principle. No doubt his successors will turn them back on again after what exactly? The nuke industry is given a damn good ticking off? They join hands in a grand coalition to bury the bad news with the survivors?

Hope you are happy Yomiuri, you have got your wish.

Who is next into the revolving door/hot seat/whatever? Who cares? I'm reminded of a quote by another bloke who had something to do with nukes:

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.

Albert Einstein

It's a shame principles in politics don't have the same half-life as nuclear radiation.

Pic lifted from here.

EBOOKS: VIABLE, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM. THAT PAYS. MAYBE

2011-08-24T00:01:00.000+09:00

Our Man is just about to spend more of his sleeping time churning out a chapter for his forthcoming novel (good idea - write in the same state as your readers will be - ed) and he just had a thought. Two actually.

1. He is sick of seeing the Yomiuri at the top of this blog.

2. The same economics that make ebooks viable also make a new kind of journalism viable.

Why tie yourself to a newspaper, free blog or book publisher and follow their dictats (and take a tiny 5% royalty or poxy one-off payment, if you are lucky) when you could publish an ebook or pamphlet on Amazon for $2.99 and keep 70% of the royalties.

OK, the big boys control the publicity, but not for much longer, methinks. Besides, you just need to write your story (say 10,000 words or a collection of 10 1,000-word articles say) and you could and should make more than the pittance you could get from news blogs and so on.

But the sales will be tiny.

At first. But build your audience.

And you keep the rights. And your work stays online, on sale for ever.

It's just up to you to write damn good journalism. Lord knows, we need it more than ever.

Just saying.

Paper mock-up made here.

YOMIURI SHIMBUN: A PRECIOUS NATIONAL RESOURCE?

2011-08-13T03:55:00.001+09:00

Worried about the future? Looking to be led to the promised land? Come, join hands with the Gomiuri. They have five ideas to save Japan.

That's one for each finger of each hand, unless you are a yakuza, but they are too busy dumping radioactive dirt in Precious National Treasures to lumber through the painful prose of the Godzilla of Ginza. No matter. Yours truly has taken his red pen out to mark up the latest missive from the Ministry of Truth, so you don't have to. Are you ready? Hold hands tight, off we go...

Our proposal calls for promoting cooperation between the ruling and opposition camps in carrying out reconstruction projects and policies, a task that requires the administration of Prime Minister Naoto Kan to be replaced with a new government capable of demonstrating initiative in overcoming the crisis.

Yawn. What? Oh, you want the bums who got thrown out on their backsides three years ago for being incompetent, corrupt shysters to get back in? Sheesh. Remember Aso? The guy before him? The guy before the guy before him? The guy before the guy before the guy before him? Yeah, I didn't think so. Anyway, carry on Yom...

The public has been extremely frustrated by the Kan government's inability to swiftly respond to the ongoing crisis. In disaster-hit areas, a large number of people feel helpless as they remain unsure about how to rebuild their lives.

Thank goodness they could wait five months for the Yomiuri to tell them the solution...

Kan's desperate attempt to stay on as prime minister, despite his loss of leadership through his failure to unite his Cabinet and his ruling Democratic Party of Japan, has contributed to prolonged political paralysis, worsened by the thoughtlessness of his spur-of-the-moment ideas regarding the basic energy policy and other issues.

Yeah, his crazy ideas like, er, dismantling the remaining 54 nuclear timebombs sitting in LDP heartlands all around this fair earthquake-prone nation... wait... LDP heartlands? Maybe he should leave them...

Parties must join hands

(Must they? Maybe in private would be OK)

As it now appears certain that Kan will step down as early as this month, the nation's politics will finally enter a new phase. Huzzah! But we must keep in mind that a major factor behind the delayed rehabilitation from the disaster was Kan's feckless political style. Like Yomiuri editorials?

Due to significant delays in Diet deliberations, the government has yet to move on to preparations for the compilation of a third supplementary budget for this fiscal year, which is expected to finance full-fledged restoration and reconstruction projects.

What-evvvvvver.

Kan regarded bureaucrats as the enemy, although they are in fact precious national resources.

Dear God. I am going to be sick. Precious. National. Resources. You read it here first, folks. So let's get this straight shall we? That 87,000 people are still homeless FIVE MONTHS after the disaster is the fault of Kan and those pesky politicians who keep trying to do things to, you know, solve problems and get re-elected and not those unelected pen-pushing peons who turned a blind eye to the nuclear industry radioactive elephant in the room for 50 years with the Yomiuri's connivance as long as they still got their cushy jobs on the board.

Main pillars of Yomiuri proposal

**Make best use of bureaucrats and administrative organs

(I suggest Procol Harem)

**Use increased revenue for disaster-hit areas

Yeah, the Yomiuri always approves of tax rises.

**Create jobs through special economic zones

You mean like TEPCO's been doing for years?

**Ease people's anxiety with systematic decontamination

Well, perhaps your precious national resources will get off their precious national arses and stop selling radioactive food to folk, burning radioative waste and running nuclear power plants on faultlines. Ya think that might help decontaminate folk?

**Resume nuclear power generation under state responsibility

Right. The state that you say is run by a feckless idiot. Well that makes a lot of sense. Who came up with this? A bunch of pissed up journos and their mates?

These proposals were devised by specialist reporters in the newspaper's Editorial Bureau, the Editorial Board and the Yomiuri Research Institute after a series of examinations on their own and discussions with outside intellectuals and experts.

Right. Anything on the telly?

LIFE AFTER #QUAKEBOOK?

2011-08-04T22:52:00.005+09:00

Far too busy to write a proper post here, so for those of you who don't do twitter, this is just a reminder that Our Man is still alive and kicking. Oh, very well, he will spare you eight minutes.

But there are good reasons for not writing at this blog recently:

Every post here is one less page he could have done for his novel. (Oh, that old chestnut).
Yes, he is writing a novel. You know he started one and got pretty much done with the first draft when the earthquake hit.
So then Our Man did his bit with Quakebook.
In fact, he is still doing his bit with Quakebook (QB to its friends) and it's doing jolly well.
But he just has to get this write-a-novel-before-you-finish-being-40 monkey off his back.
He has given himself a month to write it AND GET IT PUBLISHED (emphasis his own).
If you care, follow his, er, progress on twitter by clicking on this ridiculous twitter tag (warning: sadly is all too safe for work at the moment): #halflifebook.
He's reworking it to get the earthquake in, since, well, it's kind of important for anyone writing about Japan, don't you think?
And he had a holiday and everything.
Your eight minutes are up.

Pic lifted from here.

THE BIG ONE, MURDOCH AND NUTS UNDER THE STAIRS

2011-07-16T02:33:00.002+09:00

One of Our Man's elderly neighbours has a statue of Buddha in her house. She says it predicts earthquakes. Our Mother-In-Law, who is deaf in one ear, could hear it vibrating when she popped round the other day.

This afternoon my neighbour phoned her: "The big one is coming. I'm going to Thailand for a few weeks and then to Paris. I'll see you in a month's time. Please look after yourself."

Our Mother in Law barely said a word at dinner.

Our Woman in Abiko took a more scientific approach to earthquake prediction. She looked at a map of Japan. "They are heading towards us," was her considered opinion. So tomorrow we will put the sleeping bags, spare clothes and tins of nuts back under the stairs for the first time in months.

Of course, none of us has a clue about when and where the next big one will hit, such decisions are made at boardroom level, not on the ground floor, under the stairs. But we peons do what we can: look for links, try to reveal the universal rule, the pattern that will unlock the mysterious behaviour of our higher-ups.

So, what to make of the man-made earthquake ripping though the Murdoch Empire? As of a few hours ago, Rebekah Brooks had resigned, Murdoch had taken out ads in every paper in the UK to apologise to the British public and the Prime Minister had some explaining to do about inviting Murdoch's hatchet man round to Chequers for tea.

What's Murdoch's game plan? Will Parliament be victorious? Here is the Just Cause, now all it takes are a couple of ringleaders to bring the tyrant to heel. Have we got them?

Our Man has no answers, but he will at least have plenty of nuts under the stairs.

END OF MURDOCH ERA IS HERE

2011-07-09T01:04:00.001+09:00

This is the beginning of the end of the Murdoch Empire. If you think Our Man is being overdramatic, that Murdoch always wins in the end, may Our Man respectfully suggest: You are wrong. Consider:

The News of the World, the Murdoch Sunday tabloid, sister paper to the biggest selling Sun had been caught hacking into murder victims' phones and deleting messages to free space so more people could leave messages. Illegal and immoral.
This is just the beginning of the damning revelations to come.
Advertisers have been deserting the Murdoch tabloid in droves.
News International, the Murdoch company that owns a third of the world's media, knows the damage done to their "brand" is so severe, they shut the paper. Forever.
There are connections from its former editor all the way to No. 10, where he served as the Prime Minister's press secretary.
People are going to serve jail time over this.

Since 1979, when the Sun plumped for Thatcher, Murdoch has decided every British General Election. But for the first time in Our Man's life, having Murdoch's support is a liability. Ask any Egyptian, the cynicism of the tyrant is not enough to beat the truth that we all know:

Murdoch's time is up.

Don't believe me? Check this Podcast out.

Secret handshake here for the video of Dennis Potter.

MORE FEAR AND LOATHING IN ABIKO: THE FUJI TV SEQUEL

2011-07-04T00:01:00.001+09:00

Radiation chart bigger here.

So, a week or so ago Fuji TV got wind that Abiko is a hotspot of radiation and sent a crew out to prove this. Which they duly did - they found radiation danger of 9.0 micro sieverts per hour in a puddle of rainwater in Our Man's neighbour's garden. For the record: Our Man thought that was high. Very high. A lot higher than the air radiation he has measured in his own backyard - 0.24 micro sieverts per hour.

Our Man could pretend he understands radiation, but he doesn't really. But he knows a chap who does, Agent J of Safecast.org who kindly responded to Our Man's quest for intel, and here it is:

In other words: chill, people.

Our Man didn't ask Agent J about the story that was doing the rounds over the weekend about Cesium being found in the urine of children in Fukushima, but Our Man would hazard a guess that the levels are miniscule. That's not to lessen the horror of it, but methinks the kids will suffer more through life by the social stigma or fear that "they are radioactive!" than the reality, which is that probably they are fine.

That's not to say that TEPCO, the firm that "managed" the Fukushima plant should get off lightly. They are at best incompetent, at worst wittingly careless, ie evil scum. See here for report about what really happened at the reactor.

Meanwhile, let's not forget thousands of folk still without homes and a livelihood are in need of our support now. Perspective, people.

OUR MAN BACK IN THE JOURNALISM GAME

2011-06-29T23:51:00.007+09:00

It's bad form to blow your own trumpet, but Our Man is quite pleased with this article in Japan Echo. He wrote it all by himself, though is indebted to the underrated but startlingly able journalist Sophie Knight, who got the quotes that made the story sing. And it will be translated into Japanese and Chinese. Our Man is...

... chuffed.

THE #QUAKEBOOK AMBASSADOR CLASS

2011-06-29T00:10:00.002+09:00

Our Man really should be keeping a diary. It's just that stuff keeps happening and before he knows it something else has happened of even bigger import, and then what he was going to write down, if he had a diary, would have been redundant and less interesting than the thing that was going to happen in the future, and just did happen, if anyone ever looked at his diary. Which they wouldn't because it it doesn't exist. And if it did, it would be private, so there. Besides, you can't spend your life writing entries in a diary no one will ever see (that's what this blog's for - ed.)

So instead, here are a couple of bullet points that, as long as you promise not to read them, we could say are Our Man's diary.

Finished work. Had a cup of instant coffee. Chatted with US Ambassador to Japan John Roos on twitter, as you do.

Signed a copy of Quakebook for him and will pop that in the post with a copy bound for Cornell University, oh, and a signed one for an old university pal in Scotland.

It's now even further into the future and Our Man has already sent the book to Ambassador Roos. But since you will be reading this in the real future, this too will be old news, and Mr Roos will or will not have the Quakebook in his hands, or in the gold-plated loos or wherever ambassadors do their reading.

If Our Man is not mistaken, the old business class of TWA used to be called Ambassador Class. That was back in the days when folk were easily impressed by free hot towels and those air-powered headphones that played a never-ending loop of easy listening and Spanish. Did Our Man ever tell you that he once nearly peed himself waiting in a queue for the loos on a TWA flight to Atlanta? It wasn't a queue, it was a line of Muslims praying to Mecca. The space near the loos was the only one they could find to do their business. This was a long time ago though. Our Man was only nine. But he did get a hot towel handed to him on tweasers. Anyway.

Have contacted British Ambassador David Warren to see if he would like a Quakebook too.

Perhaps the Ambassadors could form a very exclusive book club.

This, though, is very far in the future and has not happened yet, even if you are reading this several days later on your plastic loo seat, I'd wager.

But if they did get together, that would be a true Ambassador Class (Gedditt?).

Our Woman in Abiko also gave a Quakebook to the Deputy Mayor of Abiko (Aoki-san? Our Man has forgotten now) yesterday.

Later in the future Our Man will write a post debunking yet more radiation fear and loathing in Abiko, but he thought you long-suffering readers could do with a rest from the microsieverts and stuff.

But if you want serious, independent scientific stuff on radiation in Japan, check these guys out - they are doing an open source radiation map of the whole of Japan. That's class, baby.

RADIATION LEVELS IN ABIKO: DON'T PANIC! (EXPERT VIEW)

2011-06-19T22:19:00.010+09:00

Father's Day began with a bit of a shock. Seems my youngest daughter will be off kindergarten all next week because they are digging out all the topsoil from the playground and replacing it with fresh soil. Because of radiation levels. Radiation. In my daughter's playground.

Well, the figures are here. If you can understand numbers and such. And Japanese. Our Man has trouble with both so, he took advantage of a clandestine rendezvous with a nuclear physicist at an Abiko shopping mall (it was hastily arranged to hand over the geiger counter Our Man had borrowed from safecast.org) and Our Man interrogated Agent J (aka asked obvious questions) at the Abiko Starbucks. This is just a taste, we talked for an hour or two. Best quote that didn't get recorded: "Those on the side of reason need to be armed with data to fight fear." Something like that.

You can listen to the recorded bits of the interview in part one and part two, It will take about 20 minutes of your life. And you can hear the cafe lattes too. You will not be tested on your comprehension. But there is a cheat sheet below.

Part one by Our Man in Abiko

Part Two by Our Man in Abiko

Questions are as follows (in nuclear cloud formation):

Part 1 - What the hell is a micro Sievert? 0.51 Are you familiar with the concept of radioactive daughters? 2.10 What was the previous background level? 2.40 Is that a meaningful camparison? 3.55 How does this compare with the rest of the world? 5.44 Eating bananas? 8.32

Part 2 - What's a safe level of radiation? 0.15 What are we talking about 1.15? What's a hotspot? 2.15 Who is an expert to talk about radiation? 5.05 How many people exposed to radiation are going to die? 6.40 What should we worry about? 6.50 How do we lower the fear level? 7.55 What is Safecast? 8.10 What do you want to say? 10.10

LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: LEAD AND WORLD WILL FOLLOW

2011-06-15T12:06:00.002+09:00

Our Man in Abiko

Chiba Prefecture

ourmaninabiko@gmail.com

The Prime Minister of Japan
2-3-1 Nagata-cho
Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo
100-0014

June 15th, 2011

Dear Mr Kan,

I'm sending you my copy of Quakebook, because I want you to know that the world supports your efforts on behalf of the survivors of the earthquake. As Japan faces its biggest calamity since 1945, now is the time that this country needs its leaders to lead, not to quit.

This book was written a week after the earthquake in a spirit of cooperation by people around the world. It's an example of what we can do working together under pressure.

I urge you to find the strength to fight the only true enemies Japan has - hopelessness, doubt and fear.

Lead, and the world will follow.

All the very best,

Our Man in Abiko
Quakebook Editor

YOU CAN BUY #QUAKEBOOK PAPERBACK NOW, AND WHY YOU SHOULD

2011-06-13T00:01:00.006+09:00

Big news - you can now order a paperback English version of Quakebook from Amazon.com RIGHT NOW (details here).

And if you want to know why you should pay your cash for a book you can read for free on kindle, how about a quick visit to Ishinomaki, well a four minute video with tasteful music and pictures by yours truly and pals, right here. Now tell me with a straight face that Japan doesn't need your support. Can't do it, can you?

Carry on.

WALKING #ISHINOMAKI

2011-06-11T02:42:00.001+09:00

Here's the second video. Our Man mumbled. He stumbled, but you can see what Ishinomaki is up against.

RADIATION ON #ISHINOMAKI TRIP DEBRIEFING: DON'T GO TO DENVER

2011-06-09T00:52:00.009+09:00

There really is too much going on with Quakebook, Ishinomaki and the cover life to waste time posting here, but Our Man has to do something in case his handlers lose interest and do something crazy like email pictures of themselves in briefs or run for Congress or something.

So, here's something. Our Man strapped the bento Geiger counter to his Toyota Harrier and jumped all over data (when he remembered to press "start" on the inboard computer, ahem) on his mercy dash up to Ishinomaki the other day. The long and the short of it was: He got more radiation in Fukushima than anywhere else in Tohoku (duhhh), elevated levels in Abiko and nothing to write home about in the tsunami-hit areas. Radiation wise. But wherever he went, Our Man was safer than if he lived in Denver.

What does it all mean to laymen? Dunno, preferring to lay women himself (leave it out - ed): But here is an intercepted, decyphered, steamed microfiche from Chief Petty Science Officer Agent J (embedded deep within safecast.org)

Tip: If you can't read it, you might try squinting real hard. Or you could click on it and it might get a bit bigger (as the Congressman said to the porn star).

Or read it here, ahem:

Got back in one piece - the readings ranged from 0.07 uS in Ishinomaki to 0.59 uS 55km due west of Fukushima Dai Ichi. The Abiko 7-11 was 0.29.

Yes, I was following your progress via Twitter.　
Well done.

Are these measurements micro or milli sieverts btw?

The numbers are micro Seiverts. Normally I would next add a caution about the unreliability of converting the output of a Geiger counter to Seiverts because there are so many variables that can thwart a valid calculation. But in this case we're on firm ground: The unit inside the bGeigie is calibrated for the same isotope (cesium 137) that is the main contaminant we
find outdoors hereabouts. (There is also some cesium 134 around but its energy is similar so its presence doesn't spoil the calibration validity.)

I would say that the plus/minus 15% uncertainty of the detector itself is the main caveat for your readings. Good work Agent Nabiko.

What do these figures mean that a layman like me could make sense of (and tell others)?

We will need to compare the data you collected to previous trips to see if the places are the same, but based on your descriptions, it seems that levels have fallen significantly. That would be good news.

Speaking more generally, the levels you encountered are still most definitely "elevated" compared to what was previously considered "normal background" for Japan. What you reported in Ishinomaki (0.07uSv/hr) is likely not much different than a year ago. Your reading from Fukushima-ken (0.59uSv/hr) is obviously well above what is natural for that area. (But still substantially lower than some uncontaminated places on Earth.)

For comparison, the average annual effective dose for Americans from all sources (sorry U.S. data is the most freely available) is 6200uSv, about half of it from natural sources. A person just sitting outside near where you measured the highest level would absorb 5172uSv in a year if conditions don't change; about five-thirds as much as the average American and a bit more than half what a typical resident of Denver gets.

WELCOME TO #ISHINOMAKI

2011-06-07T22:38:00.005+09:00

Ishinomaki was quite an experience. And rather than giving inane commentary (that will come in a later video) Our Man thought he would give you as best a taste of what it was like for him to roll into the city 5.30am last Sunday morning. If you could substitute the strings music for the stink of salt water and decay, then you are witnessing pretty much what he did, dangling his iPhone out the window. He could point out the sights, but you smart folk are as capable of interpreting what is before you as he is, so he'll shut up, present this video as is, and get to work on the next one.

NEXT STOP #ISHINOMAKI @freetohoku

2011-06-04T19:30:00.007+09:00

As you read this, there's a good chance Our Woman, Our Man and six others will still be on the road to Ishinomaki - making our way from Abiko, departing 7:30 pm Saturday, heading west through Chiba, north through Ibaraki, cutting through Fukushima and turning west after Sendai through Miyagi towards the Pacific and, at around 3am, our destination - the tsunami devastated city of Ishinomaki.

If all goes to plan - thanks to the selfless efforts of our students, neighbours and friends - we will be rolling into Ishinomaki with a four-tonne truck laden with relief supplies gathered through the neighbourhood grapevine. Just some of the fruits of our labours:

four children's bicycles; 400 emergency rice rations; home-baked cakes; summer clothes for children; nappies; children's books; pens; a washing machine; toiletries; make-up; puncture repair kits; writing paper; backpacks; clothes for the elderly; toys; manga books; school satchels; boxes of toothpaste; baby's potty; insect repellant (and we're bringing with us an Abiko city politician too)

The idea is to distribute the goods at a free jumble "sale" in Ishinomaki from 9.30am Sunday. We aim to reach the people who the government have missed.

But there's more...

We'll be rendezvousing with three dentists Our Woman has dispatched from Abiko to give free care to tsunami survivors.

And...

We'll be meeting up with Bikes For Japan who will be giving out 70 bicycles around the city through Sunday morning.

Also...

Yours truly will be trying his best to entertain the troops with an impromptu guitar and blues harp session (haven't they suffered enough? - ed) with Reluctant Jim to warm the crowd up for a real gosh-darn Japanese folk singer who's been on TV and everything.

You might ask...

Why the hell are you doing all this stuff, shouldn't the government be doing this? Well, yes. But if the government should be doing this, then so should we. Are we not civilised people? Are these people suffering not worthy of our help? If so, shouldn't we help them ourselves? If we can, we should.

And we will.

Why?

Because the alternative is to say that we are no better than animals, that civilisation counts for naught. Our Man doesn't believe that for a second. Now is the time to prove it. Woof woof.

Follow the mission on @freetohoku live.

NUCLEAR RADIATION DEBRIEFING - BENTO GEIGER COUNTER

2011-06-02T16:43:00.004+09:00

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (not for human consumption)...

So, Our Man returned in one piece with a NUCLEAR SUITCASE from a real gosh-darn American nuclear scientist (let's call him "Joe" because that was his name) after rendezvous-ing with him in the no man's land of Matsudo. Our Man was running late for his cover life English lesson, so "Joe" rode with him back to Abiko on the Joban Line (and had a Mega Mac Meal at the Abiko McD's) along the way he opened the above suitcase and gave Our Man the following information:

Exposure levels in Abiko, Tokyo and California were about one molecule in a yard or so of air.
At the highest exposure level recorded on edge of exclusion zone, 20km from Fukushima Dai Ichi Thingy Nuclear Meltdown site were 50,000 molecules in "this much air" (arms spread akimbo).
There is no acute danger from exposure levels now, long-term health affects are more problematic (no one knows - still arguing about Chernobyl's effect 30 years later).
Our Man is going to hang the thing christened "the bento box" out the window as he drives to Ishinimaki and back this weekend.
The data will be used for scientists ("boffins" in tabloid speak) to experiment on white mice and stuff. Or not.
It's all part of a voluntary global radiation mapping scientific research project thing by Safecast.org, which is voluntarily globally radiationally mapping things. Strangely, there's enormous interest in radiation levels in Japan at the moment.
Yes, yes, you are supposed to use a Geiger counter at a stationary point, 1 meter above ground level at 25C. But that's just scientist talk for "my test tube is bigger than yours". In the field, you do what you can and figure out what it all means later.

More posts later on what readings I'm getting in my bunker tonight after I stop pointing it at stupid stuff, and why sticking it on stupid stuff gives you useless readings.

LESSON OF #quakebook: GIVE THEM A BANANA

2011-05-30T01:55:00.000+09:00

So, it's been a while since Our Man has pontificated about anything other than Quakebook, huh? Well, he'd like to state for the record that Our Man is not just about Quakebook, dammit. What is Our Man about then? A good question, thanks for asking.

His mission used to be to take the piss out of the pompous, haughty and absurdly comical higher-ups of this world. But the mission has changed.

As long as there are people suffering and Our Man is in a position to help, he can hardly turn his back, can he? And if some of those higher-ups can help Our Man help others, well, it would be childish of him to poke fun at them. Unless they start it first, obviously. Has Our Man gone through his difficult adolescent years to become the Man he always should have been? Too soon to say, but it does feel like a couple of things have dropped in to place, so to speak.

Anyway, Our Man will post less about Quakebook here, leaving such thoughts for the Quakebook blog, where they belong, but before he does, let him share with ya'll a few self-indulgent, but well received, comments that he worked out on the train to Shibuya the other day for the Quakebook Live! thing.

Five Learnings* from Quakebook

Doesn't matter who you are or what your skills are, you can make a difference. Don't wait for someone else to act, do it yourself. Gaijin, regular jin, it matters not. If you are alive and you give a shit, you can do something worthwhile.
There's no point in having all these toys if we don't use them when we need them for something important. You can use Twitter to laugh at Charlie Sheen, send links to animals doing funny things and promote your own T-shirt shop. And that's wonderful and fun and so on. But if you can use this same tool to connect people, to make money for victims of a disaster, to record an important moment in history, why the hell wouldn't you?
People will respond if what you are doing is of value. Your job is to find something of value to do. Hint: there's nothing like an earthquake to focus the mind.
Doing something, even flawed, is better than doing nothing. Allow St Ourmani Nabiko to relate the parable of the bananas to you heathen: A peon in Ishinomaki city government had a crate of bananas. Two hundred tsunami survivors queued for a banana. But there were only 180 bananas. So, in the interests of fairness, the peon decided no one would get a banana. And lo, the bananas did rot. And everyone went equally hungry.
Surround yourself with good people and anything is possible. Most people are good, they just need a chance to shine - give them that chance. Give them their banana.

* This is not an Our Man in Abiko word. But Our Man rather sniffily said as much** when he went on stage at The Pink Cow in Shibuya, and he'd just like to apologise for being a supercilious prick about it to the MC.

**But it really isn't a word is it? I mean, I guess we could make it a word***, I don't want to be all French and preserving the sanctity and purity of the lingua franca, but I mean c'mon.

***We have a perfectly good word in la lingua anglais - "lessons". There. I've said it.

#quakebook BLACK, WHITE AND READ ALL OVER

2011-05-29T14:23:00.001+09:00

There is so much to say, and not all of it Quakebook-related you know. But there is some pretty big Quakebook news if you are not sick of hearing about it - right here. To raise more money, we're giving the ebook away for free. What? Details where it said right here right there. (Hint: the real paper and ink book is coming in a few days to a bookstore near you. Honest.)

Our Man will return to his blogging ways soonish, but that darned earthquake has been eating up the available time.

AIN'T THE BBC, BUT PRETTY CLOSE #quakebook

2011-05-17T01:32:00.006+09:00

I'm not gonna let it go to my head, honest. But, I've only gone and done a national interview on Australia Radio, er, live and everything, and I did purrrrrrty well, even managing to interrupt the hosts to get the Quakebook website address on the air. Tee hee.

But I forgot to mention Yoko Ono. Booo! Or Goken, who is publishing the darned book and everything.

And yes, I am a media whore, but for a purpose: I'm just trying to sell books to help relieve suffering. It's purrrrrrty simple to me, but I've always found it easy to reconcile selling out to do good. The difficult part is doing the right thing just because.

I'm working on it. And I'm gonna enlist some help. Maybe someone with a little pull in the world, someone like Steve Jobs. If he's up for it.

Anyway, while I decipher what the hell I thought I meant in the previous paragraph, click here for the Australia podcast. Tip: Move the cursor to the middle, my bit is in the second half.

CNN comes calling at 7:30 am, Wednesday, Abiko Sentral Standard time (ASS time) if you can make it.

ANYONE KNOW STEVE JOBS TWITTER ADDRESS? #quakebook

2011-05-14T15:43:00.005+09:00

Our Man is fighting enough battles on enough fronts, he really didn't want to start another one. But when he saw on twitter someone saying how nice it was Apple stores were offering free maintenance on Apple products for folk in Tohoku, he could no longer in good conscience keep his mouth shut.

For those not up with the ways of twitter, read from the bottom up.

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

I can't allow Apple to gouge 30% from tsunami survivor's hands. Amazon and Sony found way to offer digital #quakebook for free. Can't Apple?

30 minutes ago

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

I had signed off on @eigotown's app for iPad, even though it meant Apple getting 30%. But Amazon has waived fees. Sony has waived fees...

34 minutes ago

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

In other words, Apple is saying we'll fix your IPad for free, but we want a cut of donations you make on it to Japan Red Cross. #quakebook

2 hours ago

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

I wasn't gonna mention it, but if folk want to make a big deal about Apple's help for Tohoku, well they should know its help has limits.

2 hours ago

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

Fact of matter is, @eigotown has made a great iPad app for #quakebook for free, but Apple will not waive its 30% cut. I can't see why not

3 hours ago

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

Exactly RT @IH39: CNN interview sure is wonderful, the more people know about #quakebook the more help everybody gets. Congratulations.

3 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

ourmaninabiko OurManInAbiko

Shame Apple won't sell #quakebook or our Black Water song without taking a 30% cut, @KyleMizokami.

3 hours ago

#quakebook NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

2011-05-07T15:16:00.006+09:00

Hey, it's been a while. What no Quakebook updates? Interepted email? Nothing happening? Make no mistake, Our Man has been busy. But nothing much to show for it yet. In case you didbn't know though, Quakebook will be coming to a bookshop near you, if you live in Japan, and it will be a bilingual English/Japanese affair.

Lovely. Also, Amazon will be selling a print book very soon, with all proceeds going to charity. And we are working on getting a print book onto shelves of ye olde booke shoppes around the world too, so keep calm.

Our Man follows the Churchill school of rhetoric - mouth off when you are losing, keep quiet when you are winning. He's been quiet a while now.

But that's not to say Our Woman hasn't been filling the void. If Our Man and Quakebook is attacking the Earthquake on the macro-economic front (carpet bombing with relief) Our Woman's Free Tohoku is more of a micro-economic tactical strike against the tsunami.

Together, we shall prevail. Or die trying.

As you were.

#quakebook INTERCEPTED MESSAGE FROM THE BUNKER

2011-04-24T12:25:00.003+09:00

NB - POD = Print on demand OMiA = Our Man in Abiko NB= Notus Benidictus

TURNING DIGITAL WITH A PASSION: #quakebook NEEDS YOU

2011-04-20T00:13:00.003+09:00

So, coming up with another idea.

See, Our Man thinks we've not done too badly on the book part of #quakebook. (It's a reality. It's bloody good. It is accessible from the world's biggest bookseller, Amazon, you can download it to your PC, Mac or smartypants phone) and they have waived their fee, so every time you buy it, not a penny goes to Quakebook, Amazon or Our Man (sigh). Everything, less any cut passing government heavies might impose as tax, goes to the Japan Red Cross.

And Our Man is absolutely confident we'll get a print edition in English and Japanese out soon, at cost price. Would be lovely to get a printed book with ALL revenues raised going to charity, but real books have real costs - paper, ink, lorry drivers, presses, business-class tickets to book fairs in London, you know, unavoidable costs, baby.

Incidentally, here's a lesson in economics Our Man is having to get his head round: Sell a Kindle book at $9.99, all the cash goes to the Japanese Red Cross. Sell a hardback at $20, even at cost, you are looking at half the kindle book price, $4.50, going to charity.

Charge twice as much, get half the bang of a digital book. But print outsells digital 9:1 or so.

Our Man's head hurts. You do the math: Print is pricey, but it pays. If inefficiently.

Our Man likes print. It's got pedigree. It's real. But it takes time and resources to figure out. He will get it figured, but in the meantime, we do have a digital book that ya'll can get your digital digits on. Just, it's a high mental barrier to jump from print to digital for many readers.

That's why Our Man thinks we need a kind of citizen's army of recruiters to help the print lovers defeat their fears of digital - if just for one book for charity.

The Civil Rights movement had voter registration drives to get black Americans voting for the first time. Quakebook needs something similar.

Your advice is, as always, welcome (though not always heeded).

#quakebook A MOMENT OF SURREALITY

2011-04-17T01:57:00.001+09:00

OK, now Our Man's life is getting surreal. See, he was in Roppongi Hills for Inspire Japan, where goodly folk get together and talk on a stage about their charity projects. Let me run that by ya'll again:

1. Little ol' Our Man was giving a talk to the great and the good of Tokyo's hipster gaijin crowd.

1.5 In Roppongi Hills. Think Canary Wharf but with shops and stuff.

2. Our Man was talking about Quakebook on a stage on the 52nd floor of the Mori Building.

3. In Roppongi Hills.

4. Think Nakatomi Plaza without the German terrorists or Bruce Willis.

5. Our Man met the Press Secretary for the Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

6. REPEAT: Our Man met the Press Secretary for the Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

7. Press Secretary: "Thank you for all you have done for Japan."

8. Our Man: "It was nothing, we all do what we Kan."

9. Gedddddiitttt???

10. Fortunately, Ks and Cs are interchangeable in speech. And Our Man didn't mean to pun, he just can't help himself.

Anyway, buy Quakebook. Last time he checked, it was still No. 5 in the non-fiction charts of Amazon. Not bad, huh?

#quakebook A FEW WORDS OF THANKS

2011-04-12T23:10:00.004+09:00

If you are reading this post then stop wasting your time right now. Click here. It's only the link to the Amazon page where you can download 2:46 - Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake by the Quakebook community. Remember, you don't even need a kindle to read it, yous pays yous money and reads it on any computer or self-aware phone (click on the links on the right of the Amazon page). There seem to be some folk who can't download it. I can only think these are teething troubles, and will be resolved shortly. I've asked, be patient. Or fake your address as a US resident. No, don't do that. That would be wrong.

Back again?

Thanks. Thanks alot, in fact there are hundreds of people to thank, and I'm going to forget lots of important people. But, I have to start my thanks somewhere:

The core editorial team: Dan Ryan in California, Sandra Barron in LA/Tokyo, M. Rosewood in NY and illustrator Mari Kurisato in Denver. The designer whose work you can barely see in the kindle edition, but whose work will shine in print - Ed Harrison. The woman who single handedly turned www.quakebook.blogspot.com into something worth reading: Lindsey Annison in Cumbria, UK. The chaps who turned the blogspot site into a .org with streaming video and xtml and stuff: Joseph Tame, Michael Gakuran. The backroom mover and shaker who landed us Amazon and got them to waive their fees - Kevin Carroll. The bloke who herded all the disparate cats together after Our Man got fur balls: Roberto De Vido. Other Eds: Jesse Johnson, Joanne Greenway, Owen Schaefer, Jenny Silver, Vania Sofiandi, Aimee Weinstein. Translators Hiromi Davis, Yoshiko Ikeda, Yuko Kato, Tomomi McElwee, M. Rosewood, Andy Sharp, Fernando Ramos, Shirabe Yamada. Arty types: James White (Cover design) Gavin Strange, Linda Yuki Nakanishi, Daniel Freytag, Fernando Ramos, Philipp Christoph Tautz, Brian Lynn, Yukiko Kurokawa.

And Our Woman in Abiko.

Oh yeah, and Yoko Ono, William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein who, apart from Jake, sprinkled some much needed star dust over the project.

And all the other contributors of stories (85 of them) who you'll just have to buy the book to find out who needs thanking.

And I'm sure there are others who need thanking, whom I've forgotten, like the numerous folk on twitter who helped out, eg Mark Rende who found my first three tweets that started this rigamarole and Jason Packman who bagged us the twitter address before we'd even thought of it.

Oh, and JJ who provided the soundtrack. And the Dub bloke from Twitter who knows how to make proper videos and has promised to sink a few and have a jam sesh in Abiko one of these days.

Enough of this. Let's get out there and sell some books.

*Knew I'd forgotten a few - Liza and Sam in Boston and Katy, our agent provocateur embedded at Amazon's Seattle HQ. And er, Jim Bonner, our publisher?

#quakebook IS ON SALE!

2011-04-12T12:39:00.003+09:00

Here's how I broke the news a couple of hours ago to the Quakebook team (click to enlarge):

Now, just go here and buy the blinkin' book! The real work begins now.

#quakebook JUST A LITTLE MORE

2011-04-10T04:05:00.005+09:00

Our Man can't believe it's been a week since he has posted anything here. It has been a week of massive progress, and yet he can't tell you about it yet. You just have to trust him on this. But know this:

Great things are just around the corner.

Yeah, sure, that sounds flat and the same old, same old, but what can Our Man say? Since March 18th he has been on a (at times) insane mission to deliver what he promised: A book with all proceeds going to benefit the Japanese Red Cross. It's been a crash course in book publishing, public relations, building a business, human relations, disaster relief, fund-raising - an MBA in a couple of weeks. Has Our Man passed? Not yet.

But failure is not an option. And we won't fail. That is a feeling Our Man has so strongly that it has become fact. Before this thing started, Our Man felt alone and helpless. But now? He can say there is an organisation of over 200 people behind Quakebook that is taking it forward in directions he could only imagine before.

Our Man has been getting flak for suggesting that Quakebook is akin to Live Aid for this generation. Know this too: A couple of weeks ago Quakebook was just an idea. Now it is a reality. A global reality featuring William Gibson, Yoko Ono, Barry Eisler, Jake Adelstein, not to mention Our Woman and Our Mother in Law in Abiko.

If this is possible, what else is? Well there is very good news to come. And then? It's insane, but Our Man hasn't a clue what will come next, but he knows it will be great. He knows it.

Just a little more.

#quakebook FRUSTRATION

2011-04-03T21:02:00.004+09:00

Frustration.

Here we are with a completed book.
We have over a thousand people who have signed up to buy a copy without even knowing the price.
We could just release it now as a PDF and get folk to donate to a link how much they think it is worth directly to the Japanese Red Cross.
Right now.
But we wait.
We wait so we can have a button with a direct link to the Japanese Red Cross.
We wait so we can have the PDF reformatted so it can be read by an Amazon kindle and a Sony reader.
We wait in the hope that releasing the book with Amazon's backing will add a couple of zeroes on the end of sales if we just gave it away from the www.quakebook.org blog.
We are losing speed in the hope of grabbing a bigger prize and therefore helping exponentially more people.

I hope we have made the right decision. Because the longer we wait, the less useful our contribution becomes. This is eating me up.

And I wait. Helpless again.

#quakebook: RETIRING TO MY BUNKER

2011-04-02T00:27:00.000+09:00

#quakebook NOT WONDERFUL ENOUGH YET

2011-03-29T15:24:00.000+09:00

This #quakebook business is getting way out of hand. In the most wonderful of ways. From this:

2011.03.18 9:13am

Have asked @fatblueman (of Christmas in Japan video fame) to start

writing a song for Japan quake survivors, and it got me thinking...

2011.03.18 9:18am

I want to compile a book of quake experiences and publish it like

within a week and donate all profits to Red Cross We have the

technology.

2011.03.18 9:22am

If everyone wrote 250 words - one page - or submitted their favourite

(original) tweets, pics or artwork, I could edit, publish it in days

... we've got to press coverage in the Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNNgo online and excerpts in The Japan Times. We've got the book and we're getting attention; our backroom mover and shaker is er, moving and shaking, with Amazon. People are responding around the world to the message of #quakebook, that alone we are useless, together we can create something amazing, selfless, to benefit others, and by so doing, improve ourselves. I really feel we are on the brink of something amazing.

But...

We still have not raised a single penny for survivors of the disaster.

This is simply unacceptable.

We must translate this global effort into something real. Now.

#quakebook MESSAGE FROM THE BUNKER

2011-03-25T14:46:00.000+09:00

THE NAME OF THE GAME: #quakebook NEEDS YOU!

2011-03-24T07:42:00.007+09:00

Thanks all for your suggestions, I've thought long and hard about the title and then I just stopped thinking and my current preferred title is as above. 2:46 is the moment everything changed, and there are other good reasons you'll have to work out for yourself, but also the byline as we old newspaper hacks used to call it, is #quakebook - the good folk of twitter made this possible, so they should get recognition. Should we have the words Japan and Earthquake to optimise those search engines? I'm open to suggestions, but the bottom line is

we ain't writing for search engines, we're writing for our future.

Anyway, if you have a better idea, drop it in the comments field here, and I'll have a look later.

Got bigger fish to fry today. We've got 30 hours left to pull this off and publish our book by 2.46, Friday, exactly two weeks since the earthquake. The good news - we've got some cracking tales from the frontlines and the home front, all beautifully cleaned up and headlined, some great art - all the ingredients of a great book (oh, not to mention a previously unpublished William Gibson piece and an article by Jake Adelstein, you know the yakuza dude).

I've given up waiting for our literary agent to check her email, and I don't really know what a literary agent is or does, I frankly don't have the have time to find out right now. What I do have is two pressing problems:

1. Need to format the book to sell it on the internet. Does this mean different formats for kindles, iphones and whatever else? Advice is needed urgently. The manuscript currently is on a Neo Office word file if that means anything to you all.

2. Need to set up a payment system so that every penny goes to the Japanese Red Cross.

I don't have time to keep checking back to the comments here, so if you can help on either topic, drop me a line on twitter to @ourmaninabiko. The line's always open, even if we lose power today.

Chop, chop. Clocks a tickin.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: CAN YOU THINK OF A TITLE?

2011-03-18T17:43:00.006+09:00

The fabulous Mari Kurisato is napping in her Denver bunker, but before she nodded off, she produced this stunning piece of art for the cover of the book I'm editing (but YOU are writing, remember? Guidelines right here, clock is ticking).

Well, what title and subtitle do you think would fit? A panel of experts (Our Man, Our Woman and Our Mother-in-Law) will stay sober long enough to choose the one we like the best.

Leave your suggestions in the comments below.

It's gonna be a long night, but an enjoyable one for a change ;)

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: GET WRITING NOW!

2011-03-18T11:02:00.001+09:00

Our Man had a eureka moment. What can he do to help the relief effort other than give updates on the status of the 7-11 Bordeaux stocks? Well, he likes writing and used to be a pretty good sub-editor (well, he got paid for it at least) and he's at a loose end... so it's time to edit a book and donate all proceeds to charity, the Japan Red Cross.

Here's the deal:

I'm looking for contributions from anyone who has something to say about the earthquake. (eg where were you when it happened, what did you feel? How have you helped? Did it change anything in the way you live your life? Are you coping with grief? Or just bewildered behind a barrage of media images?)
I'm not looking for windy poetic stuff, just honest stuff.
Aim to write 250-300 words or so - equivalent to a short blog post (or one page of a book)
If you can contribute original (ie you have the copyright) artwork, a sketch drawing or cartoon that would be awesome too)
If you have any great tweets to submit - that would be great too.
Photos (that you took) would be really awesome.

Here's the thing. We are nearing a week since the disaster, I want to get this book published ASAP so submit your work ASAP. I can start laying it out and editing it as soon as I receive submissions. As soon as I have enough, I will self-publish it, I'm hoping by Sunday night.

The aim is to have something publishable in 48 hours.

Since thinking of the idea at about 9am (it's now 10.40am) I have had one submission already, a promise of one more and the talented artist and ubertweeter Mari Kurisato has volunteered to do some artwork, I'm hoping she will do the cover...

How to contribute. Either:

Send it by email to ourmaninabiko @ gmail.com
Put a link to it in the comments field beneath this post
Give me a link on twitter @ourmaninabiko

Our Man reserves the right to reject unsuitable stuff and edit what is sent. Nobody will get paid, including our Man, but everyone contributing will get recognition. Then I'll get the book published and for sale within a week.

All proceeds will go to the Japan Red Cross.

Time is of the essence, so get writing/drawing/snapping/linking.

Abiko salutes you!

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: WE'RE STAYING PUT

2011-03-17T21:04:00.000+09:00

We stay.

This is not an easy decision to come to, but for now, it works for us. Here are some random thoughts in (tastelessly enough) cloud formation that informed the Greater Abiko Co-Prosperity Sphere Disaster Cabinet's thinking:

Aftershocks have abated to almost none today. There is no radiation risk to us at the moment. We have less than half a tank of petrol. This is our home. We have worked hard to become part of the community. If the reactors are cooled and sealed successfully, hurrah! If the reactors are not and blow, well, the results will be toxic for months, so what's the hurry? We couldn't live with ourselves if we cut and ran. We could take a trip on public transport away from here, but where to and for how long? How safe would we really be on the road away from the bosom of Abiko? We could send the little ones to the UK for a bit, but how could we split the family up? If we all went to the UK, how long could we manage with no income? It would be worse to be helpless abroad and watch suffering here How could we sentence Our Mother-in-Law to a diet of Hob Nobs and chip butties for the rest of her natural life?

There may be a time when we have to cut and run. And if we have to we will not hesitate, but for us, for now, this is not the time.

Ask us again tomorrow.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: THIS DOESN'T COME FREE, YOU KNOW

2011-03-17T03:00:00.000+09:00

Our Man can't discern a theme to today, so he'll leave it to the end and come back and amend this sentence so it will make some kind of karmic sense. Unless he can't be arsed, in which case if this sentence is still the same as this, you'll know he had one too many again. Whatever, blah blah blah (sub-editors fix later OKKK????), Duck! Bullets...

So it continues. More aftershocks, fewer than in previous days, but stronger. In our best Walter Chronkite voice: This is not good. But is it getting worse? Our Man of course has no idea. To him he thinks of it as mother nature having contractions. If they get closer together that means she's gonna pop another big one out, right? Our Man quizzed Our Woman on this very point to which she replied: "How should I know? Do I look like an earthquake expert?" "Well, you are Japanese." She said: "All I know is aftershocks are bloody stupid."
You don't need Google when you've got Our Woman.
There is stuff in shops, just not every shop. It's instructive to see what is left, the truly undesirable crap: Fizzy drinks, iced coffee, very expensive beer, very cheap wine. Which is nice, because those are exactly the staples that made Our Man what he is today.
The nuclear thing. If Our Man said he wasn't scared, he'd be lying. He is scared. But he reads posts like this and he is reassured. In a scared kind of way. We here at Our Man Towers are, like most of the nation, glued to the media. Which is not a good thing in the 24-hr news cycle. WHITE SMOKE CLOUD AT REACTOR 3!! said the NHK-Twitter-Mother-in-Law-industrial-media-gossip complex within seconds of the white cloud, er, clouding at the reactor and we were suitably, instantly informed. Hurrah! What does that mean, a white cloud at the reactor? Sounds bad, but we didn't know. My mother-in-law did though. She unilaterally instituted an exclusion zone from the entrance hall onwards to include the rest of the world, yanked the clothes off the pegs hanging in no-man's land and slammed the windows shut. All sensible if you live within 20km of the Fukushima plant, not 250km as we do.
"You watch too much TV," Our Littlest One (5) told grandma.
Ah, yes, whether to abandon Abiko and run to the hills to sit this one out. There are many moments when Our Man thinks this is sound advice, if not for him, then for his family. But he's still here. This is complicated and deserves a post all its own but the brief points are these: He has only half a tank of petrol in the Nissan Giant Panda; where exactly is safe in Japan, a land of earthquakes, nuclear reactors and strong winds?; if he hit the ejector seat button and went back to the UK, what exactly would he do? What message would he be sending to his kids, his neighbours, his customers, his friends who didn't or couldn't abandon Abiko? Maybe Our Man is meant to be here now.
Oh, yeah, the Huffington Post popped round virtually to see if Our Man would like to write for them (for free obviously). And of course Our Man said yeah, cool, but then it turned out it they just wanted him to join their google group and give them story tips so they could post more disaster porn to scare the bejeeezus out of Americans. If they ever were to offer Our Man the chance to write a real blog post for them, he still would love to. He's sure they would donate the fee they should pay him to the Japanese Red Cross. Which got Our Man thinking: It's time he started a charity thing so you all could marvel at his magnaminousness and he could keep tabs on who his REAL friends are, CAPICE?

Well, here it is, and over there on the left. If you can donate even a little, it would make an enormous difference to Our Man, and might even save a few lives, maybe even those close to a former Daily Yomiuri copy editor whose wife is frantic with worry over not being able to contact her parents in Sendai. These are real people, in real need right now, and we need all the help we can get. Donate even a little. It helps. Please.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: A DAY IN THE LIFE (AKA DON'T PANIC)

2011-03-16T02:00:00.001+09:00

A few garbled thoughts for you all from a shaken and stirred blogger in Abiko:

It's been another long day. Despite starting well with a nice hot shower (water and gas supplies have been no problem since the first day) and porridge for breakfast, we learned today that radiation had in fact leaked from the Fukushima plant.
Our Man can't pretend to keep up with the micro-serviettes that radiation is measured in, but as far as his addled brain can ascertain, there were 400 of them outside the gates and some found their way to Ibaraki (the next prefecture (which means big county) to Chiba (which is the prefecture/big county that Abiko is in)) so, er, he was getting worried.*
Our Man had prepared for blackouts (the power variety) scheduled for 12.20 to 16.00 by toasting his last-but-one loaf of bread by 11.55, percolating a pot of coffee by 12.05 and a second pot (our last ground beans) that was decanted into a flask, for future consumption, by 12.15 - leaving five minutes to lie back and think of England, when...
There were no bloody power cuts after all, despite loudspeaker announcements from city hall to the contrary during our Man's morning shower earlier in the morning, if you were paying attention. A nice surprise? No, dammit, Our Man had prepared for power outage suffering and was a little miffed not to have been given the chance to meet the challenge.
Then everyone started leaving. The more cynical/sensible foreign folk of twitter buggered off out of the Greater Abiko Co-Prosperity Sphere and Tokyo to escape the miniscule increases in radiation. Let's hope. Though, the longer Our Man lives here (or anywhere for that matter) the longer he doubts what the experts tell him. What? There's a story in there somewhere of the exodus of the gaijin, and one Our Man understands will be in tomorrow's Japan Times.
Where was I?
That's it for now. And donate here for the poor fuckers who are in genuine hard times, not like Our Man, who will just suffer a sore head tomorrow morning at worst.

*Don't worry too much. The brackets within a bracket only reached semi-Inception meltdown status. The Holy Grail being three brackets within brackets, which slows the reader down to a speed of 1/32th regular velocity. Think Daily Mail.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: BE A HERO

2011-03-13T20:54:00.001+09:00

... And donate directly to the Japan Red Cross at this link:

http://www.google.co.jp/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: NEW WEBSITE

2011-03-13T00:33:00.004+09:00

Pssst, You. Yes, you. Want a little Earthquake news? Try here. It's kind of just a starting point for a new website, Tokyo Post. Our Man is involved in a very minor way, but don't let that put you off. They were planning to write interesting shit in an interesting way. But then the blinking earthquake happened and to their credit, decided they could hardly sit by while Rome burned. Or Tokyo shook, or something.

Anyway, check it out. Hopefully it is useful. One day soon, it may even be compelling.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: HOW YOU CAN HELP

2011-03-12T08:54:00.003+09:00

You could do worse than donating to the American Red Cross who have set up a dedicated disaster relief fund, right here.

More options here from CNN, including text donations to the Red Cross and to Save the Children.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: WHAT REALLY MATTERS

2011-03-12T01:20:00.000+09:00

Our Man is not quite sure what to think about the big quake that swept through these parts a few hours ago. The aftershocks are still reverberating every 20 minutes or so, one just right now. It's almost half midnight, 10 hours since the quake struck, and still these damned aftershocks are enough to rattle the windows, shake the floorboards and knock books off the shelves. The kids and my wife are, thankfully, worn out though, and are in bed, a couple of feet away from me as I type.

But every time the house shakes, I have to make a quick decision: Is this one worth waking them up so we can stand in the cold outside? No, not this time, seems to be weakening. Twenty minutes later. Another aftershock, worse than before. Now do I wake them? No, not this time. I look over every now and then and see that my wife isn't sleeping.

Just as well. Now the mother-in-law is our analogue Twitter, popping her head round the door to stage whisper the news from the TV. The latest is that Owarai, a resort town 40 minutes up the road, is half submerged under a tsunami.

From my perch, and wooden walls and single pane windows I can hear, well, nothing much. No sounds of drunken salarymen coming home. No sounds of cars driving past.

No sounds of life. Or death.

No buildings came down here, there were none of the explosions or tsunamis being shown on TV. This is a commuter town, so we won't be getting firsthand reports of what it was like in Tokyo until the city's menfolk can make it back home - probably not till tomorrow lunchtime.

But we do have Twitter and Facebook. No, seriously, they have been great. The SMS text message for mobile phones was down, phones were useless. Except Twitter was working. Suddenly I could find out what was going on in Tokyo, down the street and relay that to people who cared. My family, friends, former colleagues and folk I have done little more than click a link to have checked in to see we're OK. A heartfelt thanks to you all. Gosh. Dropped the third person there, so you know Our Man means it, er, I mean it.

The earthquake shook the house for god knows how long this afternoon. Probably less than a minute, but if you told me it lasted an hour, I wouldn't argue with you. There's nothing quite as disorientating as standing in the street watching the lampposts sway and wondering if your house would collapse in a neat pile of rubble or spill out onto the street.

And not really caring.

You see, I am immensely lucky, I work at home. My wife, younger daughter and mother-in-law were with me on the street. My elder daughter was at school, a three minute walk away. Within 10 minutes of the quake we were all together. That was all that mattered.

Now, I'm hearing that many thousands of people are unaccounted for around the country, you probably have a better picture of that than I. My heart goes out to them and their family.

Is there anything you can do?

Right now, I'm not sure. But I'll think of something.

EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN

2011-03-11T15:51:00.004+09:00

For anyone worried about the safety of Abiko, bless you all. Abiko was hit by some pretty severe aftershocks around 2.45pm Friday from a big quake (7.9m, 8.8? Dunno. You probably have access to better intel than Our Man).

No buildings collapsed, no fires, no casualties here. But still getting aftershocks. As soon as my iphone recharges, will get out and take pics, though there isn't much to see, just feel. The ground shaking beneath your feet is very, very unnerving. Must be for me to use "very" twice.

Our Woman, Our Mother in Law and Our two little monkeys are safe though.

Still feeling aftershocks. It will be a bad night tonight for sleep.

BUT WHAT IF THE ROBOTS ARE BROWN?

2011-03-11T01:53:00.004+09:00

Hey, here's a great post that ties the latent (blatant?) xenophobia of the Japanese establishment with the nation's love of robots, the subtly titled Japan is Run By Racist Idiots Who Prefer Robots to Brown People. The headline says it all (take note Japan Times hacks - not a single obscure acronym, missing "to be" verb, jargon, weird punctuation or "said to be set to be eyed, fingered or mulled" in it at all).

But then if you good news lovers would get your collective fingers out, you'd already know all about the story from Our Man's twitter feed.

Maybe it's the chocolate beer talking, but ya know what, Our Man is gonna re-instate the Blog of the Week and name Minds Like Knives the winner this week (for the post that is three weeks old). MLK's prize? A coveted slot on the blog roll on the left there.

Brown-skinned robot lifted from here.

TRUE MEANING OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

2011-03-09T01:03:00.003+09:00

Nahh, this ain't it, right comrades?

MAEHARA - HE'LL BE BACK

2011-03-07T22:58:00.001+09:00

Our Man really shouldn't post stuff at 3am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. But he can't help himself. Anyway, rather than continue providing the spooks with free psy-ops fodder, here's a link to good stuff about the Japanese foreign minister resigning under a cloud by the analyst formerly known as Corey. Well, more like a spot of light fog, likely to disperse shortly. The long and the short of it is,

He'll be back.*

*Geddit? Schwarzenegger? His catch phrase? Look, I just wanted an excuse to use the pic, coutd'nt actually care less about Maehara. Oh, you gotttit, but didn't laugh? Well, there's always his earlier catch-phrase. Fuck You, asshole.**

**Schwarzenegggers, not Maehara's.

THE SNAKE, THE HAT, AND THE STRIPPER

2011-03-06T03:00:00.001+09:00

There are times (usually very late at night) when Our Man thinks back on his life and wonders what the hell was he thinking? The what ifs of history if you like. What if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia? (though that was nothing to do with Our Man) What if Kennedy had lived? What if Our Man had hung around that night the runaway did an impromptu strip show at his alcoholic buddy's snake-infested "apartment" in Conway, Arkansas? (It is amazing the shit you can get up to in a dry county without even really trying).

But Our Man knows the right answer to this brain teaser:

We're doomed to second-guess ourselves when it's too late, but given the same set of circumstances, we'd always make the same mistakes.

While this resignation letter doing the rounds of twitter may well spell the end of this chap's employment in Fleet Street, my god, he took the stripper by the horns. So to speak. Hats off to him.

YOMIURI: GIVE THE EXAM CHEATER A JOB

2011-03-05T01:45:00.001+09:00

Truth. It keeps cropping up between the cushions of Our Man's sofa. Not least in the last three posts' headlines - True lies on the Mean Streets of Abiko (a true story, by the way, that happened to an elderly dogless neighbour) and something else TRUE and another Blah blah blah true thing (sorry, lost the will to hunt for the post or the url to link to, so you're on your own if you wanna figure out what the hell Our Man is on about. But why should you? Discuss.)

You may not know it if you haven't been doing your revision, but the Yomiuri Shimbun (think Pravda with its own baseball team) has been having puppies calling for the head of all those pesky cheaters who ingeniously used mobile telephones to jump over the stultifyingly boring translation exam hurdles used to weed out the kids who can handle the high-pressure tedium that passes for Japanese business life and those who cannot.

Turns out one of the kids busted for using his mobile to download a translation (which he managed to do with a non-smartphone, texting left-handed under the desk in record time, smart kid) had lost his dad a year earlier, done poorly in the first round of tests, and was desperate to get in to one of the elite Japanese universities that folk here are under the illusion guarantees you success or happiness and easy lays.

But actually, between thoughts of suicide, this kid from Sendai just wanted to provide for his mum. (The facts without the background, are here in English).

So you can understand the pressure on the kid. Anyway, rather than let the poor bastard off for his rather ingenious, brave, yet desperate move, the university set the cops on him for 偽計業務妨害...fraudulent interference in someone's duty.

Dunno about you, but rather than bang him up, Kyoto Uni should give him a place based on merit, originality of thought and sheer bloody mindedness.

Wait a minute, Our Man has a great idea... you know, the kid's tenacious, rebellious, with a heart of gold, and a prodigious typing speed... he's got all the qualities that would make a brilliant reporter.

You raised the nation's cockles and then backpedaled to revel in the kid's suffering... here's your moment to do the right thing... GIVE HIM A JOB.

How about it, Yomiuri Shimbun?

Anyway, this 7-11 Bordeax red sure is good.