A reminder on VE Day:
May 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
About 2.5 million personnel from the Indian subcontinent, more than 1 million African-Americans, 1 million people from Africa and tens of thousands of people from the Caribbean fought for the allies during World War Two.
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A review of the new superhero movie “Thunderbolts*”
May 4th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The hugely successful (over $30 billion in revenues) and massively prolonged (17 years and 36 films) Marvel Cinematic Universe has been looking rather lame of late, but this movie has brought some freshness to the franchise. With the Avengers officially history, a new team was required to save the world if not the universe and the producers have brought to the fore an odd bunch of characters who have previously been minor figures in the MCU world.
Step forward Russian daughter and father Yelena Belova and Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, putative Captain America John Walker, Captain America’s friend Bucky Barnes, Ava Starr aka Ghost, and most bizarre and powerful of them all Bob Reynolds aka Sentry aka Void.
Confused? Don’t worry. It becomes even more bewildering when these individual anti-heroes are somehow required to become a team of superheroes and each of them clearly has serious mental health problems. Not for nothing are the first words (from Yelena): “There is something wrong with me.” But it’s all done with a certain panache with lots of action and humour, even if one never fully understands what’s going on or being said.
The originality of the characters and the narrative are enhanced, rather surprisingly for an MCU movie, by some fine acting, especially from Florence Pugh as Yelena and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the ‘boss’ of each of the Thunderbolts aka The New Avengers. Don’t try to think about it all too much – unless you’re an MCU fanatic – just enjoy the fun.
Footnote: What’s with the asterisk in the title? In large part, a marketing device to stir up the expectations of the fan base, it suggests that the title is somehow provisional, foreshadowing the evolution of the Thunderbolts into The New Avengers – I think.
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A review of the stunning new film “Warfare”
April 29th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The word unique is overused and usually misused, but “Warfare” is a unique film. The nearest work to it is Ridley Scott’s 2001 “Black Hawk Down”. Both films depict actual firefights in which American soldiers struggle to stay alive in a messy combat with the cinematography presenting a brutally visceral depiction of the violent conflict. This time, the scene is Ramadi in Iraq in 2006 as Navy SEAL platoon Alpha One stakes out a residential area.
But “Warfare” is different from “Black Hawk Down”: there is no context or narrative, virtually all the scenes are in one apartment building, the action is represented in near real time, dialogue is minimal and mostly military terminology, and one barely sees the enemy. In short, this is an utterly immersive experience. Sound is critical: there is no score, just the cackle of radio communication plus endless and pounding gunshots, explosions and screams at fever pitch.
The film was both written and directed by Alex Garland, who made the recent “Civil War”, and Ray Mendes, who was Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) in the SEAL team, and the script is based entirely on the memories of the team members. It is a stunning addition to the ‘war is hell’ canon.
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The explosive growth in tourist numbers in Japan
April 22nd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that, following a professional visit to Japan in 1998, I’ve just made a return visit as a tourist for a more extensive trip.
In 1998, there were 4.1M foreign visitors to Japan. By 2014, there were 13.4M. By 2024, the figure was 36.9M. This is a staggering rate of growth, but the government is aiming for 60M.
Already I found parts of Japan – especially Kyoto – overtouristed. I find it hard to imagine how the extra numbers will be absorbed.
You can find full details of tourist figures here.
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A review of “Abroad In Japan” by Chris Broad
April 21st, 2025 by Roger Darlington
To be honest, this is not really a biography, instead it is part memoir and part travelogue. I read it while travelling in Japan and found it a very accessible and useful introduction to this wonderful but strange country. It is written in a casual, even conversational, style and it is often quite funny.
Broad – note how he incorporates his surname into the title of the book – went to Japan as a young man straight after graduation when he took part in a scheme to locate native English speakers in schools to assist with the teaching of English. He was assigned to a relatively remote corner of the north-west of the main island, a town called Sakata, where he spent his first three years in this country, painfully managing to learn Japanese.
Increasingly, he made videos for YouTube about the cultural curiosities of Japan and, as a result, moved to the north-east of the main island, a town called Sendai. More and more, he travelled around the country: he writes particularly about Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and Mount Fuji (each of which I have visited) and he has now been to all 47 prefectures that make up the country.
In short, amusing chapters, he explores the complicated language with three writing systems, the rarity of swearing, the long periods of silence, the formality of the education process, the forbidden-footwear culture, the attraction of hot springs, the experience of an earthquake, a missile from North Korea, the thriving drinking culture, the varied and often odd foods, the role of hostess bars, the commitment to service, the prevalence of cleanliness, the wearing of face masks, the shortage of living space, the introduction of capsule hotels, the efficiency of the railways, the ubiquity of road tunnels (an estimated 10,000), the preference for presentism over productivity, the superiority of group conformity over individualism, the low obesity rate, the extensive longevity, the explosion in tourism, the antipathy to foreign residents, and the obsession with cats – and more.
Towards the end of the book, the tone becomes more serious as he makes videos about the consequences of the devastating tsunami of 2011. The book covers the decade January 2012 to March 2022, but the story continues on YouTube where Broad has now posted over 250 videos.
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A review of “Japan: A Short History” by Mikiso Hane
April 21st, 2025 by Roger Darlington
For the last two millennia, Japanese history has been divided into eras named after the capital or after the shogun or emperor of the time:
the Yamato period (c.300-710) with the political centre located in the area around Kyoto, then known as Yamato; the Nara period (710-784) named after the capital city; the Heian period (794-1185) when the capital was Heian, present day Kyoto; the Kamakura period (1185-1333) named after the headquarters of the shogunate; the Ashikaga shogunate (1338-1573); the Tokugawa or Edo period (1603-1868) when the country was ruled from Edo (current Tokyo); and, more recently, the eras of the emperors Meiji (1868-1912), Taisho (1912-1926), Showa (1926-1989) and Heisei (1989-2019).
Mikiso Hane (1922-2003) was a history professor at Knox College, Illinois, USA and most of his 200 or so pages cover the years from Tokugawa rule onwards. Japan was effectively – and deliberately – cut off from the rest of the world until the arrival of four American warships in 1853, but the Meiji restoration period saw rapid modernisation and the emergence of the country as a major world power.
Japan entered the First World War on the Allied side in order to take over German concessions in China. The annexation of Korea in 1910 and the occupation of Manchuria in 1931 were followed by the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the unconditional surrender to the USA after the dropping of two atomic bombs in 1945.
Hane makes a point of covering not just political developments, but social and cultural changes, including the role of women. When covering the contemporary scene, he highlights the increasing longevity of the Japanese and the restrictions on immigration. although his book was published in 2000 before the full effect of the falling birth rate, all of which are dramatically impacting the demographics of the nation.
He is frank about the social situation: “Despite the rise in living standards, problems of overcrowding, housing shortages, poorer sanitation facilities compared to other industrial nations, and pollution continue to plague the populace.”
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It will take you 18 minutes to listen to this talk – but you won’t regret it
April 20th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
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Holiday in Japan (13): reflections
April 18th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
How to summarise such an exciting and varied holiday?
We all agreed that the highlight of our trip had been the day viewing the majestic Mount Fuji. Often the sight of the volcano is hazy or poor or simply impossible. We could not have had better weather and clearer views. For me, the other highlight was the time at the two magnificent temples in Kyoto.
Overall, we had seen Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples and ancient castles, gardens and bamboo forest, huge railway stations and amazing shopping malls. We had visited a peace museum, a railway museum and a folk village, and we had experienced a miso factory, a tea ceremony and a sake brewery.
Travelling by bullet train was a wonderful experience and trying Japanese food was fun.
Four long flights, seven hotels, a different language, a different script, a different culture, different food – Japan can be a disorientating experience, but such a thrilling one.
Quite simply, Japan is another world. Everything is neat and orderly and works. There is no litter and no graffiti. There are vending machines everywhere selling everything. There is WiFi everywhere.
The Shinkansen (bullet train) system is a marvel of engineering – very fast, very punctual and very comfortable (although with no catering facilities).
For all its embracing of technology, Japan used to be be a cash-based society, but clearly the Covid pandemic has changed that because I was able to use my debit card almost everywhere and never obtained any local currency throughout my holiday.
Japan is a conformist society. Nobody crosses a road unless they have a green light even if there is no traffic. Everything is automated with screens everywhere. Japanese timekeeping is ultra precise. Service is excellent, people are polite, there is no tipping in Japan.
Japan is an easy country for English speakers to visit because – at least in the major cities and transportation centres – so much signage is in English and instructions for things like coffee machines have an English option. There are public toilets everywhere and they are always clean, sometimes even with fresh flowers. All the toilets in the hotels have heated seats and bidet functions.
If I was the Emperor of Japan, the one thing I would change is the toilet paper and the tissue paper – it is ridiculously thin.
How to characterise Japanese society?
Japan has a fascinating history, stunning terrain and thrilling cities, but it is a seriously odd nation for foreigners to understand. The language is inaccessible and the people reserved, so that it is hard to make a connection. Everything is so ordered that it begins to feel regimented.
There is a sense of being in a theme park: everything is so clean, everyone is so polite, the advertisements are frequently so garish. There is a feel of infantilism: young women often dress like girls, women of all ages like to don a kimono, and women especially seem to giggle and smile excessively.
It is a land of obsessions: an obsession with samurai and shoguns (with no reference to the murderous 20th century), an obsession with bizarre foods (such as bits of meat and various seafoods), an obsession with certain forms of entertainment (anime comics and films, electronic games, figurines of fighting characters), and an obsession with cats (think of the brand Hello Kitty).
And always there is that sense of conformity: at school, at work and at leisure, people do not like to stand out and bully or intimidate those that do, foreigners are tolerated but not really accepted, and so few Japanese have ever left the country or even own a passport.
For the 265 years of the Edo period, Japan was cut off from the world. It is an open country now – but on its own terms, determined to stay different and even aloof and with minimal immigration and work permits.
I thoroughly enjoyed my second visit to Japan, but I could never live there: my height, my extroversion and my love of desserts mean than I would stand out too much.
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Holiday in Japan (12): return
April 18th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Thursday was a day of departures with different members of the Great Rail Journeys group flying off to different destinations. Those flying to London had the day free in Osaka. Four of us joined together as a Northern Brigade: Dave & Jen from Grimsby, Jenny originally from Huddersfield, and me originally from Manchester. The weather was excellent: 23C.
After a late breakfast, we walked all the way to the towering Osaka Castle and had a good look around the grounds, but we did not go inside because the queue for entry was so long. Next, we stopped at a boulangerie for coffee and cake and it was warm enough to sit outside.
We failed to find a bus tour of the city, so we took a taxi to the Dotonbori district which we visited yesterday. We explored different streets and paused for a cold drink and a snack. Again we were able to sit outside.
Another taxi had us back at our hotel about 3.30 pm. We had had to vacate our rooms, so the next three and a half hours were spent in and around the hotel, with the Northern Brigade venturing out to a nearby mall for what was either a late lunch or early dinner. The group left the hotel at 7 pm to spend four hours at the airport before take-off.
Again we flew with Emirates: Osaka to Dubai (five hours behind) in an Airbus A380 for ten and a half hours and Dubai to London (eight hours behind) in another Airbus for an additional seven and a quarter hours.
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Holiday in Japan (11): Arashiyama & Osaka
April 16th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
It was the last day of the official part of our tour (Wednesday).
Leaving Kyoto after three nights, we first journeyed to the nearby town of Arashiyama. We were there to see a bamboo forest.
The company’s description of the location suggested: “Listen out for the soothing sounds of trunks creaking and knocking together and leaves rustling in the captivating canopy above.” We couldn’t hear a thing above the noise of a throng of tourists.
It was another hour or so before we reached Osaka so our local guide Kazoo took the opportunity to explain the education system, the health system and the tax system in Japan. I’ll spare you the details.
Osaka has a population of 2.7 million, making it the third most populace city in Japan (after Tokyo and Yokohama). It has a raw, gritty feel quite unlike the rest of the country.
As soon as we reached the city, we went to the Umeda Sky Building which consists of two 40-storey towers linked by a Floating Garden Observatory almost 570 feet (174 metres) high. Actually the observation deck does not have a garden and could hardly be said to be floating, but there are grand views of the metropolis.
It was lunchtime and we were dropped at a district called Dotonbori which is the entertainment section of the city with a multitude of eating establishments. All the advertisements and crowds were more reminiscent of Hong Kong than other parts of Japan.
One of the features of this trip has been the strict timekeeping of the itinerary. Dontonbori was yet another example of us having a set time to be back on the coach with the threat that, if one missed that time, the bus would have gone because there are so many tourist coaches that officials rigidly enforce tight restrictions on drop off and pick up times.
In the evening, the group had a farewell dinner at our hotel, the Sheraton Miyako. We were served a set menu of four courses, each small but exquisitely presented. Our Tour Manager Bill and local guide Kazoo each made short speeches and I responded on behalf of the group.
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