Earthquakes - why I hate them

I absolutely hate earthquakes, so news of the latest incident always upsets me.

I spent 6 years in Japan. Like, no doubt, every other Gaijin(foreigner) there, I found tremors exciting at first. Then, bit by bit, they started to bother me, until I reached the stage when they scared the hell out of me.

My Japanese earthquake memories:

1. The times when I leapt out of bed and, as oft instructed, opened the main door of my flat, yet found that as the sole foreigner on the street, I was the only person to have done so. My Japanese neighbours would invariably sleep through the whole episode.

2. A visit to a 7 Eleven with my friend Mike. In the beer section, we noticed that the bottles were wobbling. We stood and watched as, in an eerie rippling effect, the shop's entire stock of bottles began to shake. Needless to say, no one else noticed. And no, we hadn't been on the grog.

3. The Kobe earthquake of 1995. Devastating, but what sticks in mind is the Japanese reaction. For a start, the first organised aid came from the local mafia - the Yakuza.

And the media coverage was, at least to this the western eye, hugely unsettling. The earthquake hit early in the morning. By the same evening, one TV channel was broacasting the names of the dead, on a continuous loop. Set against a black background, with the names in white, and dirge-like classical music playing, it felt deeply, deeply strange.

So all of that, I guess, adds up to why I hate earthquakes.

Blacksmith's empties

In Betchworth for lunch today, I noticed that the local blacksmith had left his empties out for the milkman. No idea why it tickled me, but it did.

The power of coincidence

I was trudging home from the station this evening - remember, first day back at work after a fortnight off - listening to Van Morrison singing "Cleaning Windows", when I saw ... the local window cleaner.

And, searching vainly for the song on YouTube, I came across a cover of Morrison's 'Into the mystic', by Jen Chapin, who I saw live, completely by coincidence, in Chicago last year.

So there, I'm feeling more cheerful already. Although my secret confession about Jen Chapin is that her small son was making so much noise (sitting in front of me) during the gig that I bailed out before it finished. Jen, hope this will make it up to you ...