Recovered from the rock and roll archive...

Yes, there it was in all it's faded glory. Here's a transcript of what Sherriff-sensei said (or meant to say):

Sherriff-sensei: Hello (applause). Let me introduce myself, I'm Patrick Sherriff. Nice to meet you. In 2007, I escaped from Britain (laughter), that's why my Japanese is not very good, my guitar playing is not very good and my singing is no good. But, I'm very good at being taught, er, teaching English. My conversation school, Tower English's phone number is 04-7100-1235 (laughter). Do you understand?  Let me repeat... do you have a pen? 04-7100... OK, with apologies to Mr Lennon...

Miyauchi-san: Got to sort my strap out... time for a commercial break. Let Mr Sherriff talk to you...

Sherriff-sensei: Nice weather today, isn't it? ... OK, Let's start the lesson.

(Well, despite battling a drooping microphone stand and an urge to sing flat, it wasn't too bad...)

After dinner entertainment

In a little over 36 hours (that's a sun-down and a half in old money) I'll be strutting my stuff as a bone fide Foreign Entertainer, singing and dancing for my supper. But before I do my take on Hey Jude by the Beatles and Sing by the Carpenters (there was no avoiding it) here is a warm-up act with Emma's own version of Hey Jude and Katherine's Ponyo Ponyo routine she is learning at school. Take it away girls:

 

The week that was

Well, what news to report? It's been a week since the last post, has there really been nothing worth mentioning? Probably, but that never stopped me before. No, I've been helping out Our Man in Abiko at his blog so there's been little of the candle left to burn at either end. Anyway, here's the week in review chez Sherriff:

• Taught loads of lessons.
• Ran round the lake twice (once with shacho)
• Giri-no-shacho has also discovered the joys of walking round the lake and has one of those step counters. She maybe overdid it a tad, coming back after six hours one afternoon - her step counter read 40,000 and something.
• Found a guitar shop in Kashiwa - the nearest big city - and rediscovered the joys of staring at beautiful guitars I can (still) never afford to buy.
• Rehearsed twice for the upcoming gig.
• Watched the final episode on cable of the first series of Life on Mars (was there a second? Yes, yes, we're a couple of years behind over here).
• Had a Valentine's lunch at our local Indian (actually Nepalese) restaurant with 13 of our students (so they could practice their English! No, really! (And it was fun, too - see the pictures here.)
• Went round the lake with the family (see above).

That's it. Hope to get back to you in less than a week...

Take a sad song and make it, er, better?

Sherriff-sensei's stage debut nears (just a fortnight to go) so he got his guitar and blues harp out for a little pre-practice practice (the organiser was coming round in 30 minutes). Maybe you are supposed to practice more than 30 minutes a week, still here's the show so far:

By the way, Yoshie remarked that usually parents video their kids, not the other way round. There's probably a darned good reason for this, as you can see. Roll on the 22nd!

Once more, with feeling

Just figured out how to upload to Youtube, which means this here video is now global, baby. Wow. Anyway, it shows a bossy but quite good older sister showing the ballet ropes to a younger, but quite forceful sister - all in our living room/classroom. 

Compare with here, from half a year ago.

Mission less impossible

News just in, I've been given a reprieve from my mission impossible... I just have to mime along to "Sing" (La la la la la, la la la la la, la la la la la). Then, one blast of me blues harp (that's harmonica to you non-Mississippi Delta blues aficionados) and the boss of the show agreed to my sheepish request to jettison some of the more difficult B sus 4 F#Minor-0nce-removed chords in Hey Jude, and turn it into a (simple) bluesy romp ala Status Quo. Rockin' all over the world! Just got to work on the singing part. Why'd McCartney have to sing so darned high anyways?

My home is my castle

So, you don't post anything for a week and when you do, all I get is a picture of the side of a block of flats? Yes, rubbish eh? Well, I've been a bit busy what with teaching (got three new students signed up this month - don't they know there's a recession on?), doing unpaid work for Our Man in Abiko (go on, cut and paste that into google and see what you get) and now practising to play Hey Jude in front of hundreds of people (maybe). I got roped into playing in a family's community-centre variety show after my protestations that "I'm not very good" were taken as modesty, rather than the truth that they really were. The organiser, the father of one of my students, then told me I also have to play Sing by the Carpenters. In Japanese. The Beatles have a song for it: Help! Oh, and I ran a 10k race on Sunday - time was 52 minutes, since you ask.

Anyway, so what's with the side of a building? Well, I noticed it while dropping the youngest off at nursery the other day. Just thought the, how you say, utilitarian nature of the corrugated aluminium walls contrasted oddly with the flowery name. Allow me to crop a little closer...

So long, W.

I don't know if I should stay up for the Obama coronation - it's at 2am local time - but I think I probably will, there's so little else worth watching on TV, don't you know. In the meantime, ya'll might enjoy this little game I found on my virtual journeys. Will Obama prove to be a let down like Blair? Probably, but then he doesn't have to do much to be better than the last guy. Here's hoping for the best...

 Goodbye Mr. Bush
Bush goes away from the White House... Tell him goodbye YOUR WAY (throwing boots, eggs, daisies or candies) This is a multi-highscore and cumulative-score game!

First day at nursery school

Sorry for not posting much recently, hope this makes up for it.

Natural selection

Here's a picture I snapped at about 4.45 pm on the seaside at Kamakura on New Year's Day that I forgot to share with you all. It's a little taste of the forces of nature, which we gave thanks to at Kamakura's largest shinto shrine below, wishing for a lucky new year in health, business and miscellaneous life, with several thousand other folk. In order to do that, we were shunted around by loudspeaker, in a very unnatural way:

Far better was a little local shrine a stone's throw from where we were staying, where, apart from an impatient foreigner (me) we could get on with it at our own pace:

Compare with the shrine round the corner, back at the ranch, by clicking here.

What we did on our holidays

1. Followed a map. Abiko is the red station with the arrow. Kamakura, our destination, is the last but one station on the bottom left. The journey took two and a half hours. The big circle in the middle is the Yamanote Line which circles Tokyo and is a bugger to get off when you have had a few. 

2. To get to our friend's house, we crossed over a river, and look what we saw. Nice colourful koi (carp). Can you see his black brothers? Can you see the photographer's shadow?

3. Watched the surfers waiting for their wave to come in.

4. So, this is the sea. We've heard so much about you.

5. Can you make out Mount Fuji? (Hint: It's the snow-capped mountain in the distance to the left of my head, between the green cliffs).

A very belated Happy New 'un

Here's the pesky video that refused to upload, anyway, without further ado:

A belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We just got back from Kamakura, a former capital of Japan back in the olden days before foreigners had been invented, so I haven't had a chance to wish you all a Happy New Year, allow me to do the honours:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I did spend the last hour trying to upload a nice video of the beach, but the system is conspiring against me, I will try again another day. As you would have been able to see, it was lovely, sunny, warm and full of middle-aged and elderly surfers. The place had a Bohemian feel to it, and was much like Brighton, apart from being sunny, warm and full of surfers, who incidentally would ride to the beach on bicycles with their boards held on purpose-made panniers. Oh, and Kamakura has a big Buddha. (Remember him?) It's been a full year since we were last there, so it is becoming something of a family tradition, though next year I'd love to be able to come back to the UK before I forget all my English.

Picture that, Mk iv

Picture 4: How old did you say you were?

Picture that, Mk iii

Picture 3: The only way is up

Picture that, Mk ii

Picture 2: Katherine all made up for her end-of-year ballet show

 

Happy New Year, all.

Picture that

The year is almost up, and we still haven't sent any Christmas cards or the New Year postcards you are supposed to send over here. So, apologies. Been a bit busy, but thanks to those who did send cards and e-mail. Instead, how about some photos I took that haven't made it to any blogs yet?

Photo 1: Emma finds a comfortable spot to cat-nap

Reggie Perrin's worst nightmare

I came across this video (courtesy of Andy in Tokyo) of the horrors of the morning rush hour. The video looks a little old, and most rush hour journeys are not quite this cozy, but this kind of thing does go on, it has to be said. This one's for you, Dr Datsun Kildare. Once again, can I just re-iterate, there are definite advantages to working from home. Oh, excuse me I think I dropped my newspaper...

 

Remains of the day

Clearly, Father Christmas (or Santa as he is known in these parts) enjoyed the cookies and wine the girls left for him, and Rudolph ate the carrot. Here are the results of his night's labours, chez Sherriff,  in two acts:

Act I: The bicycle

Act II: The discovery

A belated ho, ho, ho

We've had a hectic Christmas, and while I still haven't got round to uploading a video of Emma jumping for joy at seeing her new bike (and Katherine marvelling at how Santa managed to get a bunk bed in her bedroom while she was asleep in mum and dad's - bloody hard work at 1.30am I can tell you), instead here is a little Christmas musical to keep you all entertained. I do love a good musical, as you know...