How to Play Japanese Three-Player Mahjong

5th August: Ray Out of Gaol and Out of Luck

In attendance at tonight's game along with Noda were Eri and Our Man from the Civil Service (Deparment of Secondary "Education"), Raymond Bolger who found himself in the most unusual position of being FREE OF DUTIES and able to pop into town for a breath of fresh air (at least, as fresh as it comes at Kodama on a Friday evening...).

Indeed, this temporary release from gaol (namely, a junior high school in a remote rural location reported to be somewhere near Saijo) appeared to give Ray-Sensei a new lease of life at the mahjong table, for even as The Poor Little Cypriot was wolfing down some rather fine if microscopic portions of raw Hiroshima beef along with various other fine sashimi cuts and feeling that Life was rather a pleasant sort of game, Ray was putting together a commanding lead in the first game of the evening and doubtless feeling that winning at mahjong was a rather pleasant sort of life...

By the end of the first game Ray was on +52, Eri on -14 and Noda on -43... HOWEVER, by the end of the second game Ray may have been rueing his parole and yearning for the security of his prison cell as Mr Noda suddenly woke up (perchance his second shochu had just kicked in?) and racked up a series of high scoring hands to finish the second game on +132, almost two thirds of which was drawn from Ray's pocket which sent him into the red.

This game was sufficiently drawn out that its conclusion coincided with The Poor Little Cypriot's release from his social engagement. A phone call demanding to know where he was was met with a full-bellied Hurley-charge up the Hondori (reminiscent of one of his surges up the right wing of the football pitch that so discomfits the younger players) so that he was seated at the mahjong table barely ten minutes after vacating his seat at the table of his Great Sugar Mama Benefactress.

Hurley's arrival gave Eri the opportunity to relinquish the table while she was down and do a Cinderella and rush home before her mama-chari turned into a pumpkin.

It is often the case that when The Poor Little Cypriot comes to the table after a feast that he goes crashing to defeat but it seems that the party broke up at just that right point when the proportion of alcohol to blood is perfectly inspirational. The PLC seemed to be aware of everything - at least, that is how it felt to him - and he survived Ray's recovery in the third game by finishing on a modest -2. Ray finished top on +22 which brought him back to -1 overall... Could a gaijin victory be in sight? Noda ordered another shochu...

In the fourth and final game, the PLC's sense of inspiration, reinforced by a glass of Kodama beer, proved to be not unfounded and he finished on +43. Unfortunately for Ray The Poor Little Cypriot's inspiration was entirely at his expense as Noda floundered around and finished the game on 0... There was a question at the end of the game as to whether or not Ray's Yakitori tessera, which was still cheerfully sat on the table, ought actually to have been there or not. It was felt that it seemed as if he might have won a hand at some stage during the last game and so the fine was not levied on the man on parole.

So the reckoning for the evening turned out to be:

Noda: -43, +132, -20, 0 = +69
David: -, -, -2, +43 = +41
===
Ray: +57, -80, +22, -43 = -44
Eri: -14, -52 = -66

Once again Hurley finishes in his favoured position of "second and in the black".

The other good news was that the evening finished at about 11:30 so Ray and Hurley shared a taxi to Yokogawa and Hurley was able to catch the penultimate train home!

31st July: Summer Mahjong Training Camp: Gifu-ken, in which Mr and Mrs H teach their nephews to play mahjong...

28th July: Poor Little Cypriot Under the Doctors

... A can of ASAHI HONNAMA - the dreaded HAPPOSHU that comes in a can with a red livery and tastes like ditchwater. If I am not mistaken, "HONNAMA" means something like "Original/Real Draft". Since when has HAPPOSHU been either "real" or "draft" beer???

BBC.CO.UK Comment

"According to one columnist at a Japanese website - Captain Japan - the only thing the success of happoshu proves, is that if a drink is cheap enough, it will sell, even if it tastes like medicine."

Dr Mogami Jr: "I like beer but I don't notice the difference... I like beer but I can't drink it because of my gout..."

It turns out that the largesse of the Mogamis is a result of their receiving numerous gifts of beer from their (presumably) satisfied patients which for one reason or another they are never going to drink themselves. So that is why they looked so askance when I arrived the first time we were to play mahjong with a bag full of beer - they already had a fridge full of the stuff that they wanted to clear out! I wonder if the patient who gave them the Asahi Honnama wasn't making some sort of comment or protest as to the quality of the treatment he received.

I believe that by the end of the evening I was the only loser. It was not that the whole evening of play had gone badly, but that in my wretched indifference to the game I did not always bother to take any notice of what was going on on the table and at other times played my hand weakly, turning many a silver purse into a sow's ear. On one occasion Dr M Senior went Riichi while I was Tenpai on a Chinitsu hand waiting for 1&4-Bamboo. The Senior Doc threw out the 4-Bamboo and I glumly looked at it and in my inertia I failed to declare Ron by which time the Junior Doc had discarded a tile. Shortly thereafter the Senior Doc declared "Tsumo".

It was the sort of evening when an early finish would have been preferable, ideally early enough for me to catch the 11:30 tram home, but failing that the 12:07 train would do. The last game began with 40 minutes of play to spare before I would have to leave to make it to Hiroshima station in time for the last train. But, of course, this game dragged itself out with interminable absence of celerity. My heart ached and a drowsy numbness pained my sense, as though of Asahi Honnama I had drunk. This was the game in which various members of the Mogami family retained the Oya for several hands. This was the game in which I failed to turn my fortunes around and in which my lack of safety play invariably seemed to be to the benefit of the Oya. My idea, inasmuch I had one, was to eschew safety play so that either I finished the game quickly with a winning hand, or I brought the game swiftly to an end by discarding a recklessly dangerous tile. It was the latter half of the equation that prevailed, at which point the flaw in the plan revealed itself: if one is not the Oya one risks the prolongation of the tenure of the current Oya by playing into his hands. Thus, as I say, by this circumstance, the product of an addled and wearied brain, and by various other sundry occurrences, the game lengthened itself out beyond the departure of the last train and the Poor Little Cypriot was faced with having to pay for his evening at the Mogamis' and with the prospect of either a long walk or a pricey taxi ride home... === Comment posted by Bertie Spears (architect@bunker.org), on August 13, 2005, 12:24 pm

A fine description of the Hurler in rare maudlin mode. One could almost picture him staring blankly at the table and wondering if Wenck's 4th Armee was ever really going to show up. Oh, sorry, getting two stories mixed up there...

Sunday 24th July: Axis and Allies - Lightfoot's Unconditional Surrender...

I don't remember how many weeks ago it was that Kenyon and David were driven over to Andy Lightfoot's place by Mrs H, with Little Eileen also in attendance, to play Axis and Allies, but today, we managed to finish the game off. Kenyon and David played the Allies (K being the USSR, D the Western Allies) while Lightfoot played the Axis powers.

Today's venue was the floor of Kenyon's Mrs's flat, which happens to be over in Fuchuu-cho, very close to Satoru Yoshimoto's oriental medical practice.

Lightfoot had reached the zenith of his power in the game sometime during the first afternoon of play and this afternoon saw the allied powers crush and defeat him while he drank The Poor Little Cypriot's beer and ate his peanuts (see pic).

It must be admitted that the PLC was in a generous mood on the beer front as he had received some "summer gift" beer coupons from two of his lovely students, so before the game he and the other two stocked up on booze to such an extent that Kenyon's Mrs's fridge could not take it all.

However, by the time Mrs K joined us the fridge had begun to look a bit empty and she did us the honour of replenishing our supplies.

Afterwards we headed over to Marine Police, the "kaitenzushi" restaurant and were joined by Mrs H and Little Eileen. David called Satoru, who did us the honour of dragging himself off his tatami mats and joining us for dinner, and then insisted on footing the bill and on entertaining us back at his gaff, which just goes to show what a jolly decent sort of chap he is and it is a pity he is not able to join us more often at the mahjong table...

Which reminds me, Lightfoot has made certain rumbling noises about joining us at the jansou of a Friday night, which would be a welcome though somewhat surprising turn up for the books, if it were ever to happen...

===

The last time I had seen Kenyon before today was Friday 22nd at Kodama. I had only stayed at the table for a couple of games before heading off home. I forget now whether or not I left the table ahead or behind, but either way it was not by a large margin (otherwise I would surely have remembered, wouldn't I?) but when I left Eri had racked up a commanding lead with Noda and Kenyon struggling. Could the evening be lining itself up for a reversal of fortunes? Apparently not. It seems that in the last game Kenyon won big and mostly at Eri's expense and more than that I am unable to say...

15th July: Four Winners and a Funeral

The winners of the first game were Noda (+55) and Eri (+31). The fourth player, Jaime, found himself at the bottom of the pack on -64.

Kenyon had arrived by now and so Eri took the opportunity to disappear while she was ahead.

The second game saw David overturn his losses while Noda managed almost to overturn his winnings. Jaime trod water and Kenyon ended up a modest +5.

At some point during this game while the Poor Little Cypriot was out of the action he happened to be perusing one of the gentlemen's magazines which our hostess so kindly provides for her patrons when he came across a remarkable likeness of his old pal the Oirish Tweedledum looking as if he had recently recovered from a severe bushwacking... Could the poor chap's high-volume improvised insulting-of-all-and-sundry-in-crowded-bars routine finally have caused him to come a cropper? We await with baited breath for relevations over at ardle.net...

In the third game of the evening Kenyon suddenly got into his groove and surged ahead with a series of wins to finish top on +46. Noda also managed to keep his head above water, finishing on +12. David finished on -7 but by living off his winnings in the previous game he was able to avoid a descent back into the red. The bulk of the losses in this game were sustained by Jaime who also, by failing to complete a single hand, found himself with his Yakitori left on the table to compound his misery.

Noda tottered off home but the three foreigners agreed to see out a bit more of the night at Kodama.

The next game provided Jaime with his one winning period of the evening, he finished on +33 as the only winner... Were we about to experience an historic recovery of fortunes?

Sadly for him, we were not. In the long-drawn-out final game of the evening fortunes fluctuated about the zero mark and by the end of the South round there was no winner so a West round was played. This also produced no winner and so another East round was agreed to (as soon as we remembered that there is no North round in the three-player game...).

Finally, in that round Kenyon broke into an unassailable lead as the players all began to put together high-scoring hands. David found himself looking sudden defeat in the face when his turn as Last Oya came around. Suddenly he found himself in with a chance of Kokushimuso while also able to disguise it by throwing out a scattering of Winds, Dragons and 1s and 9s until he got to Tenpai and needed just the 1-Characters, a tile that had not yet been thrown out and yet was also a likely candidate to be discarded... Meanwhile Jaime was concentrating on not going out to Kenyon. He pulled a tile from his wall, uttered a groan of dismay (yet again) while perusing Kenyon's discard tiles. David had a feeling something sweet was about to happen... Sure enough, Jaime threw the 1-Characters. Kenyon did not respond, but from the other side of the table...

"Ron... Kokushimuso!"

The result of all this was that Kenyon, unaffected by this drama, finished the last game top on +51, David finished on +22, and Jaime finished on -73. So the result of the last two games was a dead zero for David while Kenyon took 40 points off Jaime.

The reckoning:

Kenyon: - , +5, +46, -11, +51 = +91
Eri: +31, - , - , - , - = +31
David: -22, +50, -7, -22, +22 = +21
Noda: +55, -52, +12, - , - = +15
===
Jaime: -64, -3, -51*, +33, -73 = -158

* Yakitori.

June 24th: Tim's 40th at Kulcha, with MJ on the Side..." by David on June 25, 2005

Neither David nor Ray made it to the first leg of Tim's 40th birthday party which took place on the bleachers of the outfield at Hiroshima Baseball Stadium. Neither of them finished work before 7:30 and both of them happened to be starving, so they met at Restaurant Lal's between the Tatemachi tram stop and the Hondori and pigged out on the Y2,100 set menu of curry (sag chicken), garlic nan, tandoori chicken (served with a jar of delicious mint sauce), salad and rice. A fine way to set your self up for an evening of mahjong - oh, and of drinking with Tim in Kulcha... and elsewhere.

Anyway, when we'd done at Lal's we strolled over to Kulcha where Kenyon was already installed at the bar. We keep a mahjong set and playing mat at Kulcha, but the mat was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that it Alex who works behind the bar didn't know what it was and had dumped it with the rubbish. Fortunately for us, however, "unburnable rubbish day" had not yet come around and so Alex was able to rescue it for us.

Noda had arrived by now and so we occupied the table by the window and commenced play. Whe drew tiles to see who was in the first game and the lots fell to Noda, David and Ray.

Playing mj in a bar is quite different from playing in a mahjong parlour. It is darker for a start, and alsoit is noisier and the noise is more intrusive because it is not "mahjong noise" if you see what I mean. It is quite easy to get distracted by the drift of overheard conversation or by the music. People who have not seen mahjong played before come up and ask about it. All part of the the fun, but it takes some practise to get used to it. Jaime has done well at Kulcha and second to him David has probably had most experience playing in that environment. Anyway, it also helped David that he was playing close to the beginning of his evening rather than at the other end as the buzz was just right and his hands flowed together.

Tim, Jaime, Anker, Ben arrived from the baseball. Anker, who was stood just behind David and Ray, spent some time showing some of the others the video content of a mobile phone which was eliciting some lively commentary from his audience as to the accidental* attributes of the protagonist's membrum virile.

I don't remember if this was the point at which Rays game started to wilt on him but he found himself stuck in a bit of a hole and not one of his choosing. Over in the far corner Noda steadfastly knocked back the shochu but failed to raise his game which allowed David to finish the only winner on a healthy +63.

David and Ray relinquished their seats and Jaime and Kenyon joined Noda for the second game. Jaime seized the advantage of playing on home territory while Noda, fortified by another shochu or two, somehow or other also managed to get back into the black and entirely at Kenyon's expense. By now the bar was filling up and neither Ray nor David were keen on going back to the table - one reluctant to risk losing any more and the other reluctant to risk giving back what he had won. Meanwhile the winner of the second game was also happy to sit on his position while Noda was struggling merely to sit on his stall. Thus, over the protests of a rather broke Kenyon, the game was concluded and the mat rolled away for another day - we hope.

Here are the scores:

David: +63, -- = +63
Jaime: --, +32 = +32
Noda: -8, +11 = +3
===
Kenyon: --, -43 = -43
Ray: -55, -- = -55

===
*Accident in the Aristotelian sense as "that which belongs to some members of the class but not to others." Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle, p. 114.
===

MEANWHILE Tim's birthday was unfolding after this wise... (to be continued)

The Way of Horatio Alger & Davy Crockett" by Jaime on June 25, 2005

"Baseball was, is, and always will be the best game in the world."

On Friday evening to help usher in Tim's 40th birthday a select many were invited to the ballpark where the Hiroshima Carp turn out and on the whole lose their games. The group was a largely non-North American lot and this probably added to the complete lack of emotional involvement in the game. The Carp lost 12-4 or something like that. How a game this dull can enthrall a paying crowd is incredulous. Yet maybe Walt Whitman had hidden insight into the psyche of a fan when he wrote that:

"It's America's game, it belongs as much to our own institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitution's laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life"

The lure of Kulcha, mahjong and Happy Hour proved too irresistible for many of our platoon and before the bottom of the 9th those remaining were outnumbered by the litter in the stands. I too had departed; Hurley had been arranging a gathering of the usual MJ Crowd at Kulcha and I was eager to join them. As I left the stadium the Chunichi Dragons were hitting home runs as if they were Tim downing free beers on a brewery tour.

Noda, Ray (AKA The Invisible Man) and Hurley were locked in an intense battle when I strolled up to sneak a Moscow Mule in just before the watershed. Other regulars were humming around, including Anka who had somehow got hold of a mobile phone with material that would normally demand a membership fee at a house of ill repute.

I have little idea about what happened in this game as I was distracted by Anka's phone, talking football to Alex the barman and eating spicy cheese nachos. I gather that Hurley won, Noda, sliding towards total alcohol inebriation, was down a little and the Invisible Man had sunk like the Mary Rose.

Hurley and the Invisible Man gladly departed the rubber and allowed the Human Computer, wearing a ripped off Internazionale shirt, and myself to join Noda.

The more Noda rolls his eyes, sniggers at nothing, mumbles stuff and continues to down hard liquor the harder it usually is to beat the old bugger. Yet, I have a proud record of games at Kulcha - I have never finished in the minus column and indeed have usually triumphed totally when playing there.

Noda, ominously started aggressively and won the first few hands. Kenyon was stalking him on the rails and I was, well floundering a bit. Yet another Ron for Noda off Kenyon started a run of good fortune for me. I was winning, but only very small amounts. As we approached the final Oya, all the three players were shy of the 50,000pts required. Noda was just down, Kenyon a little bit more and myself bottom, but still in the 40s.

Despite Noda thinking that we were playing another East round a West round began with myself winning a nice little hand. Yet all too soon my Oya-ship was stripped away from me and we had reached the last Oya with the scores poised as such; Noda +11, Kenyon -31 and myself -3 or something near that. Both Kenyon and I had gone Riichi, this is usually where he starts hoovering up wins and heaving away in to the distance with a nice victory total. But not tonight, tonight was to end a curse that had plagued me since my first tentative games of MJ back at Hurley's Old old flat. I was to finally emerge all conquering from a West round. A nice little two head wait (4 and 5 of Bamboo) with some bonus tiles hidden away, table wind and Chun Dragon meant that after Kenyon had thrown me the winning tile I stood alone atop the mast and looked down on my conquered foe.

Hurley, due to his higher winnings in the first game was top honcho; I completed an English (Turkish-Kiwi) one-2. Noda won the bronze. Kenyon and The Invisible Man languished with the heads held and their wallets lightened at the bottom.

Finally, a more fitting response to Mr. Ruth's baseball myopia are the words of the legendry Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly:

"Football is not a matter of life and death. It is more important than that."

May 23rd: Mogami Seniors Defeat the Junior Players...

Dr Mogami Jr had a fairly miserable evening and I think I faired even worse than him although overall our losses did not amount to much. Let us just say that inspiration seemed to be lacking in the younger members.

For example, in one game I had everything set except one set of three tiles. Nevertheless, I had the 5-Bamboo and 5-Coins so the odds of getting something to connect and making me Tenpai were really quite high. However, I drew a tile which complicated the stuff that was already set but instead of tossing it I tried to incorporate it (hoping to get Iipeiko) and tossed the 5-Coins. The next tile I drew was 6-Coins and the one after that... yup, the 4-Coins. Both had to be tossed and a few turns later Mrs Mogami Sr went Tsumo!

On another occasion there was a protracted argument between the two doctors over the total score of another of Mrs Mogami Sr's winning hands, with each doctor looking to me for corroboration of his diagnosis.

We managed three games over four hours which is pretty slow going.

June 17th-19th: Fukuoka and Back"

"At thirty I established myself.

At forty I was no longer confused."

On arriving at Hakata (i.e. Fukuoka) we established ourselves in three reasonably priced single rooms at the SB Hotel just a couple of minutes away from the station. Once upon a time we used to eschew the luxury (and expense) of booking into a hotel, preferring to party all night and then recover in an all-night bath-house. That was the typical pattern on trips across the water from Hiroshima to Matsuyama. Of course, the expense of drinking one's way through "the dead vast and middle of the night," and then chilling out in a bath-house for a couple of hours doubtless amounted to more than the cost of a decent room in a hotel. A clean and comfortable single room at the SB hotel costs just 5,565 yen, while a larger "Deluxe Single" costs 5,880 yen and comes with a double bed... Naturally, we went for the Deluxe Single option, with double bed (even after we had noticed a notice which notified us that we were not supposed to "entertain friends" over night)...

Anyway, the night was yet young when three refreshed and spruced up Johnny Foreigners emerged from their rooms and headed into town in search of "friends" to entertain.

Now, in the course of a working week I teach several classes of mature, middle class, respectable Japanese housewives and I had entertained myself over the last few days by asking them where a fellow should go in Fukuoka for innocent nocturnal entertainment. Virtually to a woman these respectable dames advised me to go to Nakasu...

So into Nakasu we headed with the intention of finding a bar called "The Happy Cock". It quickly became evident that we had walked into Fuckuoka's red light district. A pimp took a particular interest in us:

Pimp: "You wanna blow job?"

Hurley: "Happy Cock? Doko?"

We came to a police box and decided to ask them if they knew anything about Happy Cock. In filed three Johnny Foreigner. One of the five policemen on duty seemed keen to speak English.

"We are looking for a bar called The Happy Cock. Do you know where it is?"

The friendly English speaker had never heard of it but was keen to tell us about how he had seen the Twin Towers on the 10th September 2001. Meanwhile another of the policemen got out a phonebook, one more advised us to head over to Tenjin and another busied himself on the telephone seeking information and the fifth surveyed the streetmap.

Eventually, the youngest guy discovered that the Happy Cock lay in Tenjin and we were advised to head over there by taxi because "Nakasu not safety place".

So, we jumped into a taxi and headed over to Tenjin and up to the Happy Cock, which seemed to be full of promise, just the sort of thing we had come to Fuckuoka in search of.

However, priorities being what they are, after a while of looking at and discussing what we had come here in search of, we realised that we were starving and piled out of the club, after first checking that the stamps on the back of our hand for the all-night-nomihodai (drink as much as you like for a fixed price) deal would still count if we went out and came back. It would, so that is what we did.

It just so happens that one of the best ramen shops in a city famous for its ramen stalls is located just around the corner. David stumbled on it though he did not know it was one of the best at the time, but the following night when we passed the shop at about 8pm there was a long queue outside.

The local habit is to suck the noodles out of the soup and then request a "Kaedama" or free second helping of noodles which are slopped into the soup.

Back in the Happy Cock Tim made a sally in a certain direction but was rather put off taking matters further when they discovered that one of the girl's best friends happened to be one of Tim's university students...

By now it was around 3am I suppose and Jaime headed back to the hotel. Tim and David were still quite convinced that the night might yet be young and found themselves among the young set which choose to gather outside 7-11 on the main Tenjin drag, Oyafuko-dori...

===

"Oyafuko-dori means street of disobedient children, originally referring to a local school but nowadays more applicable to groups of college kids in various stages of inebriation who gather here at weekends under the blind eye of the koban on the corner."
(Source: www.eztrip.com

David bought a six pack of beer and found a seat on the low wall that divides the road from the pavement outside the shop and which is a favoured place for the crowds of youths to sit or squat around and hang out. Tim entertained himself with several of the young ladies while David entertained himself learning the local argot for commenting on the attributes of the said young ladies as they pass. I wish I could remember everything I learnt that morning, but the fine rich phrases that approximated such delicate observances as "Phwoh look at the balcony on that..." disappeared from the memory as fast as the beers disappeared from the six-pack.

At some stage the two senior gaijin hailed a taxi back to their hotel just in time for breakfast.

===

David had three hours kip and forced himself out of bed and down to the station in a determined effort to try the waters of Futsukaichi Onsen (which attempts to market itself as Chikushino Spa and Bath Resort) on the way to or from Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine.

Futsukaichi Onsen is not one of the resorts that spring off the lips of the Japanese when you mention Kyushu, but it had the merit of being just about the closest one to Fukuoka.

Jaime buzzed me to find out where I was so I waited for him at Futsukaichi station. I thought I'd do a bit of scouting round before he arrived so I got a map and brochure of the area from the station tourist office and headed out... It soon became clear to me that I was on the wrong road and that I needed to double back to the station and turn left to find the spas. Nevertheless, I decided to check with an old geezer who was ambling up the road with his wife bringing up the rear.

"Sumimasen... Which is the road to the onsens?" Now, I was of the firm persuasion that he would either tell me he had no idea (since he has probably only lived in Futsukaichi for the past 75 years) OR he would tell me to head down towards the station and turn left.

"Onsen? Eeto... Go down there and turn right."

"Right?"

"That's right. Right."

By now the old buffer's Mrs had caught up with him.

"What does he want?" she asked.

"He wants the onsen. It's down there and turn right isn't it."

"The onsen? No it isn't. You turn left."

The old buffer bridled at his wife's flagrant and tactless contradiction of his singularly authoritative pronouncement...

"NO IT ISN'T... You turn right..."

But the wife wouldn't budge either.

"No, you turn left..."

Hurley: "Er, thank you very much."

I left them to their matrimonial bliss and turned left and found the spa, which consists of three buildings of which I shall have more to relate a little later. In the meantime, I returned to the station, purchased my first cleansing beer of the morning (not, I grant of the morning chronological, but of the morning psychological, being that part of the day lasting about three hours after you have got up) and searched for some other way to amuse myself at Futsukaichi while waiting for Jaime to show up.

Aha. Two members of the fair sex were running a steamed bean-cake booth.

"Hello. What are you selling. Can a foreigner eat it?"

The dear ladies persuaded me that indeed a foreigner could and that it would also slip down nicely with a beer, so before you could say that Bob was your uncle, there I was chomping on a hot bean paste cake and chatting to the dear ladies about the mysteries of Japanese womanhood. Well, it kept me occupied until Jaime, not looking too much worse for wear after last night's adventures, came stalking up.

We then ambled across to the Nishitetsu line and bought a ticket to Dazaifu, the train for which departs from platform three. We were chatting away and paying no attention to what we were doing and got on the train on platform three and continued to chat through three stations when I suddenly realized that we were on the wrong train since the line terminates at Dazaifu, which is the first and last stop on the line.

By the time we got to Dazaifu it was time for lunch and we found a restaurant offering karage (batter-fried chicken) so in we went.

The waitress came up to take our order.

"Beer please."

"Kirin or Asahi?"

"Kirin."

She disappeared and brought us a bottle of Ashahi and promptly opened it and poured us a glass each.

"It's Asahi," said Jaime.

"Ah well, it's beer," said David.

We drank to that. Then another waitress came to take our order.

"Karage-teishoku [set meal] for me and karage for him."

"Two karage-teishoku?"

"No, one karage-teishoku for me and karage for him."

"Eh? Two teishoku?"

"No. I want karage-teishoku, but he doesn't want karage-teishoku, he just wants chicken karage."

Then Jaime said: "I want rice too."

So I said: "I thought you just wanted karage."

So he said: "I want what's in the window."

So I said: "That's karage-teishoku. Two karage-teishoku, please."

So the waitress said: "Hai," and disappeared.

At that moment the first waitress came up to us and said: "Excuse me but you ordered Kirin and I brought you Asahi."

"Yes," we said, "and we've already drunk most of it, could we have another beer please?"

"Kirin or Asahi."

"Er, Kirin..."

So, eventually, we got a bottle of Kirin and two surprisingly good Karage-teishokus served up and everything worked to make it a very convivial lunchtime in which I seem to remember relating a never-before-told story about some dusty corner of my past that some circumstance had caused me to recall - but of course, I forget what it was now that the moment has passed.

Anyway, we ambled around Dazaifu shrine admiring the water lilies and the ancient trees and trying to work out which ancient tree it was that flew to Dazaifu and started the whole shrine business there.

===
Cultural Note: Dazaifu

Located a little outside Fukuoka at the town of Dazaifu, this Shinto shrine is dedicated to the 9th century scholar Suguwara No Michizane. Michizane was exiled to Dazaifu after some dubious machinations at court by envious rivals. Heartbroken, he died in misery 2 years later. Dazaifu was at that time an important administrative centre of government. The story goes that his favourite plum tree uprooted itself on the night he was exiled and flew down to root itself in Dazaifu. The tree can still be seen in front of the main shrine building. The shrine was established in the beginiing of the 10th century to propitiate Michizane's soul. Michizane is considered the god of scholarship.(12,000 shrines honour him across Japan) Pupils and students visit it in droves to pray for examination success. It is one of the "Big Three" shrines in Fukuoka and is nationally famous.
(Source: kyushu.com)

===

Ah yes, it all comes back now, my first visit to Dazaifu in December 1993 in the company of Richard Ramsey after taking our Japanese Proficiency exams in Fukuoka. I took 3-kyu but Old Rammer took 1-kyu and thought he would need to pass in order to get a job with a Japanese finance company up in Tokyo so he prayed quite hard when we got to Dazaifu, even though he knew that the correct thing to do is to pray for a good result BEFORE you take an exam. The upshot of our visit was that I passed 3-kyu and he just missed 1-kyu but got a job with Kleinwort Benson up in Tokyo later that year anyway and now, 12 years and a couple of switches of company later, is rolling in loot. In the meantime, I bought some "Dazaifu study pencils" and used them on the two subsequent occasions that I took the 2-kyu exam and on both occasions I failed. I bought some more pencils on this trip, but made a point of telling the rather fetching nun that the last lot of pencils I bought didn't help me pass.

"So desu ka. Gambatte kudasai."

"Hai."

Jaime with new socks outside the Gozenyu...

"A jacuzzi would be good." Aha, here is just the thing - the "Gozenyu" bath house invites us to "Please enjoy our bubble bath and Jacuzzi bath." Rightiho. In we went, paid our fee and received our towels and headed for the baths... Er, could somebody please show us where the "bubble bath and Jacuzzi bath" are please? Surely that one miserable eructation over there is not seriously meant to constitute a "bubble bath" is it? And are we to take it that those three or four mean and half hearted sub-aquatic emissions over there in that pool lined with those rather dank looking tiles are the sole representatives of what purports to be a "Jacuzzi"? We spent barely ten minutes in the bath house, and that included undressing and dressing again. We shot across the road to the more salubrious if rather cramped facilities of the "Hakatayu" of which the pamphlet says: "Hakatayu started in the first year of the Manen era (1860). Our spa is very popular among the local residents since we are one of the oldest spas in the Futsukaichi Spa Resort and we are in the clssic three-story [sic] wooden house. We adopted the system of a "continual stream of natural spring-fed water from the earth." Alkaline and hypotonic type of quality spring water is effective in curing the neuralgia and skin diseases." We met up with Tim and headed back into Tenjin for dinner and spent the rest of the evening in a bar where we quickly worked out it was to our advantage to buy beer by the pitcher and then in a club rather like The Happy Cock.

We returned to Hiroshima Sunday morning and David headed off to his next appointment, his second "Litcrap" session at Messers Fowler, Lightfoot and Williams.

LITCRAP: Glue by Irvine Welsh

Now, as far as I was concerned, we had a very pleasant afternoon of raking Welsh over the coals. However, this was not everybody's verdict and I must admit I did feel that Senior Members Fowler and Williams were a bit heavy handed in raking Lightfoot over the coals. Lightfoot himself launched an attack on Fowler's dress sense which seemed to me to be a bit of light ribbing but I understand that he, once sober, reproached himself over it as "giving way to personal insult". I was also reminded several weeks after the event by Mr Williams that at one stage in the discussion (of Welsh's novel, not of Fowler's fashion) I had turned to him (Williams) and flung a "What are your politics?" into his face. Ahem. Manners, gentlemen please.

Nevertheless it did seem to me that we had gone over quite a few of the themes of the book and enjoyed ourselves doing so. I also remember that at times one or two of the party were quite emotional. The Poor Little Cypriot has developed a Churchillian tendency to blub at the slightest prick of emotion and at some point early on in the discussion, about the character Gally, I believe, one of the Numbskulls must have turned on the taps. Mr Williams too was in rather a delicate state since he was imminently to be a father if all went well (as, in fact, it did, and for which we congratulate him).

However, Mr Lightfoot's verdict on the afternoon was somewhat different and I quote a portion from the Ardle.net archives to make the point:

LIGHTFOOT'S VERDICT

But, unknown to us, the rot had already set in. A certain book was chosen by a certain gentleman. Another gentleman decided that it was unreadable, and thus did not read it. Nevertheless, he attended the meeting, carrying with him a sack of loathing and a briefcase full of negativity. Tensions mounted, hackles were raised, barricades erected, and sides drawn up. The opening shots soon rang out, a prelude to later weightier bombardments of vitriol, accusation and the occasional time-delayed personal insult. And thus was the spell broken!

But a ceasefire was arranged with surprising speed, and an uneasy peace broke out. Weeks passed, and then came the day of the next meeting. Hopes were high that a normal state of affairs could be resumed, after all, this time all had read the appointed tome. But alas, it was not to be. Perhaps it was the copious amounts of absinthe most members had consumed before arriving, or the collective weight of manifold frustrations bubbling away behind the thin veneer of civilization, but it soon became apparent that all was lost. Good natured ribbing gave way to personal insult, even hitherto mild and modest characters lobbing most heinous barbs hither and thither, and thus was something once great flushed into the pungent caverns of the Cloaca Maxima.

===

I distinctly remember the afternoon being good enough to warrant a second bottle of Valpolicella and I most distinctly remember indeed the "heinous" assault upon that bottle of a certain Mr Lightfoot who dispensed with the customary courtesies of asking if he may perchance imbibe and making use of a glass to do so. He leapt upon the bottle and upended it and swigged a third of its contents down his neck (mostly on the inside) in a typical Lightfootian maneouvre... I shall say no more.

Afterwards we tottered down Molly Malone's for dinner and once again it all seemed wery conwivial so that I was rather looking forward to the next innings, in which we were to discuss P. G. Wodehouse's Psmith in the City, but I suspect it may not happen. We shall have to wait and see what autumn brings.

28th May: Jaime Top, Noda Bottom

The evening went well for David and he began to think he might be cruising towards the top spot when, in the last game of the evening Jaime stormed ahead with a lengthy stint as Oya, mainly at Noda's expense.

Has Noda lost it? Noda had switched from beer to ulon-cha to shouchu and there was a time when the switch from tea to Japanese alcohol signalled a change of tempo on Noda's part usually to the detriment of the other players' pockets... But tonight, when the cry of "Mama-san, Shouchu" went up from Noda's side of the table the English party took it with a phlegmatic insouciance not seen since the Battle of Waterloo when whatsisname informed Wellington that he had lost a leg:

Whatsisname: "By God Sir, I've lost a leg."

Wellington: "By God Sir, so you have."

The shouchu rendered Noda legless too, but also helped him to lose the battle. His game went thoroughly droopy and he had to cough up more than he has had to for some time.

Once again, Hurley finished in his accustomed position of second and in the black. Jaime's winnings more than covered his expenses at the mahjong parlour. I cannot be more specific than that because Little Eileen has run off with the score sheet.

Comments

Comment posted by EarlofUxbridge (EarlofUxbridge@eton.com), on June 21, 2005, 2:04 am
It was the Earl of Uxbridge who lost the leg.

Ichi-ban" by Jaime on June 5, 2005

===
*Reports of rivers flowing with milk and honey, are as yet unconfirmed.
===

Comments

Comment posted by David, on June 7, 2005, 10:04 am
As I said before, when you run the City League (as DP does) you can do play where you ***kin' like.

I bet, IF we go up I'll be the oldest "real" player running and kicking in the A Div in 2006 (DV) and then if we stay up for a few seasons the "oldest player in the A Div" record might be broken (that, or the bloke trying to break it...).

Mind you, we've still got 7 games to go in B Div this season, plus a glorious cup run...

Comment posted by Jaime, on June 6, 2005, 10:37 am
Sadly ancient one, that honour still resides with your lord and master at David English House. I have it on fairly reasonable advice that he was in his mid-40s when he retired from captaining the white knights of the DEH side (they played in Real Madrid all white). As for being in my 30s, yup so far 6 days into it....

Comment posted by David, on June 5, 2005, 6:37 am
Er, if I understand you rightly, Jaime old chap (now that you are in your 30's the "old" in "old chap" is no longer merely a figure of speech), I think you are telling us that after playing just ONE game in B Division of Hiroshima City League, and after winning that game 1-0, we (David English House) are currently TOP OF THE LEAGUE! Marvellous. My dream of becoming the oldest player in the A-Division might yet come true...

Football, Hangovers & Police" by Jaime

The game was played at the strange former US religious University seriated away in the hills of Chiyoda. DEH had once again re-formed for another assault on the League B title. Old hands were returning, in some cases extremely old hands. Two of the "English Brigade" were on the team sheet. There was to be another, the keeper, but alas his inability to get up after a night's drinking prevented his 4th cap. Still no word or apology for his absence. As some might say, not the act of a gentleman.

So Hurley and Jaime arrived at Chiyoda Sports Ground B with only a slight delay caused by the speeding ticked administered to our chauffer. The police officer in question thought Jaime was a Sanfrecce player (not quite a leap of fantasy as you may think, Sanfrecce's gaijins are crap) and if a little play-acting had followed the fine could well have been reduced.

Some words should be told before thrusting into an accurate description of the game. Hurley defying his advancing years and in many respects following the well worn path of footballers on binges, had spent the previous 3 days on an alcohol fuelled diet. When he awoke on Sunday morning, his head was like an Italian in a brothel - banging away and leaving him not fully in control of his facilities.

So with this slight hindrance and without a keeper we arrived to play the match. Hurley nearly sank to his knees in praise when he realized there were twelve players, and his participation for 70mins would not be required. He was asked to volunteer to stand between the posts and try to keep the ball out, but he has retired from goalkeeping. If only David James read this site.

We have a new captain this year, Hara-san, and he gave a lively pre-match pep talk. I was too busy falling over a ball to actually pay much attention, but I was greeted with the words "Jaime forward" and so I grasped that my audition had passed.

Upon lining up for the pre-match bow, I realised that the opposing team FC Onze was another Hirodai team. In reality, DEH is the Hirodai Medical Departments team with a couple of old gaijin codgers and me. FC Onze hailed from the Law Dept and so a tasty derby match was about to commence. A couple of my students were lining up against DEH so I was desperate to not embarrass myself more than was the usual.

A robust and highly enjoyable first half was played in a rather good spirit, even allowing for Hurley's crunching late "tackles". Indeed casting off his earlier malady Hurley was seen to make a few ventures into the opposing half, including one memorable one-two that left the other DEH player so astonished that he forgot to actually do the "two" bit. Of course our combative number 6 had to sit down and put his slippers on for 5 minutes after that little adventure.

Half time was reached with the score deadlocked. DEH had had the better of the opportunities, indeed our little 'keeper had been left largely counting clouds. Two desperate goal line clearances had kept the oppositions virginity intact. Jaime hadn't much service as DEH's rather frustrating policy of not crossing first time ball was much in evidence.

Hurley gladly sacrificed himself at half time. A change of keeper was also in order as our new skipper went between the posts. Ludicrously, FC Onze substituted their own rather good keeper for one who was a close cousin of the Hobbit.

DEH's domination had to eventually take its toll, and after a few rasping shots, the two closest coming from a left foot 25 yard screamer from Jaime and an even more delightful roaster from Yusuke from a few yards further out. The goal when it came was simplicity in its purest form. A quick cross from the left, a delightfully deft lay off by Jaime and a bolt into the roof of the net from just outside the "D". I keep saying that quick ball from the wings is a good idea, but nobody listens...

A couple of chances went begging, but no real clear cut opportunities presented themselves. That was until the dying minutes. The ref, playing an incredible 38mins, seemed to be waiting for the equalising goal before bringing the curtain down. His wish was nearly granted, a high ball not cleared, and a pinball shot that with the slightest deflection would have shot into the net, just failed to find a limb to divert off.

For the first time in 2005 DEH had won, and things were starting to look up in the world. The team chauffer even put down her magazine and was enthralled by the game!

So we rumble on to June 22nd and our next game, where we will all be a bit older, some more so than others.

To our loyal fan, see you in Chiyoda! (as you are driving...)

A Four-Day Party...

I had for several years been teaching the doc, Kimiko-san and Emiko-san at Clang Education Center, but when I decided that I'd finally had enough of the shenanigans at Clang I told my students that we were "going independent" and I hit upon the idea of having my students hire a karaoke box for classes. They readily agreed although The Good Doc added a proviso that the karaoke facility should be one on a main drag as he did not want to have his respectability brought into question should one of his patients spot him sneaking out of a dodgy backstreet establishment at 3 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon...

Apart from the slightly offensive odour of bleach and stale tobacco smoke that these establishments give off; apart from the occasional throbbing boom-boom and muffled caterwauling from nearby booths; and apart from the colour scheme of the decor - orange walls and yellow leatherette seating - the karaoke box has proved to be an ideal venue for our classes.

Anyway, on Wednesday 11th, just before launching into a lesson about George IV Dr Mogami asked, "Can you play mahjong next Thursday?" Yes, I certainly could. The arrangement was confirmed the following week when we met in the karaoke box for a lesson about King Lear to prepare my students for a production of that play which was being performed up at Jogakuin University on Friday evening by an English travelling theatre company...

A busy weekend was in the offing:

• THURSDAY evening: Play Mahjong at the Mogami's.
• FRIDAY evening: See King Lear with several of my students.
• SATURDAY afternoon: Join the "Litchat" circle to discuss Thomas Pynchon's V (see below).
• SATURDAY evening: Watch the F. A. Cup Final at Kulcha.
• SUNDAY: Play football - first game of the season... Can we retain our place in the B Division again this season?

===

THURSDAY EVENING

I won the very first hand of the evening. It was one of those hands that is easy to read from the beginning - a simple case of going "Pon" a couple of time's and Bob would be your uncle, which, in this case, he was, courtesy of Dr Mogami Senior.

However, although I avoided getting caught out for much of that game, I also failed to complete many hands. A thousand points were given away here, a couple of thousand there. By the time the last Oya came around I was a little in the red. Then Mrs Mogami declared "Riichi" and I, not having a safe tile, discarded what looked like the least dangerous option.

"Ron!"

The Doctors Mogami busied themselves by adding up the score... 18,000.

"Gomen, Sensei," said Mrs Mogami with a chuckle.

There then proceeded a series of hands in which I gave away the winning tile. In short, I finished the first game bottom on -26 and my dodgy form continued into the first few hands of the second game too which I finished down -32.

It was beginning to look as if I would be paying for the beers and snacks tonight...

But then we drew tiles to reassign our seats and I changed places with Mrs Mogami so that Dr M Jr was now to my left and Dr M Sr to my right.

In the first hand it appeared that Mrs M had taken her moderately good luck with her. However, I was also beginning to do moderately well and on becoming the last Oya I won a few hands in a row. Then Mrs M declared "Riichi". Once again I was faced with a choice, but I was pretty confident that since the 2-Characters was showing and quite a few of the nearby higher number Characters were also either out or in my hand the 5-Characters should be safe. So I threw 5-Characters...

"RON!" declared Mrs M and revealed her hand. Indeed she was waiting for the 5-Characters. Dr Mogami Jr began to count up her score, but I felt there was something fishy about the hand rather than about my choice of discard tile... Mrs Mogami had been waiting for the 5 and the 2-Characters, yet I had based my decision to discard the 5-Characters on the basis that the 2 was showing in her discard row... I cast a beady eye hastily over her discard row and sure enough, there was the offending 2-Characters that rendered her 2 and 5-Characters wait nothing less than a

"CHOMBO!!"

I stabbed an accusatory index finger towards the 2-Characters and gathere 4,000 penalty points from the embarrassed Mrs M and retained my Oyaship for a while longer. Mind you, it was a little irritating as I had had a good hand that was ready to go...

Eventually Dr Mogami Senior completed a hand and so the evening came to an end. I had started the game on -58 but finished top on +39 which enabled me to claw my way back to a not too disgraceful -19 for the evening. The "big" winner being Dr Mogami Junior, who took almost Y3,500 away from the game.

However, since I was in good time for the train, which saved me a hefty taxi fare home, and since I had had a fine evening, having been plied with a seemingly endless supply of beer by the Mogamis, two cans at a time, as usual, I could not begrudge my loss at the table.

FRIDAY

My two morning classes up at Jogakuin consisted of my breezing through a simplified summary of the plot of King Lear for the benefit of the perhaps 3/80 students who might attend the performance that evening.

David-sensei: "How many children did King Lear have?"

Student: "Five?"

David-sensei; "No, fewer."

Student: "Four?"

David-sensei: "No, fewer."

Student: "Ten?"

The students' interest was briefly stimulated by the intricacies of the Gloucester family as I explained about Edgar and Edmund:

David-sensei: "Edgar's father is Gloucester and Edmund's father is Gloucester... Edgar's mother is Mrs Gloucester BUT Edmund's mother is NOT Mrs Gloucester..."

Students: "Ehhhhh?!!?!?"

David-sensei: "Now let's watch a video." On went Michael Eliot's production with Laurence Olivier as Lear.

It was a splendid way to while away a lesson or two, but perhaps not the best way to set oneself up for the evening's production, for who could follow the 75 year old Olivier's act as King Lear?

I had spent much of this week briefing my private students on the plot of King Lear as three groups wanted to come and see the play. However, I had to point out that things might prove a little different to the standard plot as there were only seven actors in the cast... I had expected, one actress took on the roles of Cordelia and the Fool while Albany and Cornwall were dropped from Act 1 Scene 1. Gloucester introduced Edmund to Kent... so far so good... But I had not given the musical requirements of this production any thought at all. If all seven actors were on stage then nobody would be available to play the instruments... The result was that the scene in which Lear gives away his kingdom was miserably cut down in size because two or three of the seven actors were required to provide a musical accompaniament to the drastically cut-down action.

Once Kent had been banished he pretty much disappeared from the play as a recognisable character and he was dropped from several scenes. By the time he reappeared to escort Lear to Dover he was simply an anonymous fellow who was being played by an actor who had performed several other parts as well during the course of the play.

Likewise, Cornwall and Albany were sometimes unavoidably cut from the action, as in the opening scene. Sometimes Cornwall was absent but his lines were merged into those of Regan, which was a reasonable strategy where necessary although it did nothing for the coherence of the action.

The constant changing of roles by the ever-busy cast proved quite confusing to several of my students and Dr Mogami's verdict was that he had enjoyed my lecture on King Lear and that had helped him understand the play (which he had laboured through during the week leading up to the Wednesday lesson) but that he could not make head or tail of what was going on on the stage.

Emiko-san's approach to this production resembled many a Japanese theatre-goer's approach a Noh production, which is to say that they go to the theatre with a vague notion of the plot and find themselves lulled into a light snooze by the archaic language as it is chanted by the actors until they are suddenly jolted back to wakefulness by an energetic burst of music.

Kimiko-san, meanwhile, went to the play like a prophet armed; complete with my lecture notes and her copy of the play (with Japanese annotations) which she followed throughout.

One of the problems of putting on a barebones Shakespeare production in the auditorium of the Old Library Building at Jyougakuin Daigaku is that the stage is quite narrow but very wide, which makes sudden entrances and fast exits almost impossible. Several times a character would trundle "off" stage in character only to set himself up to play an instrument in full view of the audience. Furthermore, the white curtain backdrop also detracted from the impact of the play by lending the action something of a shallow, cartoonish effect as the actors moved against the white background.

Director Paul Stebbings writes:

"The play needs a sense of power, of vast natural and supernatural forces that are unleashed on weak humanity. The company will aim to release this energy through powerful physical theatre, bordering on dance. ...[W]e hope that by creating a poetic and symbolic performance style that calls on the imagination of the audience we can approach this extraordinary play with a fresh perspective. This is a masterpiece that needs not so much dramatisation as clarification." (Source: www.stageplay.jp/en/performances/king_lear/index.cfm)

I should have thought that the play needed "clarification THROUGH dramatisation" and I do not think the apparent aim of clarification was achieved by this particular production as it was performed on this particular stage to this particular and largely Japanese audience here in Hiroshima in 2005.

The performance of Leo Atkin as Lear improved as the play progressed perhaps in part because this particular production on this particular stage was more effective in showing great men made nothing than in showing them in their pomp and greatness of office. One never felt that Lear had fallen very far since he apparently started with so little in this production. It was somewhat disconcerting at first to see and hear this Lear, a man of the right shape but the wrong stature who spoke with a mild Yorkshire accent. But as a mad Lear, chasing mice and so forth his performance was far more compelling and moving. I admit I had been surprised at the choice of King Lear by a relatively young touring company and so if I were to measure Atkin's performance against my fears I would say that he had done many things quite well.

I cannot say the same about his fool whose performance irritated me throughout so that I was relieved near the end of the play to hear Lear announce that his Fool had been hanged.

The only actor who returned from last year's production of Romeo and Juliet was Gareth Radcliffe, who enjoyed some success playing Tybalt and who was cast as Edmund this year. His dark good looks obviously seemd to have marked him out for the role of the suave villain...

After the play a group of my students and their friends along with Jaime and Sawako (his missus) clambered into the free bus and charged into town for dinner. The original idea had been to head down to the Granvia Hotel by the station but Aimi-san, as is her wont, suddenly announced a different plan of action, namely that she knew an Italian restaurant in town. Of course, she did not phone the restaurant until we had charged onto the town-bound bus, only to be told that the place was packed solid. That left The Poor Little Cypriot in a pickle... Molly Malones? No go - some bloke was playing a guitar and they were charging 1,000 yen to get in. The Shack? Packed solid. Erm - desperation begins to set in as one of the ladies, not connected to Aimi, begins to look pissed off (who can blame her - it's no fun traipsing around town at this time of a Friday evening looking for somewhere that will accomodate 7 mature femaile students, Dr Mogami Jr, yer mate and his bird... How about Kentos? Could be a stonking good idea: Kentos is a bar for a more mature sort of goer, complete with a live - and lively - floor show with all the great hits of the 50's and 60's (before The Beatles mucked everything up)... However, when we got there it was also full but the ingratiating manager suggested that all could be accomodated in a little time, and Dr Mogami dissappeared into the bowels of the club while the ladies did that special Japanese humming and hawing routing which really means "No, thanks, it's not our cup of tea..." so we collared the Doc and retreated back up the stairs and onto the street. Finally, Jaime came to the rescue by leading us to what the best of all options, an IZAKAYA where we were seating in no time at all and shortly thereafter the beer drinkers were able to guzzle the first cleansing beer of the evening, upon which nothing else mattered.

Jaime buzzed Tim (who was already out on the town on his own account) and told him that he and I were in a restaurant with seven birds. Tim took the bait and came and joined us and was a jolly good sport about entertaining the ladies at his end of the table.

Dr Mogami protested that he had to work the next day and also entertained the ladies to a fascinating disquisition upon the exquisite and excruciating agonies of gout (which was why Tim kept his distance from the Doc all through the meal). This catalogue of affliction did not dissuade the Doc from going more or less drink for drink with The Poor Little Cypriot although each beer was received with a protest that although he loved beer he also had to work the next day and it would do his gout much good either.

He's a stirling sort, the Good Doc. Perhaps under the influence of the beer he launched into a second disquisition once more for the benefit of the ladies In Praise of David Sensei His History Classes (which modesty prevents me from recapitulating here).

The party broke up at around 11ish and the ladies gave generously out of their pockets just enough to ensure that The Poor Little Cypriot was somewhat poorer for his efforts to entertain them.

That left Tim, Jaime and his missus and The PLCypriot to enjoy their own company over at Ultra. Jaime, who has an amazing capacity to knock the evening on the head when it suits him, left with his missus after a beer or two. He left David luxuriating in the comfort of the comfortable side of the sofa while Tim wrestled with a bit of wood that lurks beneath the less comfortable side.

Perhaps it was Tim's discomfort that caused the two likely lads to shake the dust of Ultra from their feet and head down to ... Mac. David found himself chatting to a "barry lassie" (oops, been reading GLUE by Irvine Welsh and it's beginning to tell) - I'd like to say "chatting up a barrie lassie" but it turned out that she was the girlfriend of this Alex geezer who I'd heard about, Dutch bloke who works behind the bar at Kulcha. I found that out because there he suddenly was and there he was sticking, giving the Poor Little Cypriot no time for the old chat up. Nice geezer, mind you. Saw the funny side. Perfect gent. But then, as Jaime said, compared to what old Brendan was saying about his bird in his hearing at Molly Malone's the other night...

Well anyway... I vaguely remember a bit of nutty dancing, which always clears the dance floor a treat. Then off we goes to El Barco with Tim giving me the low down on how they like to charge you to get in but the thing to do is just barrel in there as if you've paid or as if you don't care and you'll probably git away with it.

So that's what we did. And we did.

Trouble was that our stirling efforts were all to no avail since there were not too many Natashas showing tonight. The only one who hoved into view was attending on a beefy bloke called Alexei or something who was straight off the boat and spoke not a word of English or Japanese - and I speak no Russian. Still, we managed to have a jolly good chat about erm, well we said cheers several times and Ruski good... girls, dobra jenska... beer... wodka and then I turned all sentimental and bought the fellow a double wodka which is always a sign that I ought to call it a night.

Which is what I did.

I remember that Tim and I hailed a taxi and the next thing I remember is the warm early morning sun on my face as I stand outside Tim's block of flats urging him up the stairs while Tim truculently refuses to remove his head from the air conditioning outlet duct while lying sprawled out on the tiles that front the building. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water but... (which in Tim's case is an apt saying in more than one department), and so warmed by the sun I go in for a little sprawl on the tiles myself for an hour or so. Eventually Tim rouses himself and we head up to his flat where I leave him as he insists that he is going to check his email, turns on the computer, and promptly falls asleep on his rather precarious office chair. I call it a night and head back downstairs to the tram stop and jump on the tram back home...

Four hours later, I rouse myself from my futon head back into town for...

SATURDAY AFTERNOON - LITCRAP

In the words of one of the FOUNDING "MEMBERS", LITCRAP represents:

"...the very pinnacle of Hiroshima's literary society. Yes, three crusty old gits get together to discuss books 'n' fings in what will hopefully be a regular feature on the local 'scene'."
(source: ardle.net/personalpages_index.html)

The three founding members of this august institution, Fowler, Lightfoot and Williams, met in secret session a few weeks ago and agreed to open the doors of the club to a fourth "member" (dread word), id est, moi.

The book which the Founding Fathers had agreed to discuss in the upcoming meeting was Thomas Pynchon's V., so I gamely spent the month leading up to today's meeting ploughing through it. Actually, having already attempted and abandoned Gravity's Rainbow I thought I ought to prepare myself for V. by reading The Crying of Lot 49. I think it was a good decision: if you get the hang of that book and enjoy the ride then you'll be well set up to tackle V. and (I believe) Gravity's Rainbow. However, I was glad to take Lightfoot's advice and trundle through V. with a pencil marking names, places, and lines that marked a development in the narrative and so forth.

I got off the train at Yokogawa and popped into Jaime's to pick up a "lost" copy of V. which had been kicking around a classroom at a uni where he, Fowler and Williams happen to teach... Who was the guilty party who had "lost" the book? Word on the grapevine was that Fowler hadn't read the book and Helmsman* Lightfoot was not happy. We all know he is a miserable git at the best of times so this was not exactly anything new.

Anyway, armed with TWO copies of V. and a bit of a hangover I strolled down the river into town. It was a lovely afternoon for strolling down rivers.

The three Senior Members were already seated around a rather large table when I arrived at the cafe. I plonked the lost copy of V. on the table and it was claimed, not by Fowler but by Williams, who now had two copies as he had got himself a replacement. Ah, glad I kept stumm when I plonked the book on the table as I had expected Fowler to claim it!

Over the first cleansing beer of the afternoon we were given notice of two facts, neither of which came as a great surprise.

UNSURPRISING FACT No. 1: Helmsman Lightfoot had a cold and was feeling "under the weather". It would have been a surprise if he had been WELL as he is seldom anything else but "under the weather".

UNSURPRISING FACT No. 2: Fowler had not read the book.

Now under normal circumstances it would follow that the Helmsman would give the recalcitrant Member a good bollocking for not fulfilling the basic requirements of club membership, namely that he read the nominated book in time for the appointed meeting. It would also follow that the recalcitrant member might do a bit of muttering and uncomfortable wriggling and perhaps (in this age of petty vanities) indulge in a bit of sulking before offering a grudging apology and promising not to let it happen again upon pain of a severe beating about the buttocks...

However, what actually happened was that The Recalcitrant Party came out of his corner fighting while The Helmsman, pleading "Undertheweather", barely shifted his miserable corpse into the ring.

Fowler: "It's unreadable."

The other members protest that they have read it.

Fowler: "I bet you haven't read it. It's unreadable. What do you mean you've read it? [To Lightfoot:] You admitted that you dozed off a few times and just carried on where you left off when you woke up. When I read a book I read each paragraph three times before moving on... It was a very bad choice of book. The style is awful."

Williams: "Read a bit of it to us, Don."

Fowler now opens the book at random and puts on his most monosyllabic (i.e. much more than usual) voice and drones out some crushingly dreadful lines.

It seems that the party was divided into the STRONGLY ANTI Pynchon camp of Fowler, the STRONGLY PRO Pynchon camp of Lightfoot, with Williams and Hurley taking up positions somewhere between, Williams closer to Fowler because of the difficulties he found with the book and Hurley closer to Lightfoot (but not so close as to catch his cold), while taking Fowler's point about the dreadful style but willing to acknowledge it as part of a deliberate strategy on Pynchon's part.

Lightfoot and Hurley were then asked to justify their enjoyment of Pynchon. Hurley rather resented having to defend the fellow as all he had wanted to do was find out what the others made of the images, associations and so forth in the novel. The problem was that any time we sailed close to a discussion of the novel itself another salvo would be launched from HMS Frigate Fowler:

Fowler: "What did you like about it?"

Hurley: "Um, er, well, I enjoyed the stuff about Malta, er and..."

Fowler: "You might as well just surf the Internet."

Hurley ordered another beer.

Lightfoot: "The African bit was really interesting."

Fowler: "It seems as if he just chose places at random. Why South West Africa?"

Lightfoot: "It was the first genocide of the 20th Century."

Williams passed round a Baedekker. Hurley asked whether a fellow actually needed to have visited a place in order to write about it and cited Adolf's favourite writer, though forgot his name, which Lightfoot supplied: Karl May.

"Karl May (1842-1912) was a prolific author and a favorite read of many famous Germans, including Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and Herman Hesse."
(Source: http://www.cowboysindians.com/articles/archives/0999/karl_may.html)

Karl May wrote all about "The Wild West" without ever having been to America. Another quote from the same webpage might suggest why Adolf would have liked his books:

"Old Shatterhand was modeled to be a German superman cowboy who made his American counterparts look like bumbling fools or brutal thugs."

Adolf used Karl May as evidence that a "genius" could win wars from maps without ever having visited the countries he was invading. Well, it seemed to work, at first. Then, when it all went pear-shaped we got the Baedekker Raids and then the V weapons, which brings us back to the main subject - ah, except that the discussion is now over and we are discussing what to discuss next!

Next: Irvine Welsh - Glue

===
*Helmsman: See ardle.net for the origins of this term.
===

SATURDAY EVENING

The four "old gits" of the Litcrap circle sauntered down to the kebab shop in Yagenbori and it was while we were sat there at the bar that that old git Lightfoot finally got around to getting his gripe with Fowler over the V. debacle off his chest. Fowler also checked Hurley's book, and conceded that the pencil markings that were scrawled throughout did indeed suggest that he had "read" the book.

Fowler and Hurley now turned their attention to the rest of the evening, namely the FA Cup Final, showing at both Molly's and Kulcha, but since Kulcha was offering a 100 yen reduction per drink, and since you still can't beat Kulcha for atmosphere when its packed on a big sporting occasion (I have fond memories of the World Cup, especially the England v Argentina game) the word was that the crowd was gathering there.

As we strolled up to Kulcha I remember there being a third person with us, Dan James; but I don't remember how he came to be in our company. As Dan had not read V. I passed my copy over to him but before I did so I made to tear out the inside title page where I'd written the list of proposed Litcrap books. Don objected, citing somebody or other who said that abusing books was a form of sacrilege. I objected to the idolatrous tendency of the objection and ripped out the page while Dan didn't seem to object to the objection or the objection to the objection but was happy enough to receive the object of contention in the condition that it was given.

The Lang crowd were in the bar when we got there. John, our goalkeeper, asked if NZ John could play in tomorrow's football match. We agreed that he'd get a half if he came.

Meanwhile, Kenyon and his Missus were sat at the bar. Farther down sat John Wild (ex Lang sometime in the 1980s, Arse supporter, seldom stays in the bar for a whole game when Arse are playing(!)). A group of us placed bets on the final score while I made a couple of side bets, one with John Wild - that MU would beat Arse without extra time, his being that Arse would beat MU without extra time. Kenyon demonstrated his passion for football by betting both in the pot and with me on the side that the full time score would be 0-0, so if any team scored I'd take his money. I thought I was reasonably well covered especially as no FA Cup Final had ever been won on penalties before...

So when it was still 0-0 after extra time I walked out, but not before John Wild had done so.

When MU lost the penalty shoot out Jaime left and so the two of us made it back to his place in time for a few hours kip before setting off for the Sunday footie...

SUNDAY MORNING

I awoke in not too good a condition, suffering from the accumulated effects of all that has been mentioned above. Nevertheless, I awoke. There was no sign of the two Johns. Apparently John-the-goalkeeper's last words to Jaime as the latter left the bar last night had been, "See you tomorrow."

Because John-the-goalkeeper's telephone is defunct I had to call Kenyon to get NZ John's number and call him to enquire after John-the-goalkeeper. It turned out that John had not arrived at John's and as it was now past the time that we ought to leave, and as Jaime's Missus had been TRUE TO HER WORD and ARRIVED we headed off to Chioda feeling rather vexed with our sometime goalkeeper...

For the match report, see Jaime's entry, "Football, Hangovers & Police."

13th May: Tim Supplies Late Night Greens

David walked from Hakushima to Jaime's flat in Yokogawa to find Jaime outside on the lookout for Noda-san who had driven over and got lost. This gave David a chance to stock up on beers (Kirin Classic) and snacks for the evening's session.

The first thing Jaime did was to play Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which appeared to be doing the trick as Noda loves Monty Python and kept screwing his head round to see what was going on. Unfortunately, however, this did not preventing him finishing the first game top with +40 points. It wasn't that the other players didn't win any hands, just that their scores were piddling in contrast to Noda's.

Kenyon arrived just after the start of the second game and so he slotted into what had been Jaime's position opposite the tv. David finsished top in this game and the only winner.

However, in the third game the sober Kenyon was the only winner. The almost sober Noda declared for the evening at this point and finished his evening on +34. Kenyon also finished positive on +26. David, several cans to the good, was a little down on -3, while the moderately imbibing Jaime found himself in a bit of a hole on -57.

With Kenyon ahead of the field now that Noda had gone, Jaime changed strategy and put on an American comedy. This proved good for David, who was able to ignore it almost completely (to such a degree in fact that he - I - can't remember the title or anything much else about it except that that Tom Hanks fellow was in it). David came top and was the only winner on +22.

However, this sudden restoration of form could not last... First of all Tim had buzzed us to say that he was "on his way" and to ask whether we wanted anything... A cry for "MORE BEER" went up from the English side of the table, while Kenyon held up the American side of things by requesting "VEGETABLES" which Tim interpreted to mean:

1. Chocolate chips with peanuts
2. Salted Peanuts
3. Fried chicken in batter
4. 12 cans of beer (consisting of 6 cans of Asahi Super Dry and 6 cans of Happoshu*)

===
*HAPPOSHU:
"Japanese beer companies produce what's called "Happoshu," which is sparkling low malt beverage. Since the tax for Happoshu is much less than the tax for beer, happoshu is cheaper than beer. For that reason, Happoshu has become very popular in Japan. Happoshu classification occurs when an ingredient other than malt, hops, rice, corn, kaoliang, potato, starch, or sugar is used, or if the malt ratio is less than 67%." Source: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/168/
===

David was berated by Tim for blanching at the choice of beer on offer, in short, for looking a gift horse in the mouth. He took the hint and helped Tim to get through the stock while listening to the latest reports on how Tim happened to be picked up by yet another hot Asian babe (straight off the boat from Manila, this one), and how he is trying to unburden himself of her attentions, while Jaime provided advice on how to achieve the opposite result... until Tim fell asleep on the floor.

The result of all this was that Jaime's fifth game victory was followed by a sixth game defeat and David's fourth game victory was followed by fifth and sixth game defeats. Meanwhile Old Sobersides had been sticking to the ersatz cola that he favours and emerged from fourth and fifth game defeats to clean up in the sixth game with +67 and then finish the only winner of the final game of the evening - er morning (it now being 5:30am) to achieve a grand total of +58 and take top spot ONCE AGAIN!!

The reckoning:

Kenyon: --, -10, +36, -11, -25, +67, +27 = +58
Noda: +40, -3, -3 = +34
===
Jaime: -18, -28, -11, -11, +48, -31, -1 = -52
David: -22, +41, -22, +22, -23, -36, -26 = -66

Comments

Comment posted by Jaime, on May 23, 2005, 6:29 am
Just for clarification. I do not own any Tom Hanks movies, and with the exception of some early career classics (Splash, only because of a topless mermaid and the brilliant John Candy's Swedish porn jokes and Bachelor Party, another smutty work of genius)I never will. The movie in question was Grosse Point Blank, starring John Cusack and well the entire Cusack family if the credits are anything to go by.

6th May: Domesticated MJ

This game nearly didn't happen at all as Noda cried off with a cold. It took place at Jaime's in the company of the present Mrs Kenyon who did not jinx his run of luck (as David had attempted to prophesy). Two swift games in which the scoring was low and nobody retained the Oya for more than one hand: victory and defeat hung in the balance for one and all. Jaime broke his recent losing streak by going out on one of two pairs when David threw the DORA (somewhat distracted by the Premiership show on tv, dammit, and while waiting for a 2-5-8 Bamboo finish).

The result:

Kenyon: +19, 0, = +19
Jaime: -12, +19 = +7
==
David: -7, -19 = -26

3rd May: Mahjong at Jaime's; Oops, Liverpool Score...

Meeting Place: Hakkenden Izakaya, Tokaichi.
Those Present: Ray, David, Jaime, Tim + Carp baseball cap and matching red sweater.
Beer consumed: Surprisingly little considering... The staff must have been shocked.

We moved on to Jaime's, where we watched Life of Brian while playing mahjong and waiting for the arrival of DON FOWLER and the CHELSEA v Liverpool European Championship Semi-Final, 2nd Leg at Anfield.

Once again, Hurley was NOT distracted by the tv, although his game faded a bit once the match began. We note that the football fans (i.e. the British and Irish contingent) ALL LOST the last game to the HUMAN HOOVER (an American brand with no FOOTBALL-related crossover circuitry installed), which HOOVERED UP 78 points in the first 15 minutes of the first half, during which time the ONLY goal (or half goal) was "scored" by er, the linesman apparently, at least according to a Portuguese trophy-hunter who was close to the scene of the action at the time.

Anyway, the mahjong ended according to recent tradition, with Kenyon top and David second-and-in-the-black:

Kenyon: +33, +58, -13 = +78
David: +54, -2, +21 = +63
==
Ray: -34, +12, -7 = -29
Jaime: -53, -58, -1 = -112

Meanwhile, the footie ended with Liverpool holding out to pop into the European Championship finals for the first time in 20 years and with Don providing us with some philosophical gammon:

DON: "It doesn't do for a manager to win everything in his first year with a club. It's a QUEST. MU have never been the same since they won the treble..."

DAVID: "So are you glad Chelsea lost?"

But by now it was eight o'clock in the morning and I forget the answer, if there was one.

29th April: Midori no Hi Mahjong

Tonight's crowd consisted of seven blokes and one bird in the following denominations:

Blokes: 3 Japanese, 2 British, 1 Irish, 1 American.
Bird: Japanese.

They were the only guests at Kodama tonight and they drew tiles and arranged themselves around the middle two tables - actually, around one middle table and one corner table until the mechanism busted and the corner table had to be abandoned for the evening after just a couple of hands had been played.

Where was I? ... They arranged themselves around the tables according to the draw of the tiles as follows:

Corner Table (later transferred to the second middle table): Kenyon, David, Noda, Jaime.

Middle Table: Former Akadenwa Master, Ray, Satoru, Eri.

A fuller report will be appended later but for the time being, the results of this evening's play were as follows:

Middle Table:-

Master: -7, -24, +26, -3, +60 = +52
Satoru: --, -24, +48, +39, -21 = +42
==
Eri: -24, +35, -44, --, -- = -33
Ray: +31, +13, -30, -36, -39 = -61

The Other Table:-

David: -8, -19, -16, +29, -16, +99, +35 = +104
Kenyon: +28, +129, +45, -13, -13, -70, -41 = +65
==
Jaime: -12, -60, 0, -16, +29, -29, +6 = -82
Noda: -8, -50, -29, 0, --, --, -- =-87

Final Reckoning:

David +104
Kenyon +65
Master +52
Satoru +42
==
Eri -33
Ray -61
Jaime -82
Noda -87

15th April: Ray is Back! Noda is Back to Winning! Kenyon Suffers Double Double-Ron!!

It's been a long time since Noda came top on a Friday evening. Some murmerings as to whether "Noda is finally losing it" had from time to time been heard in recent weeks, and indeed there were one or two moments this evening when such murmerings could be heard again.

Item: Noda goes Pon on the West Wind only to be reminded that it was not his. He looked most bewildered when it was pointed out that it was Eri who was sat in the West seat, but we cannot entirely rule out a bit of Noda bluff here as he may have been going for Honitsu or Toitoi...

Anyway despite that tonight turned out to be Noda's. Noda, David and Eri began playing at about 7:15. Play had been scheduled to start at 7:00 but David arrived late after a refreshing snooze in a private "Comfortable Seat" box in an Internet-cafe down by the station after a pretty intensive week's teaching (as well as mahjong yesterday evening - see previous blog entry...).

The snooze must have done him some good as he ended the first game top on +27, just pipping Noda to the post while shovelling spoonfuls of yakimeshi down the hatch.

Ray turned up halfway through the first game. Ray recently started work as a state school teacher and was keeping a low profile pending his first pay cheque which he thought was not due until the middle of May. However, he discovered that he would receive it by the end of April and so, not having to stretch his cash so far he felt able to join us and give some of it away at mahjong table...

This he promptly did, but not so much as David. The beneficiaries of this gaijin largesse were Eri and Noda. At one point, with Noda having gone Riichi and David having managed to play safe and get to Tenpai David announced that the tile he needed to throw in order to go retain his hand was a most dangerous 1-Coins. Despite that, he threw it.

"Ron," said Noda.

There then followed an array of counting up of Yaku and Dora points which ended up with David handing over about 25,000 points.

This game was also Eri's most successful of the evening. There was a moment which summed things up in which David went Riichi, followed by Ray, after which Eri suddenly declared "Tsumo!" on a Chitoi (7 pairs) hand waiting for a 2-Bamboo to complete. Yet what she didn't know was that David had a pair of 2-Bamboo in his hand so there was only one available for her.

By now Kenyon had arrived and so rather than play with five players Eri volunteered to drop out for a game.

With Kenyon at the table things seemed at first to revert to their recent pattern with him coming top (+34) and David coming in second and in the black (+5) while Noda trailed on -6 and Ray was limping along on -33.

David dropped out of the fourth game so that Eri could come back in and it was this game that placed Noda way out ahead of the pack, finishing on +69 with a total score for his evening of +118. Eri came in second and in the black on +13, Ray once more in the red on -31 and Kenyon gave back his winnings from the previous game and some more, ending up bottom on -51.

Kenyon's crash had been partly occasioned by an unprecedented circumstance, at least in the annals of the Cock's-Eye Mahjong News reports, namely that he had suffered Double Ron TWICE in one game, both while Noda was Oya and both on the 3-Coins. Eri was the other beneficiary. In the first instance Eri needed the 3-Coins to complete another of her favoured Chitoi hands while Noda needed it to add to his pair of 3-Coins - in other words the only 3-Coins available for them was plucked from the wall at some stage by Kenyon...

Meanwhile David was keeping Jaime updated on events via mobile phone e-mail:

David to Jaime, 22:54pm: "ERI'S TANKING UP. RAY YAKITORI,,,"

I can't remember if Ray got rid of his Yakitori or not but there is no record of it on the score sheet... I do remember Eri's tanking up - several beers went down the hatch and the atmosphere was lively pretty much the whole evening, with Eri have much to say for herself, much of which I forget, but I do remember correcting Eri's English when she announced that she was "going to penny."...

"You mean 'SPEND a penny'."

Noda looked puzzled and so did Kenyon so David and Ray explained that you used to have to pay a penny to use a public toilet in the UK, hence the doggeral verse:

Here I sit broken hearted,
Paid a penny and only farted.

Noda looked puzzled because he didn't understand the idiom and Kenyon looked puzzled because he didn't understand the concept of paying to use public conveniences.

Noda went home after this game over three and a half thousand yen to the good. Eri was prevailed upon to stay for one more, which was a good thing for Ray as he finally started to put together a string of successful hands and finished the game the only winner, clawing back +58 which put him back in the middle of the pack while Eri turned her winnings into losses by coming bottom on -42. It turned out, therefore that to be in the pack was to be among the losers and the only winner of the evening - Noda - was well clear of the field and perhaps by now already back at home and tucked up in bed!

The reckoning for the evening:

Noda: +4; +51; -6; +69; -- = +118
===
Ken: --; --; +34; -51; -5 = -22
Eri: -27; +30; --; +13; -42 = -26
Ray: --; -27; -33; -31; +58 = -33
David: +23; -54; +5; --; -11 = -37

So Noda has revived his fortunes after a period of poor results. Kenyon's winning streak has come to an end. David's good fortunes have also come to an end. They began with a win at 4-player mahjong, which was followed by a series of in-the-black second positions on Friday nights and ended by grabbing first place at last night's 4-player mahjong session...

Thursday 14th April: David Top at the Mogamis'

When I join the Mogamis for an evening of mahjong we aim to play four games at a pace of about one game an hour. Tonight's game began at seven so I was reasonably confident that I'd be able to catch the last tram home just after eleven, or failing that I'd be in good time for the last train just after midnight.

The first game was completed at a brisk pace with nobody holding onto the Oya for more than a couple of hands. Dr Mogami Senior clinched first place and claimed the "maru-yon" bonus. Dr Mogami Jr came second and in the black (maru-ni) while I came in third and in the red (batsu-ni) and Mrs Mogami brought up the rear (batsu-yon).

The pace slowed down in the second game as the Oya managed to win more than in the previous game, or, if the Oya didn't win the games tended to turn defensive as everybody made cagey discards and we'd end up with no winner. This was a good game for me as I made several hands although a fair proportion of them were low scoring whereas Dr Mogami Jr made fewer hands but the hands he made were high scoring. Nevertheless, this game got me back into the black despite getting hit for 12,000 points right at the beginning.

At the end of every second game we draw wind tiles to reallocate seats. I drew East and as I was quite happy with my seat I stayed where I was while the two doctors changed places.

The third game was also quite a protracted affair but it was one which saw my tray fill up with score tallies. Feeling that my luck was in I did not hesitate to go Riichi early on single waits. I also managed to retain bonus tiles more often than in the first couple of games. If I remember rightly I finished this game top as the only winner.

At one stage Dr Mogami Senior's phone rang. It was one of his patients.

"Whose calling? ... Who are you? Are you a new patient? ... The surgery is closed, the nurse has gone home, there's no medicine. Try the all night surgery over at [whatsisname] hospital. Terribly sorry. Good night." And so play resumed with barely a pause.

The three games had taken up four hours of play as well as several cans of beer. Such is the diligence of my hosts that at one stage they had fetched FOUR beers from the refrigerator and placed them on my side table alongside a cornucopia of peanuts, cheese and buscuits. If anything more substantial were required the nurse was on hand - being unavailable for the treatment of the sick - to pop out and procure it.

It was now 11pm but everybody seemed willing to play a fourth game according to the family custom but it was up to me to decide. I reckoned that if we could finish the fourth game in 40 minutes I'd still be able to make it to the station in time for the last train. I further calculated that since I had done well in the last couple of games and since I was being entertained by generous hoses I could afford to play fast and loose in this fourth game, throwing out risky tiles in pursuit of a quick win whilst a quick loss might also serve to move the game on and get me to the station in time...

However, what happened was that I discarded risky tiles with abandon and suffered at the hands of Dr Mogami Jr, who happened to be Oya and who thereby, and by other eventualities such as games gong right up to the last tile with no result except that Dr Mogami Jr was Tenpai and so was able to remain Oya for another hand... In short, the game became even more protracted than the previous couple had been and was still in progress when the last train rattled out of Hiroshima station. I therefore had to resort to Plan B, which was to try and win the fourth game with sufficient cash in my tray for that game alone to cover the taxi fare home.

Plan B also failed. I came in second or third. At one stage I found myself to be Tenpai with a 3-6-9 Coins wait and so I was in the act of declaring Riichi when I noticed the 9-Coins sitting in my discard row about to make my Riichi illegal so I declined to declare and hoped to complete my hand by Tsumo. It didn't happen, but afterwards the two doctors agreed that in the four-player game - or at least in their family's version of it - if you declare Riichi in that situation, although you cannot claim another player's discard tile you can nevertheless complete your hand by going Tsumo. In other words, it is not a Chombo and so you won't have to pay a fine as long as you do not go Ron. This is a rather gentle and forgiving rule.

Dr Mogami Jr finished top in the last game and managed to whittle away a good chunk of his earlier losses. Nevertheless, by the end of the fourth game I happened to be the only winner overall and raked in more than enough in the second and third games for my taxi fare home.

It was a pleasant night outside, however, and after such a surfeit of beer and snacks I felt it would be better it off and so I began to head for home on foot. Since to walk the whole way would take two and a half hours I decided to walk up to Nishi Hiroshima and then play my accustomed taxi-home game in which I am not allowed to hail black taxis or any taxis heading back into town. I been walking for about 90 minutes and had almost reached Shin Inokuchi and had missed two white taxis that zoomed past in the right direction before I craned my head around yet once more and saw a white taxi with its light on approaching...

1st April: Thank you Eri!

In the first game of this evening, which commenced at 8pm, Noda and David battled for first place at Eri's expense. David pipped Noda to the top spot by 2000 points so the first game ended:

David: +45
Noda: +28
===
Eri: -73

Kenyon arrived half way through the first game and while he was waiting for the next to begin he looked over the boardgame, Axis and Allies, which I had brought along with me to play at Andy Lightfoot's place on Saturday.

I had invited Kenyon to join us but he seemed to prefer the idea of spending Saturday with his girlfriend to that of spending it casting dice, pushing plastic counters around a gameboard and listening to Mr Lightfoot talking bollocks while he dithers over what to do next. It seems that The Human Computer is programmed differently from us. Perhaps it is the AGE GAP although I seem to remember being even keener on the idea of pushing plastic counters around a gameboard when I was in my 20's. Anyway, The Human Computer observed that he might not have the right programming to do well in a game like Axis and Allies which requires a great deal of deliberation (as opposed to DITHERING, Mr Lightfoot) whereas the pace of a game like poker or mahjong and the limited number of options each presents suits him better.

All very well and good, but in his first (our second) game of the evening it appeared that The Human Computer might have picked up a virus after plugging himself into some iffy hardware recently; he certainly wasn't computing well and finished the game down on -22.

Kenyon was kept off the bottom by Eri's less-worse-than-last-time result of -53. Meanwhile, David surged further ahead with an even-better-than-last-time result of +66 and Noda also finished in the black with +9.

David's victory of +66 did not appear likely when as East Oya he set aside a Dora (Bonus Tile) at the beginning, while chatting to Kenyon and forgot to take a tile from the back of the wall. Commenting on that faux-pas to Kenyon he once again forgot to take a tile and so he was reduced to just ELEVEN tiles in his hand. Noda, thinking that David had 12 tiles took the tile from the back of the wall and put it into his hand. David then attempted a cunning ruse to get himself back into the game with 13 tiles, which was to pick up a tile from the wall and invite Eri to throw, but unfortunately for him Noda noticed and so David had to play out the hand with 12 tiles. David played a model Oya-saving game, by throwing early the tiles that would be dangerous later, and keeping the tiles that were safe to throw later, and so he managed to preserve his Oya as nobody else completed a hand.

With two games completed, and David's yakimeshi dispatched (when it comes to yakimeshi, you can't beat Mama's), Noda suggested that we reallocate seats. The result of his arcane method of doing this (which I intend to describe at another time and in another place) was that David and Kenyon had to change seats while Eri and Noda stayed put.

Oh ye SKEPTICS and MOCKERS, ridiculers of the notion that there be such a thing as FATE or FICKLE FORTUNE or TABLE LUCK. You have never played MAHJONG and cannot therefore call your opinion scientific for it is not based upon a comprehensive heuristic observation of relevant data.

The fact of the matter is that from the moment when David and Kenyon changed seats their fortunes also changed, which is to say, putting it differently, that though the persons moved, Fortune (along with Noda and Eri) stayed put.

David ordered his fourth, fifth and sixth beers from his new position and his game underwent a decline from the dizzy heights of +111 by a drop of 34 points to +77 and then by a further decline of 11 points to +66. Nobody had claimed a winning tile off David by going "Ron" in the first two games (when David was sat in the LUCKY SEAT). However, once the seat order had changed and somewhere in the middle of David's fourth beer he tossed out the 8-Coins, which was the ONLY tile that Eri, who was Tenpai, needed to complete her hand. David's decline in form robbed him of FIRST PLACE and so, for the fourth mahjong session in a row David finished 2nd and IN THE BLACK.

Meanwhile, over in the LUCKY SEAT The Human Computer, who had been malfunctioning earlier in the evening, suddenly began to whir and hum as per usual and the cries of "Ron!" began to multiply in that direction. He ended the third game as the only winner on +84, with David bottom on -34, and with Eri and Noda on -27 and -23 respectively.

During that game Kenyon retained the East Oya for a long period which cost both Eri and Noda dear. He was quite lucky to have done so too as really he ought to have lost it to Noda - had Noda been paying more attention to the game and less to the shochu and to The Doors.

"The Doors?"

That's right, The Doors. While David was relaxing and slurping his fifth beer Noda turned to him and said something like "Do you know well the lyrics of The Doors?"

Funny you should ask that, Noda, because David once had a girlfriend who loved The Doors and it was only after That Dear Creature had administered The Order of The Boot in his direction that he started to listen to their music.

Then Noda said: "Don't you think the line 'I'm gonna love you till the heavens stop the rain" refers to noanohakubune?"

Then David said: "What?"

Noda discarded a tile and said: "Noa no hakubune."

Then Kenyon plucked a tile from the wall and David said: "Oh, Noah's Arc," and with that Patriarch in mind he imbibed a large draft of beer.

Kenyon threw out the 2-of-Coins and Eri took a tile from the wall and Noda said: "Don't you think it means it's raining for such a long time that an arc is necessary?

David pondered Noah while swallowing some beer and Eri threw the 1-Characters and JUST as the tile hit the table NODA sat up straight and jerking out his finger in the direction of the 2-Coins cried out a desperate: "Chotto matte! RON! "R-O-N!!""

There was a moment's amazed hesitation before the swift and unanimous ruling by Kenyon, David and Eri that it was too late for Noda to claim RON off Kenyon's discarded 2-Coins! Eri's tile had hit the table and Noda (whose name, now I think of it is a partial anagram of Noah) was deemed to have committed a CHOMBO!!

It was from this foolishness trumpery on the part of Dame Fortune that Kenyon's great run began. This merely reinforces what I said earlier about the nature of Fortune in Mahjong... After all, while sitting in that same seat that Kenyon now occupied, David had found himself with a hand of just 11 tiles and had survived that crisis and gone on to a fine victory, and now Kenyon had found sancturary from the "Ron" in Noah's arc and went on to a +84 victory.

Earlier in the evening Kenyon had checked up on the scoring for Daisangen and Shosangen and a little later in his Oyaship we discovered why - or rather, Noda discovered why when he threw out the HATSU and Kenyon cried "Ron!... Daisangen..." and various other things.

The reckoning for the evening:

Kenyon: - ; -22; +84; +55 = +117
David: +45; +66; -34; -11 = +66
Noda: +28; +9; -23; +1 = +15
===
Eri: -73; -52; -27; -45 = -198

However, if you add up the score for the hot seat, the one that David was in at the start and that Kenyon inherited in the second half of the evening the results to that seat amount to +45; +66; +84; +55, the total being +250!!

Meanwhile the poor results for the seat which Kenyon vacated and David inherited amount to -22; -34; -11 and equal -67; not the worst total of the evening, but not a very good one either!

Anyway, whatever the role of Fortune may be, it is clear that yet once again The Human Computer came out on top, and yet once again David came second and in the black. Noda improved on his recent dismal form by coming in third and in the black. Eri arrived tonight carrying "negi mo... kamo mo..." etc as the old Japanese saying goes.

Easter Mahjong

Easter was early enough to catch the magnolia in full blossom this year and we (the Mrs and I) admired the view of the magnolia trees that line the arcades of Chuo-Doori as we drove down the street on our way to have lunch at Ristorante Mario on Peace Boulevard. It was a wet Easter and the arcades were glistening in the rain. We had just said our farewells to Okazaki-sensei, the chaplain of Fukatsu Kyoukai, the Japanese Episcopalian church where we had just celebrated Easter. Okazaki-sensei is the chaplain who married us and who also conducted the funeral service of Allan Jenkins in 2002. I appreciated his gentle handling of both occasions and wish him and his wife a long and happy retirement. (See http://www.urban.ne.jp/home/fukkatu/.)

Litte Eileen didn't stop wriggling all through the service and spent quite a lot of it grovelling on the floor. At one stage she had to be fished out from under the pew to prevent her from grabbing the legs of the young lady sat in front of us. A little later, during the Eucharistic Prayer, i.e. while we were kneeling, she thought it was a great game to hide underneath the cushion that runs the whole length of the pew. Suffer the little children to come unto me and have their ears boxed.

We had booked a table for eight people from 1pm. The only person who managed to arrive by 1pm was Eri. We found her standing a little forlornly outside the restaurant with the news that there was no table prepared for us. The manager told us we could either have two separate tables of four straightaway or wait a while for the table for eight - the one I had booked in person on Friday afternoon. Since there were only four of us we opted to wait. Kenyon and Tim followed shortly and didn't have to wait long to be seated. Eri requested house white but there wasn't any so we opted for house red instead. A bottle of red was placed on the table - and the waiter disappeared for ten minutes before getting around to uncorking it...

Jaime arrived in time for the first glass of wine and Sawako came rushing in from a shopping spree a little later.

The Seating:

Tim, Kenyon, Eri, Sawako
Mrs H, "e", David, Jaime

After a leisurely and drawn out lunch all eight of us retreated to Jaime's to play a couple of rounds of mahjong while watching a repeat of the England-Northern Ireland match.

Jaime, Kenyon, David and his Mrs played the first game, but only after David had pointed out to his Mrs that each was responsible for his own bill at the end of the game... This having been agreed, The Black Mahjong Set was brought out for the first time since Jaime's return to Hiroshima in 2003; the last time we used it had been in David's old flat in Enomachi towards the end of Jaime's final farewell party, with Allan Jenkins and Ray Bolger and Tim in attendance.

On that occasion David had not prospered with the black set, but this time he did well, winning the first few hands. However, after a few games we agreed to revert back to the traditional white set, the tiles being easier to read. The good news for David was that he continued to do well with this set too.

Then, just as Jaime became Oya Kenyon, the mighty Human Computer, began to whirr and buzz and declared "Double Riichi" and then "Ippatsu Tsumo", which made Jaime's tenureship of the Oya possible the shortest ever!

Kenyon was now Oya in the East round. He declared "Riichi" again, at which point Mrs H decided to discard the EAST Wind...

Kenyon: "Ron!"

Riichi, Ippatsu, Ton, Ton, Honnitsu, Dora... etc.

Now, as if that was not enough, Kenyon declared Riichi once again, and Mrs H thought it prudent to discard HATSU, which also happened to be the DORA for that hand.

Kenyon: "Ron!"

Riichi, Ippatsu, Hatsu, Dora, Dora, Dora... etc etc. By now Mrs H's tray was looking rather empty. I was glad that I had got the Lady Wife to agree that I was not responsible for her privy purse...

A while later when Jaime was Oya again and still needing to get rid of his Yakitori, he declared Riichi. I was out of this game and thought I ought to check up on Mrs H. She wanted to discard the 2-Bamboo, but I suggested that she discard one of her two CHUN tiles simply because the odds seemed to favour them. In deference to her husbands perspicacity and experience Mrs H chose to follow his advice...

Jaime: "Ron!"

Doh!

Towards the end of this game David discarded a tile (6-Coins) only to hear MRS H cry "Ron!" and turn over a hand that looked worryingly expensive... Could it be Suuanko? David called up Noda on his mobile to check up on the scoring and was reminded that Suuanko is only valid on Tsumo (except Suuanko Tanki). That was a relief, but it was still a bit of a shock to have to hand 16,000 points over to the Mrs, I can tell you.

The first game ended like this:

Kenyon: +79
David: +17
===
Jaime -35
Mrs H -61

Mrs H was replaced by Eri for the second game.

As David had not been remotely distracted by the football (being cognizant of the score and also of the fact that all four goals came in the second half), Jaime decided to test his concentration by putting on The Longest Day.

However, David was not distracted - or at least, not too distracted to come top in this game.

The final scores were:

David: +28
Kenyon: +5
===
Jaime: -15
Eri: -18

And so the reckoning for the afternoon was:

Kenyon: +84
David: +45
==
Eri: -18 (1 game only)
Jaime: -50
Mrs H: -61 (1 game only)

So, David came in second and in the black for the third successive game; Kenyon marched on to another victory and Jaime lost for the first time in a while.

Despite what had been agreed at the beginning of the game, Mr H magnanimously allowed Mrs H to deduct his winnings from her losses and pay the difference into the kitty.

Little E slept.

March 18th: The Return of Panthera Onca"" by Jaime

=== (Ed's note: Akela = Noda; Baloo = Yasu; Rama = David; Bagheera = Jaime; Grey Brother = Ray; Mowgli, the Man Cub = The Human Computer.) ===

After a week away from the mahjong parlour I re-joined the pack on Friday night to lock wits with the elder statesmen of our little circle. Giving away years, and in some cases kilos to the gnarled old veterans, I arrived early and was greeted by Akela stalking the mahjong table with a predatory glare that indicated that his recent defeats had been cast into the shadows of history. Which just goes to show how wrong one can be.

Baloo and Rama sauntered in just past the half hour mark and the games began. The panther may have returned, but I was not in the pink, far from it. Rama launched himself into an early and what proved decisive lead. Rattling up wins as Oya to move impressively into Riyanshi before Baloo finally managed to pluck his paws. The poor panther was being battered. Literally licking his paws after his tray was being slowly emptied. However, the beauty of this game is just when you think it can get no worse, a monumental piece of luck rides to the rescue. Akela, drawing on his years of the hunt was stalking Rama ready to topple him, yet he had not accounted for the unorthodox brilliance of Bagheera, a subtle riichi, seemingly a desperate one tile riichi to keep Oya. But oh no, thanks to Akela's greed, four bonus tiles had been overtuned due to Kan. A contemptuous throw and a shout of "RON!" allowed to Bagheera to gain triple mangan as his hand contained 10 dollars. The 1st game ended with Rama King of the Jungle, Bagheera thanks to Akela's greed, -8 and the others down.

The 2nd game was close. Rama and Bagheera neck and neck and paw to paw, with the panther just coming out on top, a mere 2 points ahead. Akela's early confidence had disappeared and just like a weak American beer, was looking rather pale. Baloo, who seemed to be modeling a new kind of breathing apparatus on his nose (Think Robbie Fowler in the mid-90's) to help clear his passages for unaffected oxygen intake. This whilst smoking a pack of KKK's

The 3rd game was one in which the panther using his entire physical prowess serenely glided into a huge and commanding lead. Both Baloo and Akela had trays where overcrowding was far from a problem. Baloo at least managed to claw some points back, but Akela like a punch-drunk boxer went from swinging on the ropes to drooling on the canvas. He was most certainly down and definitely out. Again receiving a battering from Bagheera with another triple mangan payment due to a hand containing 10 bonus tiles and not much else. Bagheera ended this game +92, the others I am not sure, I await Rama's score sheet. (See "Comments", Ed.)

The final game of the evening, an early evening as it turned out, was won by someone, but it wasn't Bagheera, whose magnificent winnings were reduced from a extraordinary +130, to a mere amazing +108. I think that maybe Baloo was left with a small orange counter at the end of the game. In fact the only lasting memories of the final game was a stream of snivels and whimpers emanating from Akela's direction. Another heavy defeat and yet further signs of the waning of powers?

[Er, Noda won the last game +43. See "Comments". Ed.]

Akela was once more rock bottom for the evening and left more than 3000 on the table.

The night was somewhat surprising for the number of big payments. There was at least 4 Triple Mangans, Bagheera receiving two and paying out one. Double Mangan was also paid out frequently. Akela, who also had the distinction of being the only player to chombou during the night, seemingly collected only small amounts. The chombou itself was the one in which the player forgets which Kaze he is. Akela went pon on South, declared his hand sometime later and then realized his mistake. He will be forgetting his own name next....

Grey Brother also appeared during the night. He decided to gorge himself on Mama's home cooking whilst chipping in with amusing anecdotes about his recent successful job interview. This should mean that, although his new job will mean travelling to more distant regions of the Hiroshima Jungle, his participation in the regular Friday night machinations should once again be quite regular.

As for the man-cub, he was not at play on Friday night, at least not at the mahjong variety. This thankfully, was not down to not receiving his monthly pay from his knife-wielding, suicide/murder threatening boss.* He had decided to reacquaint himself with some of his more animalistic human traits.

===== *Due to legal issues, regrettably I cannot divulge further details of this alleged incident for fear of having the owner of this Blog incarcerated in a 4 by 6 cell. However, that being said, an alleged incident occurred on Wednesday 16th March in Hiroshima at a well-known English School. One teacher quite reasonably politely enquired as to when her last 3 months wages would be received, was allegedly greeted by threats of suicide and murder by her alleged deranged boss. During all this, the alleged secretary, definitely had some type of screaming hysterical fit. This was allegedly due to being asked to operate as a member of the human race and not a wet dishrag.

Comments

Comment posted by David, on March 25, 2005, 10:53 am
The final reckoning for this game was:

JAIME 108
David +44
==
Noda -60
YASU -92

The totals over the evening are:

Noda: -1 -36 -66 +43 = -60
Jaime: -8 +42 +96 -22 = 108
David: +25 +20 -13 +12 = +44
Yasu: -16 -26 -17 -33 = -92

Overall, a good evening for Johnny Foreigner.

I ended 2nd and in the black for the 2nd consecutive night (having played 4-Player at Dr Mogami's Thursday evening - see previous report)...

March 17th: Visitors Take All

By the time I arrived at Dr Mogami Senior's for an evening of orthodox mahjong I had more or less recovered from the exertions of the night before.

THE EXERTIONS OF THE NIGHT BEFORE

I spent the first part of Wednesday evening swanning around the Jyogakuin Daigaku "Shaonkai" ("a thanksgiving party of graduates for their teachers") at the Riga Royal Hotel admiring the graduates and their kimonos.

One of the senior professors came over and mentioned that my paper had been accepted for publication by the editors of the departmental journal. The paper, "A Moved Prince: The Judgement of Prince Escalus" (in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) was churned out over several nights (some of them post-mahjong) in January after a gestation of about seven or eight months. If I get around to it I'll put the "a priori assumptions" (which I cut from the paper) up on the literary part of this sprawling website: http://www.hirohurl.net/engren.html...

Anyway, after a brief visit to Lang to assess the state of play some hours after encountering the boss and secretary in varying states of hysteria and discovering that what passes for normality at that establishment appeared to have been restored, I spent most of the rest of the evening seeing in Saint Patrick's Day at Molly Mallone's in the company of the Oirish Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Ray Bolger & Brendan McGowan). Simon Smith made a brief appearance during the more sober end of the session.

Yes, a fine beer swilling session was had by all three of us and it was a session that seemed gradually to take in the female contingent of a nearby table. I cannot remember how or to what end, but I do remember that it ended up with me in a bar with one of them, and reducing her to tears over a G&T with a moving story about... ah, well about something or other to do with that sort of thing that sometimes has that sort of effect on the sensitivities of that sort of Japanese lady. It may have had been something along the lines of suggesting, by inference most subtle, or at least as subtle as several pints of Bass Pale may allow, of suggesting I say, that her man was perhaps a bit of a cad; after which I think I might have dozed off.

Be that as it may, I was in no condition to repeat last Friday's feat of walking all the way home after mahjong - a two hours' slog that was helped along by listening to Beethoven's Fidelio on my iPod - something which that Lightfoot fellow put me on to (see Saturday, 4 December 2004 I POD THEREFORE I AM, http://ardle.net/personalpages_index.htm).

So, instead of going through all that walking again I asked a taxi driver how much it'd cost for him to take me home to Happyhappypark (Rakurakuen) and he said "3,000 yen" which sounded most reasonable and so I slumped into the back seat. It is a fine feeling, being whisked over so much ground that had so recently and arduously been covered on foot. But then the taxi came to a stop and the driver said "3,000yen," so I paid up and tottered out to discover that there was still a good 15 minutes of walking to be done...

RECOVERY

Thursday morning: The fast was broken with nowt but coffee and I tottered off with my little "Hostage to Fortune," deposited her at her kindergarten and headed up to Ajina for the first of my two classes that day, a pleasingly easygoing kominkan class which takes an indulgent view of the occasions when I arrive with a stonking hangover. I have always found English classes to be an ideal method of recovery; it gives you something to concentrate on beyond the pounding head and the dizziness.

Happily, one of the students had taken some "advice" that I had given some weeks previous, which was, apparently, that she ought to read Swift's Gulliver's Travels because although it was written 300 years ago it has an economy of style which, along with its vivid imagery, makes it much easier for English students to read than, say, Defoe. The student therefore dominated much of the second half (post tea break) part of the class and I was most contented to let her take the lead and occasiona