"Butter"

The book cover is the colour of butter and just for good measure there's a cow there too. I was partly drawn to this novel by Asako Yuzuki because it is Japanese and I know so little about Japan. However, I had previously read three novels in translation by Haruki Murakami which I very much enjoyed.

At the core of this work of fiction is a seed pod from reality - the strange case of  Kanae Kijima, the Konkatsu Killer who was sentenced to death in 2010 for the killing of at least four men. By the way, she still languishes in a Tokyo jail as appeals follow appeals. There is little hard evidence to condemn her but a lot of intelligent supposition.

The main protagonist in "Butter" is Rika Machita, a young journalist on a Tokyo lifestyle and news magazine. She manages to get an interview with Manako Kajii - the man killer - and this interest becomes increasingly obsessive.

Asako Yuzuki

Kajii had prepared fine meals for her alleged victims and food starts to play a much bigger part in Rika's life than it had ever done before. For example, she discovers how delightful good quality butter can prove to be in a range of recipes - including a simple bowl of rice.

I reached the last page (page 452) out in our sunny garden just this afternoon. Shirley asked me if I had enjoyed it and I said that "enjoyed" would not be the right word. I had appreciated it and it was good to spend time in Japanese culture with the author. Really, it was a pretty weird story and at times the references to Japanese foodstuffs was confusing. There were no footnotes to explain.

Finally, a big shout out to Polly Barton who translated "Butter" from Japanese into English. A good translator does much more than telling us what the words mean. He or she is also a creator, honing what is literal into something with shape and body and oodles of butter...

Polly Barton

Summer

                                                                                                                                    ©Bernadine Richey

Summer. What a joy it is to be alive when a real summer is happening.

Up at "The Hammer Pincers" car park, Mike and I waited for his wife Jill to arrive in their silver Honda car. It was almost ten thirty but the western skies were still so filled with summer light that nighttime was again struggling to take command.

I was wearing my navy blue "Yorkshire Pudding" T-shirt, faded blue shorts and walking sandals. The  temperature was so balmy that I did not feel any kind of chill.

Once again, we had won the pub quiz with knowledge and cunning. Though Mike and I had no idea, our friend Mick - back from a week in Skegness - knew that Luke Skywalker piloted an X-wing fighter plane in "Starwars" (1977).

Earlier, I made Sunday dinner for the family. It was leg of pork this time with new potatoes, roasted carrots, purple-sprouting broccoli, mixed vegetables, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. This was followed by a superb raspberry cheesecake that Shirley had made from scratch. The slices stood four inches tall and were most delicious and summery.

Afterwards, I lay on the lawn looking up at winging swallows, the cumulus clouds and the blue sky beyond. Little Margot and Phoebe came to join me for a while, riding upon the chest of  The Grandpa Beast at the very end of June and laughing like monkeys under that summer sky.

Summer - easing, placating, kindly smoothing out as though there might be no tomorrow. And it feels very good to be alive, hardly bothering to count the days until the first frost of autumn along our unstoppable journey to wintertime.

Report

Neil Young at Glastonbury tonight

By the magic of television, I have just watched Neil Young performing live at Glastonbury with his band - The Chrome Hearts. He was the Saturday night headline act on The Pyramid Stage.

The guy will be eighty in November but he's still got it - still as committed to his music as ever. Over the years, he has become a consummate lead guitar player - not just a fellow who crafts catchy original songs with the aid of an acoustic guitar.

There's no enhancement with an expensive stage set, big screen videos and dancers - just that old grungy Canadian bloke - a born survivor, sending his plaintive words and his guitar riffs up into the starry summer skies over Somerset. 

I have only ever seen him live in concert the once - in Liverpool. Hell, was that really eleven years ago? Go here.

One of the numbers on tonight's set list was "Old Man"...

Love lost, such a cost
Give me things that don't get lost
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you

I love that song and many others too. The encore included a loud and proud version of "Keep on Rockin' in The Free World". The Chrome Hearts were so tight and with Neil Young all the way. One hour and fifty minutes of a living legend. He also performed  "Keep on Rockin' in The Free World" at Glastonbury back in 2009:-

"Dominique"

Who is that? Why, it's the Belgian recording artist Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers - frequently remembered as The Singing Nun. She had a self-penned worldwide hit single in late 1963. It was titled "Dominique" and it was sung in French in honour of Saint Dominic who founded the Dominican Order of Catholicism in The Middle Ages.

Mme Deckers was indeed a nun but not for very long. In 1966 she left her convent and her holy orders but continued to live a pious life, opening a school for autistic children in her home town in Belgium. Financially, she was ripped off both by the Catholic church and by her recording company - Philips. That led to overwhelming financial worries that played a big part in her early death.

Though at one time she vehemently denied it, she was probably homosexual for she lived with her friend Annie Pécher in a shared apartment for many years. Tragically, on March 29th 1985, they committed suicide together in Wavre, Belgium where they were later buried together. The Singing Nun was only fifty one years old. The inscription on their shared headstone might be translated thus: "I saw her soul fly through the clouds".

People of my generation will recall the haunting simplicity of "Dominique" in a musical landscape that in 1963 was becoming increasingly populated by wannabe stars and electric guitars. Please listen:- 

Domi-nic-nic-nic went about simply,

a poor singing traveller.

On every road, in every place,

He talks only of the Good Lord,

He talks only of the Good Lord.

Accident

The news spread like wildfire this morning. There had been a road accident on nearby Ecclesall Road at the junction that leads to our local Co-op supermarket and to Phoebe and Margot's nursery school. Twenty minutes before the accident, Frances had dropped Phoebe off at our house before taking Margot to the nursery school for her last day session of the week.

At first there was some confusion about what had happened but as the day advanced, the information became clearer. A sixteen year old cyclist on his way to school had collided with a car and had then been jettisoned into the path of an oncoming lorry.

At one point, there were four police vehicles at the scene and three ambulances. A helicopter landed in nearby Endcliffe Park but it proved unnecessary for the boy was soon sped to hospital in a regular road ambulance. He remains in hospital in what a spokesperson has called "a critical condition".

The busy A road was sealed off until 4pm. Shirley passed by the scene an hour later to pick up Margot and reported that there was still blood on the tarmac.

The whole thing is naturally a nightmare for the car driver, the lorry driver, the teenage lad's family and of course the injured victim himself who may or may not survive. 

There but for the grace of God go any of us.

I am reminded of the time that my late brother Paul killed a teenage boy in rural Ireland. He was overtaking a school bus that had just pulled in at the kerb when a fifteen year old schoolboy shot out from round the front of the bus without looking. There was nothing that Paul could do. The boy died at the scene.

I don't know the name of today's accident victim but I wish him well and hope that he survives this day of horror without great physical impairment. Life is such a precious gift and he ought to have most of his life ahead of him. If I were a praying person, I would pray for him. 

Transition

Where did those years go? It seems like only yesterday when I announced the birth of our first granddaughter here on this blog. For illustration, I included a picture of a stork carrying a new baby in its beak. Now that baby girl is four and a half years old and on the verge of going to primary school. She will be joining her reception class in September at our local primary school.

It was certainly not always the case but nowadays schools pay a lot of attention to the business of transition. There are meetings and visits - even home visits. It's all about helping children to overcome their anxieties and get off to a good start.

Today Phoebe spent the morning in her new school, including time in her assigned classroom. Frances took a couple of hours off work so that she could be there with her. Father Stewart is currently away in Stockholm, Sweden on a work-related trip.

Phoebe can be very shy with strangers - often clamming up like a mute but today all went well and she was happy as the accompanying photograph perhaps reveals.

Having been enrolled at a nearby nursery school when she was eighteen months old, Phoebe is already quite familiar with classrooms and the way that educational institutions operate so I expect that her transition to the primary school will be quite painless. However, sadly, she will no longer be coming to Grandma and Grandpa's house every Thursday. I freely admit that we will miss those days and the special influx of joy she has always brought us.

Time marches on.

Quiztime

Backtrack to Sunday evening. One member of The Great Quiz Trio is on holiday in Skegness - on the Lincolnshire coast but I am up at "The Hammer and Pincers" with a pint of "Stones" waiting for Mike to arrive. I have already paid for his pint of "Moonshine" - brewed in Sheffield at The Abbeydale Brewery.

Mike is a lovely man to know and a good friend. By the way - that's him in the header picture. In recent years, he has been battling the various consequences of a fairly rare condition called myasthenia gravis. He has faced it with admirable fortitude and good humour, fighting to maintain his happy, "normal" life and interests instead of allowing the erosive condition to enslave and define him.

It was nice to spend some one-on-one time with him as we tackled the weekly quiz which, by the way, we narrowly won. Me and him, we know some stuff - and if we don't know things for sure, we often have great hunches. Our other team member - Mick - helps us out with pop music, dates and  film knowledge - specialising in James Bond and "Starwars" which I know almost nothing about. We make a great team with my speciality being geographical knowledge and Mike being particularly good with history questions and anagrams.

Anyway, I brought my winning quiz sheet home on Sunday with the full intention of putting ten of the questions to you and others who both inhabit the blogosphere and quite like quizzing. Here we go...

⦿

1. Which airline's first transatlantic service began in June 1984 connecting London Gatwick with Newark NJ?

2. What is the job title of someone who shoes horses?

3. Which T.O.V. marked the formal end of World War One?

4. The Beach Boys only had two number one hit singles in Great Britain. Name one of them.

5. In home brewing what is the other common name for the large glass container often called a "carboy"?

6. What is the bulbous fruit that Greek cooks slice and layer when they are preparing  dishes of moussaka?

7. Which cartoon character had nephews called Huey, Dewey and Louie?

8. ANAGRAM. This is a well-known newspaper:-

HETERO VERBS

9. Which fast food chain now has more outlets across the world than McDonalds?

10. In 1940, the evacuation of which French seaside town was being referred to when using the codename "Operation Dynamo"?

Answers in "Comments"

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