Rather than sitting around and watching YouTube for an hour or so, I decided to do a little report on my recent trip to Kanazawa over Golden Week. It was my first time visiting the town, and I wasn’t really expecting much, so it was nice to be surprised by finding a charming old city tucked away on the Japan Sea side of the main island, Honshu. Truly, one of those moments where I found myself falling in love with Japan again for the umpteenth time.
Images taken over the course of a year in the Tokyo area. Click on an image to enlarge.
Cat Latte
‘Oh, wait!’ Charlie jumped out of the car with the engine still running.
‘What is it now?!’ the man in the driver’s seat called after him as he sped towards the house.
‘I forgot my extra film!’
The man in the car let out a sigh and sat looking at the trails of condensation on the windscreen. The car was shuddering in expectation and the radio was playing at a low volume. He adjusted the mirror and took a look at his face. He’d forgotten to shave, but it wasn’t so noticeable. There were bits of dust on the shoulders of his black suit, which he brushed off lightly with his hand before tidying his hair a little and straightening his tie.
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Just on my way home from work and decided to load up the BBC app on my smartphone to check the news. As it was loading, I noticed an ominous pair of buttons, one saying “Send Photo” and the other “Send Story”. They disappeared for a second when the news loaded and I thought I may have imagined them, but after scrolling down to the bottom of the app, yes, there they both were still. I include an iPhone screenshot below.
What really shocks me is that this is what journalism has come to: the public taking photos on their smartphones and submitting stories tapped out on the same device. Members of the general public buy the phones, pay the contract subscriptions, take the photos and write the articles. And what does the BBC do? Sweet FA. Just sits back and sifts through a load of great free content provided by the “consumer”.
It makes me wonder whether we need organisations like the BBC at all? Why not just use Google to search for blogs on any given news topic? If the BBC is not paying people to write and research its contents properly, what is the point in its existence?
I really would like to know if members of the public receive any kind of remuneration at all for submissions.
Judging by how shady everything is these days regarding the Internet and intellectual property, I severely doubt it; kind of depressing, but at least we know where the power lies – the people.
I just wish the people would understand their own worth instead of giving away their talents for free.
It was one sunny spring morning that I happened to come to a fork in the woods. Which, in itself, is no interesting thing – many a man has been wandering down a path aimlessly and come across a split in the road. The fork, in fact, is rather inconsequential, although this particular fork had an unusual facet that made it all the more memorable. I was staring up at the blue sky and whistling a tune, when all of a sudden something caught my eye and I was forced to shake my head and wonder if my eyes were not mistaken.
“No, it can’t be,” I said to myself and began to trot a little faster towards the fork.
As I got closer, I realised that it was as I had thought: that there really was a fully-grown man, completely naked, except for a white board strapped to his chest, tied to a tree by thick ropes. I couldn’t quite take it all in at first, and the situation seemed even more ludicrous as I gradually began to make out what was written on the sign. Painted on in thick black letters in an extremely thick bold script was the single sentence:
Do not trust this man, for he is a liar.
