Porcupine Tree

Porcupine Tree are my current favourite band. I will not call them a rock band - although this would be the closest description - since their palette spans several genres from acoustic right up to heavy rock. They are however still great. Why?
I first heard one of their songs on a local radio station about 18 months ago and it grabbed me straight away. Not many songs have ever done that. It was cleverly constructed, the bass and drums were tight and clearly produced, the vocals mysterious and the band were obviously very talented. The verse was sparse and the chorus melodic.
I was wondering why, despite there being many bands with talent, do only some really stand out. I then thought about the types of other artists that are considered great and all of them have something in common. They all are masters at their arts while at the same time making it approachable to the casual user. The people who make you feel close to their art despite their being at the top of their game. The people who seem to want you to come closer and listen/look/enjoy rather than push you away so they can be noticed.
There are plenty of vids on Youtube that show their prowess and I would recommend In Absentia and Fear of a Blank Planet albums as a good entry point to their music.

What socks do you wear

The type of socks you wear say a lot about the sort of person you are (in my humble opinion). Do you wear thin socks or thick socks? Do you wear bright socks or muted socks? Do you wear white sports socks with your black shoes?
Once, we were discussing whether it is right to wear odd socks. Myself and a girl I used to work with were adamant that it was wrong to mix socks of different types. Perhaps at a push, if I lost one of a pair, I might match up socks that were basically the same. Another girl we were talking to said she didn't match socks up at all and simply pulled two out of the drawer - this disturbed me greatly - but I don't have OCD or anything (or do I?)
Anyway, my latest discovery is 5 pairs of thin black socks from Tescos which have the day of the week embroidered on them to make them easy to match up. This way, I spend an extra minute looking for the correct socks for the day! Would I ever choose the socks from the wrong day and wear them? No way!! Or - perish the thought - mix up the days on a pair and wear them? I shudder to think of it.

The myth of TV standby power consumption

One of the things that annoys me as a bit of a purist is when people talk authoritatively about things that are clearly not true. This is particularly true of emotive subjects such as ecologically sound power and the environment. Depending on who you talk to, either it is mandatory or it is foolish to rely on wind power another debate might be whether going on holiday or not will actually affect the number of flights that will take place etc.
The one that used to really get my goat was, "If you leave your TV on standby, it will use almost as much energy as if it is switched on" - nonsense. Perhaps in the days of some tube TVs, standby was used to keep the tube warm so it didn't take ages to switch on. This need gradually reduced over time as tubes got better. Anyway, nowadays, flat screen TVs are different. I picked a random Philips 32" TV and looked at the power consumption. When it is on, it takes 290 Watts and when on standby? 0.15 Watts, yes 0.15 Watts. In other words, if you left it on standby for an entire year and never watched it, it will still only use 1.3 KWh - 1.3 units - about 20p in cost and the equivalent of what a fridge uses in a single day or the washing machine/tumble dryer in about 20 minutes or a heater in the winter for 20mins-1 hr. In other words - almost nothing. The problem I have with it? It distracts people from real issues and things that make a real big difference like turning your thermostat down a degree or two and wearing a jumper. Or insulating your loft so your heating doesn't go out of the roof, or switching your lights off when you are not in the room or not washing clothes after they have been worn once (unless they are pants or socks!!).
The problem is people hear it, and they say it, repeat ad-infinitum (or is it ad-nauseum!). If only people would be able to separate truth from untruth, we might progress a bit quicker and not wonder why our effort to switch our TVs off hasn't made a blind bit of difference to the energy requirement.
(p.s. The same is also true of mobile phone chargers)

Lean Manufacturing

When I went to Japan recently, I read a book about Toyota and the way it runs its factories. They are quite unique even amongst Japanese companies but one of the things that struck me the most was the lean manufacturing and something called a value flow diagram.
The basic idea was that in manufacturing as in many other types of industry, a product is produced but it does not spend all of its time having value added to it, value meaning something that is required to turn the raw material into what the customer wants. It could be that something unecessary is being done like printing a pretty picture on the side that the customer might not care about or it might be something related to the manufacturing process like sitting on a shelf for 2 weeks before being used in the factory. You can spend loads of money hiring people and they can analyse these things and tell you where to slicken the system to something that is close to adding value 100% of the time by removing waste.
I then though of a good example as I was returning home on the plane. The airport - one of the worst examples of non-lean flow. You turn up to the airport in a car, train or plane etc. The only value then added to your journey is checking in, putting your luggage onto the plane and then boarding and flying. In between however, you have to usually walk a long way to the check-in desk, a long way through security, wait a long time to board and then taxi for several minutes to the runway, all adding about 3 hours to the start and perhaps an hour to the end of many long-haul flights. One of the improvements made is to check-in online but the layout of airports is still not great. Why you have to check-in 2 hours before departure is beyond me, baggage systems should be faster and should not have to go via electric cars across the tarmac, people should be able to only walk a short distance from car/train/bus to the check-in desk, security is arguably far too intense and slow and distances between departure lounges and gates are too long, boarding is too slow - they should use all doors on the plane, not just the front one, lugage should be loaded directly into the plane from the baggage system and then the distance between the gates and the runways should be 1/2 a mile max.
So all we need to do is knock Heathrow down and build it again!!!

West Coast Trains Misery

I have read from the milder climes of Japan about the failures on the West Coast over the past week. It is genuinely depressing that the UK can't manage its railways. The people at Network Rail as far as I understand are more than competent engineers but I suspect the funding interference from government does not help and they are trying to work within a seriously flawed system setup by the Tories about 15 years ago (yes we do remember).
However, I also happen to know that there is a general attitude in the UK where mistakes and weaknesses are tolerated instead of solved. I used to work for Intercity West Coast on the locomotives and for a time I worked in Crewe at an office that monitored rolling stock failures amongst other things. I remember that each week there might have been 10 - 15 relay failures on the locomotives, some of these causing significant delays or cancellations. The attitude was simply one of acceptance - relays are mechanical, they break, never mind. I can't imagine that attitude during the early days of the railways or in fact in some other countries of the world today. If relays break, you either have to change them on a schedule so they don't become old enough to break or you replace them with a more reliable type. None of this is rocket science or even necessarily that expensive depending on what you do. You could ask several manufacturers for their relays and test them in service. Put them on a train with a second locomotive so that if they break, you can use the spare loco to pull the train instead. They would all be spec'd to work on the loco so the risk of them breaking shouldn't be any higher than the existing relays. Let their test engineers ride with the train so that if they fail, they might find out why and change the design to cope - over time they would become totally reliable.
This of course applies to a myriad of problems the railways face, not just engineering ones but although we seem happy to spend billions of pounds, the underlying quality is simply not there in many areas. Until the railways or perhaps the UK on the whole can change its attitude to quality and start allocating money for reliability improvements for EVERYTHING that is known to fail in service then we will suffer this embarrassment of a railway. Rails crack in certain conditions so you either need to change the makeup of the steel or put more expansion joints in or whatever. If that is not possible, you need to setup emergency teams that can repair a crack in a very short time (as in 1 or 2 hours tops - not all night!!). The same for overhead lines. If you really cannot stop them breaking (although I suspect you could) then you need repairs that take an hour, not 2 days.
As for that plane crash on the West Coast, as tragic as that is, the wreckage should have been removed straight away and the repairs carried out, personally I find it unacceptable that the air investigators get to block the railways with its tens of thousands of passengers for 2 days just because this country thinks every accident needs the full resources of the country to complete.

Japan Update Wednesday 7th

Just went knocking about town today looking at a couple of book shops and returning to the toy shop that had the massive floor just for model railways, mostly in N gauge (the commonest size in Japan compared to OO in the UK, N is half the size of OO). What I actually went for was some more T gauge stuff, check it out on the picture. The coach in the back is OO gauge - which most of you will be familiar with (it's closer to HO in size), the bullet train cab is close to N gauge, which is pretty small already. The smallest up until 2008 was Z gauge which was about 2/3 the size of N gauge but the tiny little coach in the front is T gauge with a track gauge of a mere 3mm (Z is 6mm, N is 9mm and OO is 16.5mm). I've bought a couple of trains and some track and to give you some idea of its size, you could build a scale model of Kings Cross station in about 300mm x 1 metre!

Japan Update Tuesday 6th

Went to a place called Hakata today. It wasn't because there was anything interesting there but it was the limit of where my rail pass would go and I wanted to get my money's worth. It is about as far as London to Edinburgh (390 miles) and whereas the fastest BR train makes the journey in 4 hrs 20, the Shinkansen does it in 2 hrs 30!! It is funny that when you look at it, although the trains here do have a higher top speed, the noticeable difference between here and there is that the Shinkansen basically only stops at stations, it never slows down for no obvious reason, it does not wait at red lights, it does not sit outside a station waiting for another train to get out of the way and does not have any major speed limits on route (although it does have some curves that are limited to about 140mph from 190mph). Bring on the maglev: UK Ultraspeed. For a small pittance compared to the governments usual wasted budget, the UK could have a 310mph rail network from north to south, linking London with Glasgow (via Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh) in 2hrs 30m!! Lobby your MPs people! The picture above is Hiroshima at sunset.

How to ride the Shinkansen if you don't speak Japanese

It might seem daunting going to Japan without knowing any Japanese and wanting to ride the trains without knowing what is going on. Here is a simple guide.
Firstly, the ticket staff will usually know at least very basic English words like ticket, pass, today, tomorrow etc. If you can, try and get some romanji or Japanese words printed out onto paper in your pocket (or take a phrase book) to make your life easier - they also might have a member of staff who's English is better.
If you want to get the standard all-Japan rail pass, you MUST buy it outside of Japan. It gives some good deals on train rides for a fixed price but note that you CANNOT use it on the Nozomi Shinkansen (the fastest one), probably because it is the most crowded. The Hikari - the next fastest - is not a great deal slower so don't cry about it.
I didn't buy the Japan rail pass but a JR West Sanyo area pass. This is a 4 or 8 day pass for all JR trains from Osaka in the east to Hakata in the west for 20,000 Yen - £160 - $250 (4 days) and 30,000 Yen - £240 - $375 (8 days). To buy it, you need to go to a JR ticket office or selected travel agents. Most stations seem to be brimming with ticket offices so you won't have a problem finding one, I went to the one in the subway level of Shin-Osaka station (this is the only place where the Shinkansen stop in Osaka). You will need your passport to prove you are a foreigner. Theoretically you will also need your exit plane ticket to prove you are leaving but I wasn't asked for this. Make sure you tell them when you want it to start otherwise they might start it too soon and waste some money. It only took a minute so you won't need to get it in advance (although there might be a queue when you go so I wouldn't advise cutting it too fine).
Once you have your pass, you can either simply get on the train to somewhere (travelling in the unreserved seats coaches - look on the information screens) or otherwise go to a JR ticket office that is displaying a green person sitting on a seat and you can get a free reservation to go with the pass. Note that you will need to know the services you need the reservations for (they are labelled with a service number rather than a time but you should be fine if you know it is the 9 o'clock to Hiroshima).
The displays are shown in alternate Japanese and English, they will show the type of train (Nozomi, Hikari, Kodama in the case of Osaka) displayed in a certain colour to make it easier to find, the number of coaches it has to help you find your coach with the platform markings and the coaches which contain the unreserved seats if you do not have a reservation. Note the platform numbers follow a hotel style with the first number being the level and the second being the platform, the lowest therefore would be 11 and others on the same level would be 12,13,14 etc. Most stations only have up to about 4 or 5 platforms.
The trains are often 16 coaches which is very long. At busy times, you do NOT want to try and walk down the inside of the coaches and you will not have time to walk along the platform, most services are in the station for no more than 1 or 2 minutes and 16 coaches is very long. Use the markings on the platform to find your coach before the train arrives. You might notice some white lane markings on the platform. This enables queuing of people on the platform (rather than pushing in) and also keeps them away from the doors to make space for people coming off.
If you do not have a reservation, do not be surprised if you have to stand in the aisle. Most people stand all the way up the coach to try and grab the seats when they become vacant. Make sure you are ready to leave the train as it arrives at the station, you will not be popular pushing past the people getting on because you weren't paying attention, you might not even make it to the exit before the train leaves!

Japan Update Special - Shinkansen

First off, Shinkansen means New Trunk Line and has nothing to do with the phrase Bullet Train which comes from someone outside Japan, I will not call them bullet trains. Here are some things that you may or may not know about the Shinkansen, which explain partly why it is so successful and some of these things could be done in England with a bit of willing.

1. The first Shinkansen line was built in 1964


2. The word refers to the network and not to a particular type of train


3. It uses dedicated high speed lines, mostly on elevated concrete track beds


4. There are about 13 different classes of train currently in use on the system with the oldest recently retired and a few more on order and being tested


5. The line speed is currently 185mph maximum


6. The only fatality amongst the 7 billion passengers was caused by someone's luggage stuck in a door, no-one has ever been injured in a derailment


7. It uses moving block (radio controlled) signalling which makes the gaps between trains shorter and saves a few quid on signals and cabling.


8. The line between Osaka and Tokyo has carried more people than the rest of the worlds high speed lines combined.


9. All the wheel axles are powered so the acceleration is very high - you can feel it pull


10. You can swivel all the chairs on the train to either all face forward which most people prefer or to make blocks of 4 or 6


11. The seating in economy class is 3 + 2 x 20 rows = 100 people per coach


12. The trains are 8 or 16 coaches long (800 or 1600 people per train)


13. The trains are named so that people know what is going on, the Nozomi is basically the fastest express - main stations only, the Hikari is the middle one and the Kodama stops at all Shinkansen stations and is obviously slower. This helps people to know without having to work it out which trains are going to where (e.g. you would also choose the Nozomi if you are going Osaka to Tokyo because it is fastest).


14. The platforms are marked with coach numbers so you know where to get on to find your seat or the unreserved coaches. You do NOT have time to walk along the platform after the train has arrived. The markings are right next to the doors, within about 6 inches and there are different markings for 8 coach trains and for the different types.


15. The signs are in alternate Japanese and English. They show the name of the train, the destination, its stops, how many coaches it has and which coaches are for unreserved ticket holders.

Japan Update Monday 5th

Well, excitement today! I went on the Shinkansen for the first time to a place called Himeji where there is a massive temple. I will create a separate post for the exciting things about the train ride. You can buy passes and they are good value. For 20,000 Yen (about £160) you get 4 days of unlimited travel across the whole of the western region on all Shinkansen trains. To get my moneys worth, I am going to end of the line tomorrow. The temple in Himeji is incredibly extensive with various baileys and fortments as well as the 6 storey central tower. I wondered what life was life back then when death was always just around the corner and you had to kill to live.

Japan Update Sunday 4th

We went to the port today and visited Osaka aquarium. It was pretty busy since it is still holidays but it was a well stocked aquarium with a number of land animals as well as the basic fishies. They also had a large tiger shark but I suspect it gets bored in the tank although it is a pretty big tank. What is good is the design starts at the top and you follow a large spiral downwards so that you don't miss anything. My favourite part was probably the jellyfish, some of which are extremely unusual and colourful. There were also these small molluscs which have little disco lights on them which was cool, not sure how they work but I guess we could scale up the technology and make energy efficient lighting, they certainly didn't need any AA batteries to keep them running! We also got to go on a ferris wheel which is slightly smaller than the London eye but pretty tall nonetheless. You can basically see the whole Kansai plain from the top for only 700 Yen (£5). We had another Maccie D's, I always think it is funny that Big Mac in Japanese is Biga Maccer and is written in Katakana. They could just have easily written Big Mac in English since it is actually the same word!

Japan Update Saturday 3rd

Another exciting visit. We went to a large toy shop which was on 5 floors. One whole floor was dedicated to model railways, it was mostly Kato and Tomix (the two largest Japanese manufacturers) and mostly N gauge but they had some gauge 1, HO, Z and T gauge as well. The prices for the European imported stuff were unsurprisingly high but also the Japanese stuff did not seem that good value, especially since the quality is not as high as European models. The train bodies are basically a single piece moulding with some paintwork. Their track is all pre-ballasted but seems to be solid, the trains rarely derail and the flanges on their wheels are tiny. I saw this exciting example of marketing although it was a little large for me....

Japan Update Saturday 3rd

Exciting day today. We went to find a model railway cafe in Osaka. I had found one on a web site by accident and then we found out that there was one much closer to us. It was hard finding the exact details because all sites about it were in Japanese but because it was so good, here are the details in case anyone else wants to visit: Link. It appears that there are three but we went to the one near Tennoji station. You exit on the north side, turn right and walk about 1/2 mile up the road. One the road starts to curve to the left, the cafe is on the right and is signposted in English. The staff only speak a little English but you basically sit down, run the trains and drink. The website is in Japanese but there are maps for each of the 3 sites. The phone number for the Tennoji one is 06-6773-1544.

Japan Update Friday 2nd

Today we visited a park in Osaka. It could have been a park anywhere really, it wasn't like the parks I have seen in Central Asia that have a somewhat Soviet feel about it. We then visited McDonalds - I decided not to attempt the Japanese Yakitori Burgers and stick with the Big Mac and Fries.

Japan Update Thursday 1st

We visited the local church for a special new year service. It was all in Japanese so I didn't have much of a clue what was happening. The music was very good, they had 2 keyboard players, bass, guitar, drums, flute and singers and it was pretty rocking all in all. Because it was a special day, lots of the girls wore their Kimonos so I took this piccie. As you can imagine, most of the time the Japanese women do not walk around in these so it was nice to catch it.

Japan Update Thursday 1st

We visited the major Osaka shrine today. It is tradition that on the 1st Jan, Japanese visit the shrine to pay their respects and basically try and get a good year. It was brimming with people throwing money at the shrines (we noticed it was mostly a few yen although one generous dude chucked 10,000 yen in which is about £80). It looked more like a money making exercise, for various amounts of money, you could get charms, fortunes and various artifacts. All very interesting of course.

Japan Update Thursday 1st

The shops here are probably just like you'd think. Bright signs and loads of over-the-top adverts and people in funny clothes trying to make you buy stuff. A bit like the lower high street in Cheltenham I suppose. Because they love their language so much, it is basically Kanji/Kiragana/Katakana overload (the crazy guys have three alphabets).

Japan Update Wednesday 31st

Check out this piccie. Can you imagine the Health and Safety idiots allowing us to cycle through a shopping arcade in England? This is a good example of why cycling works here. You don't have to keep getting off and on your bike everywhere and you don't get run over by cars. Apparently if a car hits a cyclist, it's automatically the cars fault. You get a green man at all crossroads even if the side roads have a green light because cars turning have to give way to cyclists and pedestrian on the roads they are turning into. It seems to be true at every intersection, another reason why cyclists get places quickly and car driving is probably a bit of a pain.

Japan Update Wednesday 31st

We went to Osaka castle in the centre of Osaka. Apparently it was bombed in the war but rebuilt to its former glory which is splendid. It is in castle ground with two battlements and moats. We cycled there from home which is really cool. It was probably about 3 or 4 miles but since everyone cycles, you don't feel like you're being left behind by everyone in their car. It enables you to feel more in touch with your fellow citizens and also to easily stop on the way to buy things or pick stuff up/drop it off. It is also good exercise and fresh air - the air really is fresh here!

Japan Update Wednesday 31st

The trains in Japan are interesting. Contrary to what people might think, they are not all "Bullet Trains" (a phrase not used in Japan, they are simply called Shinkansen - "New Trunk Line") but are various ages just like in England. They are not all exactly on time to the second but they seem to be pretty much to timetable, partly because they are important for the country and partly because Japanese tend to take their jobs seriously and don't delay a train to avoid spilling their cup of tea!! The Shinkansen are reliable but they also have dedicated tracks so that they don't get interfered with by older local trains. This helps them to be on time but they do have system failures and suicides like the rest of the world and are sometimes late or cancelled.

Japan Update Tuesday 30th

We went to a place called Suminoe which has a few large arenas for golf, water sports and bowling but we went to the onsen (public bath) you pay 600 yen (about £5 currently), you take all your clothes off and go and lay in a load of very hot baths heated by the hot springs below. Before all you men get excited, the baths are separated by gender (but apparently not all of them are!!) so you only get to look at naked men which is mostly fairly terrible. Apparently it is an honour to be asked to clean someone's back (like your boss etc) but fortunately the friend I was with already regarded me as close enough without cleaning his!! It was quality and something we could do in England to relax and unwind. There was an outside bath as well which was nice because the wind was cold but the baths were hot. There was also a sauna and massage facilities. For obvious reasons I did not take any piccies of it (and no - it wasn't because I am embarrassed to appear naked on the internet!). I have included a picture of the golf driving range instead.

Japan Update Tuesday 30th

The Japanese have some interesting contraptions. This is a standard toilet found in most homes. It has a tap on the top which fills the cistern and doubles as a hand-washing tap to save water. It also has a computer controlled toilet seat with bum wash, front wash and other Japanese controls, none of which I have dared to try. I don't like the idea of electricity in the same space as a water jet machine!

Japan Update Monday 29th

We travelled on the subway from near where I am staying to Umeda. It is all on the same line. Some interesting facts about the subways.

1. There are no sumo wrestlers pushing people onto the trains contrary to popular belief.


2. The ticket machines are horrifically complicated but the pricing scheme is simple. You look at your destination on the map and it tells you how much it costs.


3. The trains are very smooth and quiet but not ridiculously so.


4. The line I travelled on was not in a tube but in a cut-and-cover where you dig the road up, lay the track and then cover it so you can see the trains on the other side and there is more draft to keep cool.


5. The trains are all air-conditioned


6. The direction signs are totally complicated and mostly in Japanese. They don't seem to like symbols (like for exit or whatever) very much.


7. It cost me 270 yen (£2) to travel about 8 stops on the subway. That is the standard ticket price and the exchange rate is quite bad, it would have been about £1 about a year ago.

Japan Update Monday 29th

We had a load of Afghan and Iranian guys come and visit us since there was an Afghan girl staying at the place I was staying at. We had lunch and I got to practice some more Tajik. After that the girl was returning to her university so we went to a place called Umeda where there are loads of departments stores and the biggest computer shop you've ever seen. I also got to go on the sky wheel with amazing views of Osaka from the top.