Fashion Forward

No one believed me at lunch the other day when I proclaimed that the world has finally caught up, and that James and I are now, momentarily, on trend. But now that it has appeared in the Sartorlialist, it must be believed:
So, you will be wanting to check out my stitchin' blog to see what you will all be wearing in the future ...

[jules' pics] orange flower

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/11/2012 08:15:00 PM

[jules' pics] Mango Passion Tea Frappuccino with Mango Pudding

It is nicer than the chocolate cookie crumble frappuccino with white chocolate pudding, but, even so, one shouldn't order a tall unless it is to share. I'm not sure that these are exclusive to Japan, but putting gooey solids in drinks is normal practice...

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/09/2012 09:47:00 PM

[jules' pics] Lotus

The lotus are coming...

 

[Hachimangu, Kamakura]

Posted with Blogsy

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/09/2012 11:12:00 AM

[jules' pics] Lichen 'n' stuff

Nature Geoscience said last week that lichen 'n' stuff is really important (see here). Up until now I have kept lichenish shots hidden away, as I didn't think anyone else would be interested. But now you are *supposed* to be interested!

Luckily, super-clean is not the only Japanese aesthetic, but sometimes a very particular level of dilapidation is cultured, and it is in such places that lots of lichen 'n' stuff may be found [Myohonji, Kamakura].

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/06/2012 03:41:00 PM

Possibly the best pizza in the world

Another trip to Tokyo on Tuesday, this time to the EU Delegation to hear a European science bigwig talk about funding opportunities. When notified of the event, I had recognised the name - Don Dingwell - as the current President of the EGU, which was one added point of interest, but he was visiting in his capacity as the Secretary-General of the European Research Council, to publicise their grant schemes. Oddly, he's Canadian, but has been in Europe for a long time. The odds of a non-Japanese leading the JpGU or heading up a major national funding agency must be very long indeed.

He was pushing the ERC grant scheme as being incredibly attractive, high on science and low on restrictions. I suspect he wants more applicants and a greater global presence in order to justify a large research budget that the committee can then share out amongst their friends (he has one of these grants himself, naturally). But the more he talked it up, the more jules and I thought....meh. When we consider that we have plenty of funding for 5 years for 3 people (postdoc/researcher position to be advertised shortly...) and pretty much complete freedom on what we do (within a general theme), it actually sounds pretty similar. Plus, we didn't have to be world class to get it, or even fill in a 30 page application :-) Of course what we have here won't last for ever and it would be a nice parachute back to the UK when the gravy train hits the buffers (or we get sufficiently fed up to leave), but we wouldn't stand much chance of getting funded anyway. Predictably (but sadly) all the questions from the Japanese attendees were along the lines of "can we get your money without having to cut our apron strings and actually go abroad"...I only exaggerate a little.

After that, we went to have the best pizza in the world. Or so I thought at the time. However on re-reading more carefully, it seems that although the prize-winning chef did indeed win several awards while working there, he has subsequently set himself up somewhere else. It was still very good though, with not a kani-jaga-mayo pizza in sight. Which may explain why it was not completely full. That and being a rainy Tuesday evening. Not only the food, but also the service was good - it was a nice touch to bring the pizzas out sequentially so we had the second one fresh and hot to share. It's also handy location right next to Omotesando station so we might be back some time when we have another central Tokyo engagement.

 Due to the absence of a small decent quality camera (see previous TX5 failure) the pics are rubbish ones from my ipod.

[jules' pics] Flowers...

Got a bit of a flowery photo backlog to blog. This is the famous Meigetsuin staircase in Kamakura taken from not your usual angle. The hydrangea have had a good innings this year, as it has been rather cold. By cold I mean that one can walk around not fast but quite happily in a lesiurely sort of a way in shorts tshirts and sandals, and do not have to vend an isotonic drink every 100 yards. In other climate news, rainy season, which is usually expected at the start of June, has not yet started. Perhaps it will not happen at all this year.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/05/2012 12:54:00 PM

[jules' pics] Party

The party after Saturday's meeting was not actually at Standing Sushi (the establishment in the middle of this photo), but next door...at Lion, on the left as you look at the picture...

After a couple of beers things were, however, getting quite blurry. Or rather, my TX5 had gone wrong again. While I think the effect adds an authentic mood to an after work beer party on a Saturday, the fact that the blur appears on all shots gets a tiresome quite fast.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/04/2012 04:43:00 PM

Cast ne'er a clout till May's out

I mentioned some time ago that Piers Corbyn had been up to his old tricks with an apocalyptic prediction of doom for the coldest May ever in the UK, right in time for our recent trip there.

May is long since out, and it's time to get clouting. May turned out to be slightly warmer than average. I wonder who actually pays for his "forecasts"?

[jules' pics] Market Research

Still in little-camera quandary after giving sister in law my Canon S100. As no one will recall (cos hopefully you do not care, and only look at the pictures on this blog), I was going to buy the new Sony RX100. Then James was jealous, but finally he decided to wait for the rumored (sic) Pansonic LX7 to replace his LX5. This somehow left me with my Sony TX10, which has a firmware issue that makes me want to smash it to the ground and stomp on it, only I don't bother since being a "robust" camera that might not kill it. Picked up my Sony TX5 again, which is nice, and worked for a week (see recent posts on this blog for examples!) before its image stabilisation fault resurfaced.

So what to do? I thought I'd interrogate the man and woman on the street...


Left to right, top to to bottom: "getting the shot" DSLR style, NEX+adapter+Canon manual focus super-geek style (woot!), pinky P&S style, colour coordinated phone camera style, "does he realise he's photographing me?" style, backseat driver shooting style, shoot without looking style, and his 'n' hers shooting style x2.

But then I found image making enlightenment... [All taken at Hachimangu, Kamakura with my trusty DSLR... of course :-) ]

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 7/02/2012 04:16:00 PM