Ian Rapley

You always had to wait a long time when it was dad’s turn.

My father died three weeks ago. He’d been sick for a while, and it was a peaceful end, but still. Dad loved, really loved, boardgames. According to one list, which I’m pretty sure isn’t fully comprehensive, he had 1072 games. That’s enough games to play one per week for 21 years. What had been myContinueContinue reading “You always had to wait a long time when it was dad’s turn.”

Diary: May

Off The Grid We went away for Easter, up to north Wales, where the house we were staying in had even less phone reception than we get at home, and a strange habit of blowing up routers. As a result we spent much of the week without the internet. It was interesting going off gridContinueContinue reading “Diary: May”

Diary: March

Monty Don Enough people mentioned them to me that I sat down and watched the two programmes on Japanese gardens by Monty Don. I try not the be the sort of scholar who sucks his teeth at all the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in popular media, so let’s just say that it was a mixed bag:ContinueContinue reading “Diary: March”

Diary: February 2019

Delete Your Account We had a seminar on social media use at work last week, prompting the question why use Twitter, etc? There were a variety of answers offered, but as someone who uses social media quite a lot, I found it really quite hard to answer. In the end I think I use SMContinueContinue reading “Diary: February 2019”

The making of a bot

I made a twitter bot – an engine which tweets automatically generated lists, ideally in the style of the Makura no Soshi (the Pillow Book). https://twitter.com/ThePillowBot/status/1086262597576544257 I have a long informal history of programming, back to the days of BASIC, but I’ve not done any for probably a decade and much of the newer stylesContinueContinue reading “The making of a bot”

Diary – November 2018

Mapping To me this is perfectly normal, I’m not sure that my wife or her parents agreed: When I look at a line of hills, I want to know what it’s is I’m looking at. It worked quite well for Snowdonia: but I’ve had distinctly less success so far with the Brecon Beacons. Anyway, asContinueContinue reading “Diary – November 2018”

10 (more) books about Japan

I’m looking forward to reading Chris Harding’s new book on modern Japan, but in the meantime he’s been doing some promotion for it – including this piece in the Guardian on The Top 10 Books About Japan. I think I’d probably include maybe three of his list in my 10 favourites – I’m not sureContinueContinue reading “10 (more) books about Japan”

Diary, Sept 2018

— I — https://twitter.com/historianhelen/status/1039501223295107074?s=21 Last summer, waiting to pick the boy up after some event in the local town, I followed the sound of hubbub round the back of the shops, to discover a bridge across the river. It was hot, not as hot as this summer, but hot all the same, and down belowContinueContinue reading “Diary, Sept 2018”

Threads

I went to the National Museum, Cardiff, a couple of weeks ago, to see their exhibition of Japanese design, Kizuna. There’s a lot of good stuff on display, but for me the highlight was this, a 12 panel screen that formed a map of Edo (Tokyo): It’s massive and yet full of detail, each placeContinueContinue reading “Threads”

Diary 9.0

Moving Sheep The National Library Of Wales has some great historic photos of sheep (and some other things, too…). They’re great pieces of evidence of the ways that the bodies of sheep have been changed through breeding, even over comparatively short time spans. Everyone knows (…) that there was an explosion of breeding and experimentationContinueContinue reading “Diary 9.0”