Have You Seen Chiiku?

AM

Least: By about 11:55am, I was tangled up in a roll of de-linting paper. My pants had been covered in a woolly coat of lint courtesy of our appalling washing machine. The rolller is a very effective weapon in the lint war, however its frustrating tendency to stick to one's hands and become an enraging part of a person's morning. Japan seems to be a very linty country and the scourge can creep up at any moment and overwhelm the unwary visitor. The war continues.

Most: At close to 9:40am, I finally resuscitated my habit of walking around the local pond. The oldish men were there in a blue cloud of cigarette smoke and just cracking their first cans of beer. A women sat for 20 minutes chain smoking and staring into the middle distance - thinking about her crashing bore of a husband no doubt. Further around the park, a 45ish year old man fumbled with his tackle as he waited for the little bells on his four massive surf rods to jingle with fish. I thought he might be crazy and in a beach fishing fantasy or simply testing out his new gear. As far as I could tell, he didn't catch the Mandai Ike monster or any fish. A sad side-story of my walk was a poster for a missing parrot named Chiiku. He was white with red cheeks and 30cm long. According to his overly formal portrait, he had a penchant for gold buttons and jewellery. I hope he is ok.

PM

Least: At nearly 9:00pm, with little to do at work, my industrious Japanese colleague asked me to write on several slips of paper. The boring part was, it was in hiragana and kanji, the former I'm not much good at, the latter I've never written a scrap. After carefully copying the example given to me, my erstwhile workmate could find nothing in her register other than to say "You had trouble with the su"? then "Oh, I can read it." Crushingly boring - especially coming from a noted apple-shiner.

Most: At about 9:50pm, I squeaked open our mailbox to discover some junkmail, a card, a letter from Rosie's mum and a padded bag addressed to me. Inside the padded bag was a book I evidently bought online a number of months ago and had sent by surface mail from England. The book, which contains the Conrad novellas Typhoon, The Shadow Line and another unmentionable title, was a nice little Everyman edition from 1950 with a nicely worn dustwrapper. I cannot remember buying the book directly, but surmise that it must've been one of the several items I drunkenly purchased after a night of Premium Malts. What a nice surprise - I should use surface mail more often.