Periodically.org

 Why is it, exactly, that the pronunciation of Edinburgh leaves out quite a few vowels and then adds in some syllables? This is one of those mysterious things about the Old Country. Even if this is hardly MY old country, it's somebody's, so it's reserved the right to be stubborn, idiosyncratic, and blithely mysterious. Something about wandering a city that has seen both the Bubonic Plague and Eurovision 2023 seems to make a place where anything is possible.    But I'm getting ahead of myself. Monday is the day we finally leave the unreasonably warm city of London to a city that absolutely no one outside of a 19th century returning exhibition of the Canadian Arctic, would consider warm, Edinburgh.    It's down the sauna like stairs, to avoid the sauna (without saftey controls) like elevator, finally out into the clear air of morning London. Which, actually, yeah, this isn't Sherlock Holme's London, nobody is dying from consumption of miners lung here, it is p...

We took a train from the air port to London. If there is one m lasting idea thatI came away with about the English countryside. They used a whole lot of brick. Brick houses, brick stations, brick post offices. Everything was made to stand the test of time or a resurgence of Viking raiders.  Gotta get the iconic "double  decker bus, brick, and just a bunch of fellas working the Doordash gig" shot in there. We have never gone on this thing. But with the weather, it'd be subjecting ourselves to a very slow, very hot greenhouse Nelson's column, or, as I explained to my son, he was like their version of Admiral Thrawn. We get to King's Cross to try and drop off our bags. Now to a North American, every single station in London sounds like a place alive with tea parties and cheekily misunderstood double entendres. Perhaps a bit of a comedy of errors here and there and an overly polite cop in a high vis vest going about his business in an environment where you can be pret...

  In an unusually travel filled year, my family also went to Scotland, via London, to go to a friend's wedding. These plans were agreed to months and months in advance, before work went a little squirrelly, before we realized that our eldest would NOT be at home to look after the youngest.  The travel itinerary for my wife and I, while still the domain of the pretty damn fortunate could, if one squinted and held onto the ideal of class solidarity, still think of it as "oh that's not that bad", and "it's like if you took another camping trip, but added transatlantic flights and almost dodgy hotels to the mix".  The beauty of horror of British classism as  personified by the many different levels of check in at British Airways. Do I like wine? Meh I could take it or leave it. MUST I get it because it's like the fanciest thing to do (and it's free?) Yes. What bumped up the price enough for us to think the 'not entirely family budget...

 My wife, songbird that she is, has the sleeping habits of a nun in one of those really austere convents in Austria up in the mountains where they have to break the ice that's formed in their washing basin before cleaning their face for morning Lauds. She hits 9, it's sketchy at best, 10pm she is on the floor. 11pm she's well into REM sleep. So it makes going to karaoke, which in Tokyo seems to start at 8ish, a risky propostion. Buuut, she also wants to have a walk around Tokyo before hand. So this becomes a balancing act, walk her around, let her see the sights, but don't let her get too tired. It's like I can subconsciously see the battery indicator over her head as walk (uh, going up hill, that battery is RACING to empty!) as wander about. Make her happy, but not so tired she won't want to go to karaoke. I can't be the type of guy who goes to a karaoke bar alone. That sets a precedent. Next thing you know I'm shopping for sharp pastel polyester suits ...