Quite by accident on a Sunday morning, I came across a wedding party posing for pictures at the Naminoue Shrine in Naha, Okinawa.
This is the third in a series of posts about my March 2018 trip to Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan, and Guam. See my April 8 post about Okinawan food specialties, and visits to a market and area known for its pottery; and April 15 about the sinking of the Tsushima Mara and the deaths hundreds of schoolchildren during World War II.
I had another of those turn-the-corner "wow" moments that seem to happen in Japan as I walked smack into a wedding party posing for post-ceremony pictures at a Shinto shrine in Okinawa.
To the Japanese, a Shinto wedding may be commonplace, but to an American tourist, just this scene provided a glimpse into the very heart of an ancient culture.
The bride was dressed in a snow white kimono, known as shiromuku, the most formal of Japanese wedding attire. Nearly every other person standing in three horizontal rows on gray concrete steps was in a dark suit or dress (with a few splashes of white), including her new husband in a traditional kimono.
The newlyweds pose at the Shinto shrine's outer hall. I think the cutouts at left are a funny juxtaposition to the formality of the bride and groom's traditional kimonos.
Further contrast was provided by the bright red triangular roof at the shrine's outer hall (haiden), the dangling white paper lanterns and the cloudless blue sky.
She was, in fact, head to toe in white, down to her leather sandals (zori) and split-toed socks (tabi).
The Sunday morning sun was so bright that it made the opaque silk seem like shimmering, freshly fallen snow. I knew a garment of this expense and quality would have some sort of elegant design embedded in the fabric.
Cranes, chrysanthemums and spirals were repeating motifs on the bride's kimono.
Zooming in with my telephoto, I could see traditional cranes, their long necks extended, beaks closed and wings fully spread, with spindly legs trailing as if taking flight. Cranes are a symbol of peace, longevity and hope in Japan, all sentiments appropriate for a wedding.
Interspersed around the cranes, particularly at the bride's shoulder, neck and flowing sleeves, were repeating spirals and floral motifs, including chrysanthemums, a flower long associated with the Japanese imperial family. The flower is also a symbol of longevity.
The groom's black outer coat (haori) over his kimono displayed his round, white embroidered family crest (mon) near each shoulder, once below the elbow on each sleeve and between his shoulder blades on his back. This, too, seemed to have a plant or floral motif.
A man's kimono is far shorter than a woman's, and loose striped trousers (hakama) conceal the garment's hem.
Two braided cords (himo) held his kimono in place, secured at the waist with knots, the shape of which reminded me of a cross between an old-fashioned shaving brush and a blooming flower.
His sandals (setta) and socks were also white.
I had gone to another part of the shrine, and when I returned to the picture area, the bride's hooded veil had been removed to reveal this elaborate hairstyle. The groom's family crest is displayed on his shoulder.
Both bride and groom were holding closed fans, another traditional accessory.
Shinto, "the way of the gods," is the oldest religion in Japan and has no written doctrine. Its kami (deities) inhabit all forms of nature, from mountains to animals to earthquakes. Many of the ritual, prayers and offerings are intended to ward off evil.
Families may also have an altar-shrine at home for offerings and worship.
A wedding ceremony, officiated by a Shinto priest, is attended by only the close family of the bride and groom. It may take only 20 minutes.
For the reception, usually held at a hotel and running an exact amount of time, the bride would definitely don another outfit, possible a kimono, and the groom might change also.
If the newlyweds were hosting a post-reception small party just for their close friends, another change of clothing would be likely.
I was not the only one engrossed with the formal attire, as other shrine visitors also snapping photos. A few even asked to pose with the bride and groom once they had completed the more formal images.
As their official photographer continued working, I went off to have a closer look at the grounds at the front of Naminoue Shrine, the most important shrine in Okinawa prefecture.
Its name translates to "Above the Waves," appropriate in that is located on a bluff overlooking the ocean and Naminoue Beach, the only seaside sandy strip in the city of Naha.
With the shrine's proximity to the sea, it's where fishermen in ancient times would pray for an abundant catch, where sailors would appeal to the deities for a safe voyage and farmers would ask for a plentiful harvest.
Like so much else in Okinawa, the original shrine, which dated to Ryukyu dynastic days in the 15th century before the islands became part of Japan in the 19th century, was destroyed during World War II.
Only the torii, the two-railed gate designating the separation of sacred property from the everyday world, is original. At many shrines, the torii is painted a bright vermillion, but that was not the case here, where it was grayish and possible made from concrete.
Near the torii is a statue of the Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) in full military dress.
Shrine visitors write messages on votive tablets, called ema, asking for, among other things, good health and fertility. The ema then hang clustered together on a large board.
At all Shinto shrines, believers (and souvenir seekers) can buy a variety of inexpensive good-luck charms (onamori) and votive tablets (ema). The charms are usually tiny pieces of wood or paper, upon which wishes for good health, fertility, safe driving and other sentiments are printed. They are tucked into a decorative cloth pouch, which can be worn or secured in a special place. Above all, the charms are not to be opened to reveal the content.
Ema, made from very lightweight wood (perhaps balsa), vary in illustration and size from shrine to shrine, but most are small. The one I bought at Naminoue was about 61/4 by 4 1/4 inches and 1/4-inch thick.
Messages are written on the tablets, making similar requests as the charms, and posted on large boards to hang together at the shrine.
When I finished looking around, I returned to the area where the photos were being taken to find that the bride's wataboshi had been removed, revealing her elaborate hairstyle.
The swept-up style, definitely something reserved for formal occasions, brought to mind the lavish look worn by geisha and maiko (geisha-in-training), who live mostly in Kyoto and Tokyo, not Okinawa.
Some sort of form is helping to give volume to the hair where it curves out over the bride's ears.
Bows, combs, golden flowers and other ornaments were tied, dangling and clipped into the bride's heavily lacquered coif. Even after examining my pictures, I was uncertain if this was her hair or a wig, but I think it's her hair.
I did pose the question to my Japanese friends in Tokyo, and the older daughter, Hatsumi, told me that this hairdo was achievable in about an hour, using copious amounts of hairspray.
My friends also let me know that the bride's white kimono was almost certainly rented.
"What use would she have for it again?" Hatsumi said.
This memorial commemorating the occupation of Guernsey during World War II was dedicated in 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the island. In a famous speech by Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered on May 8, 1945, he said: "… and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today." The return of British forces was actually a day later. His words are on the back-rest seating area of the memorial. The Weighbridge Clock Tower is in the background.
© 2018 text and photos, except where noted. All rights reserved.
When the novel "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" was published in 2008, its release brought a flurry of interest in the second most-populated of the British Channel Islands.
Funny thing though: Not one scene was filmed on the island. English locations in London, Devon and Cornwall stand in for Guernsey.
In pre-production, directors came and went — actor Kenneth Branagh among them — as did lead actresses. At one time, Kate Winslet was to star, then it was Rosamund Pike.
Lily James, of "Downton Abbey" and "Cinderella" fame, in the role of Juliet Ashton, plays a post-World War II London writer, who strikes up a pen-pal friendship with Guernsey residents who formed the book club of the novel's title, and comes to learn of their experiences under five years of Nazi occupation.
The cast is, in fact, a mini reunion of "Downton Abbey" actors. In addition to James, you'll recognize Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley on DA), Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Crawley Branson) and Matthew Goode (Henry Talbot).
In May 2009, I visited three of the Channel Islands — Jersey, Guernsey and Sark.
The word "charming" is often overused in travel stories, but it perfectly fits these islands, especially Guernsey, with its stacked-stone walls lining narrow country lanes and sturdily built, lovingly named houses (Southernwood, La Manse, Rose Cottage, for example).
I had read the book by then, but my interest was piqued years earlier, when I wrote a travel article in 2005 for my then-employer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about the islands' commemorations of the 60th anniversary of their liberation in 1945.
During World War II, the islands were the only part of the British Isles occupied by German troops. Nightly curfews, daily restrictions and food shortages were commonplace as islanders, in the best British "stiff upper lip" tradition, did what was necessary to survive.
Approaching the harbor in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. Behind the lighthouse is Castle Cornet, more than 800 years old. It has five museums and four period gardens.
Liberation Day is annually observed on May 9, and I planned my trip so as to witness the re-enactment of British troops (in period costume) arriving back on Jersey, and partake of the celebrations in general. I also visited several of the museums and WWII sights on Jersey.
The islands, including Alderney and Herm and several privately owned spits of land not open to the public, lie about 80 miles from the southern coast of England. They are far closer to the Normandy area of northwest France, about 14 miles, than the United Kingdom.
Though allied with France at the time of William the Conqueror, for centuries they've been self-governing British Crown dependencies. Their history and customs are a rich mix of both cultures.
About 60,000 people live on Guernsey today, making a living from banking and financial services, agriculture — think namesake fawn-and-white colored dairy cows — and tourism.
Whether walking along the cliffs or treading the sandy beaches, the scenery is dramatic and gorgeous on Guernsey.
Guernsey is an excellent place to unwind. You can be as busy as you like, having a lengthy cliff-top ramble, investigating secluded sandy coves or going fishing. Or you can wander the shops in St. Peter Port — there is no Value Added Tax levied — and enjoy the freshly caught seafood at one of the cozy restaurants. There's far more to experience than the sights I've mentioned here.
From Jersey, I took the ferry to Guernsey and caught just the tail end of its May 9 festivities, many of which were held harborside at St. Peter Port.
Guernsey, like Jersey, has an excellent bus system. A dark-haired Irish lad was often the driver on my route back to my small hotel, La Barbarie (labarbariehotel.com), and we had many brief, pleasant conversations.
Nearly 12,000 German troops occupied Guernsey during the war. Before the assault began in late June 1940, thousands of schoolchildren (most without their parents) were evacuated by boat to England.
So many others decided to flee that the island's population was reduced almost by half, leaving about 17,000 to endure life under enemy control. Contact between friends and loved ones living islands apart was limited to 25-word messages, their delivery facilitated by the Red Cross.
In late June 1940, St. Peter Port absorbed the opening salvos from invading German forces. Far more peaceful today, it's a favorite place for pleasure boaters to drop anchor.
On June 28, German planes attacked St. Peter Port over two days, resulting in 33 civilians deaths. No military resistance was mounted because the British government didn't think Guernsey was of strategic value, and was still reeling from the massive evacuation of more than 330,000 British, French, Belgian and Polish troops from Dunkirk, France.
By June 30, the first Nazis, arriving in aircraft, had begun the occupation.
"All clocks and watches are to be advanced one hour as from midnight of the 2nd 3rd July, 1940, to accord with German time," said order number six (of 17) from the Commandant of German forces, as reported on the front page of The Star, Guernsey's oldest newspaper, on July 3.
At the privately-owned German Occupation Museum, visitors can see a small collection of weaponry, memorabilia (medals, uniforms, band instruments) and a re-creation of a typical kitchen from a Guernsey household. The scene is set after dinner, with the father listening to a forbidden wireless that is cleverly concealed during the day.
A street scene, filled with storefronts and period-costumed mannequins, offers another look at what life was like in the 1940s.
The museum also has an Enigma machine, used by the Nazis to send encrypted messages that they thought were unbreakable. Little did they know that teams of linguists, scientists, mathematicians and others at Bletchley Park in England had deciphered the secrets of the Enigma, led in part by the groundbreaking work of Alan Turing, often credited as being the father of modern computing.
La Valette Underground Military Museum, housed in slave-labor-built tunnels that were planned as fuel-storage depots for refueling German U-boats, has a much wider array of weapons, uniforms and vehicles. Some of the items date to World War I.
The fuel tanks were of great interest after the war when getting oil was still difficult, but the tunnel was closed over the ensuing decades. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the site was converted into a museum.
The tunnels of the hospital and ammunition store, in the south-central part of the island, cover about 75,000 square feet, the largest physical reminder of the Nazi occupation.
Slave laborers (many of them POWs) from countries occupied by the Germans, such as France, Belgium, Holland, and others from Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Poland and Russia, along with some Guernseymen, were forced to work long hours on starvation diets, removing 60,000 tons of granite over a 3.5-year period.
Much of the work was done by hand with picks, shovels and sledgehammers, and the occasional use of explosives and pneumatic drills.
The tunnels had a full heating and air-conditioning scheme, five ventilation shafts, three entrances, an electric generating plant and their own reservoir.
The hospital, with space to treat 800 patients, was used for only about three months. Hundreds of wounded Germans were transported from the Normandy beaches after the Allies' invasion in June 1944.
The concrete-reinforced hospital layout mimics a ladder: Two long parallel corridors connect a series of "rungs," that housed the wards, operation room, X-ray room, lab, dispensary and staff sleeping quarters. Also included were a kitchen, store rooms, a cinema and a mortuary.
Not much remains today other than some beds and kitchen equipment. When the Germans fled, a lot of the equipment went with them and the British took a much of what was left in 1945.
The Ammunition Store was just to the north (and a tiny bit west) of the hospital. Similar in layout to the hospital but even larger, it was occupied for about nine months. Thousands of tons of tarp-covered ammunition packed the rooms. From the spring onward — the walls were dripping when I visited — considerable condensation would have posed a threat to the ammunition.
Broken china, pebbles and seashells cover the exterior and part of the interior of the Little Chapel, one religious man's tribute to the more famous grotto and basilica at Lourdes, France.
Less than a 10-minute walk from the hospital is the distinctive Little Chapel, about 16.5 feet long and 10 feet wide (5-by-3 meters), and the dream creation of Brother Déodat of the De La Salle Brothers.
His goal was a chapel in the style of the famous grotto-and-basilica Catholic pilgrimage site in Lourdes, France. Brother Déodat came to Guernsey in 1904, fleeing France and its laws forbidding religious schools.
In 1914, he built the first small chapel before demolishing it almost immediately. A second stood at the same site until 1923, when, after a visiting bishop could not fit through the door, Brother Déodat decided to start again.
The third, under construction for a number of years, is the one that stands today, though Brother Déodat never saw its completion, having returned to France in 1939 because of ill health.
Brother Déodat spent a considerable amount of time collecting small pebbles and seashells to decorate the chapel's exterior and interior. Adding to its uniqueness are the colorful mosaics, and many pieces of broken china, including discernible English Wedgwood, adorning the chapel and steps leading to the entrance.
Deep in the countryside, it's among the most-photographed sights on Guernsey.
Also high on my list of must-sees was the former residence of French author Victor Hugo, who lived on Guernsey for 15 of the 19 years of his political exile, 1856-1870. Among the works he wrote while in residence with his family (and his mistress living down the street) was "Les Miserables" (1862).
Hauteville House, a white, five-story structure and adjoining garden, is up a steep hill from St. Peter Port. From the top-floor, glassed-in porch overlooking the harbor, Castle Cornet and Havelet Bay, visitors can picture Hugo letting his imagination wander as he plotted what was next for his complex, often-troubled characters.
Much of the heavy wooden, ornately carved furniture was of his own design, drawing from his extensive travels in Europe.
The decor is an eclectic mix of styles and furnishings, and much of the interior is very dark, which doesn't make it photography-friendly.
One room is covered, including the ceiling, with priceless Flemish- and French-made tapestries. Hidden behind a panel is a darkroom, where Hugo could indulge his keen interest in photography.
Blue-and-white tiles imported from Delft in the Netherlands surround the dining room fireplace, with the squares on the face arranged in two overlapping letters "H" for Hauteville House.
Hugo's small bedroom and a book-lined corridor are also on the top floor.
The house, donated by descendants to the city of Paris in 1927, is administered by a French team. A major renovation is under way, and the house is closed for the rest of 2018. It is scheduled to reopen in April 2019.
Visit Guernsey is publicizing walking tours and bus tours highlighting locations from the book, as well as a host of other tie-ins.
Search the website for a link to two You Tube videos to see Guernsey chef Tony Leck preparing the wartime version of savory potato peel pie and a modern one, which is inverted to serve, like an upside-down cake. The recipe for the latter is on the Guernsey website.
For tour details, much more about the WWII occupation and further information about how much Guernsey has to offer, see www.visitguernsey.com.
Portraits of some of the schoolchildren and others who died in the sinking of the Tsushima Maru in August 1944 are displayed on the lower level of the Tshushima-maru Memorial Museum in Naha, Okinawa.
This is the second in a series of posts about my March 2018 trip to Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan, and Guam. See my April 8 post about Okinawan food specialties, and visits to a market and area known for its pottery.
With those ominous words, the crew of the American submarine patrolling the waters of the Ryukyu islands prepared to launch its torpedoes, taking aim at a spread-out convoy of five Japanese vessels: Three passenger-cargo ships escorted by a destroyer and gunboat.
What the submariners did not know is that the Tsushima Maru — unmarked and unlighted — was carrying evacuees from eight schools in Naha, Okinawa, and elsewhere, heading to Kagoshima, a port city on the southern coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands.
Of the 1,788 or so passengers, about 800 were children. About 740 teachers, parents and elderly were aboard to provide an orderly, reassuring presence. The crew numbered 86, with an additional 41 gunners.
A scale model of the Tsushima Maru is on the second floor at the museum. The ship was built in Scotland for Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen Kaisha, founded in 1885. The colorful strands of origami cranes in the background are symbols of hope and peace.
The 6,754-ton Tsushima Maru was not a swift ship. Neither was it new. It was built for Japan's Nippon Yusen Kaisha by Russell and Company at a shipyard on the River Clyde near Glasgow, Scotland, in 1914. The almost 450-foot (136 meters) vessel presented a big lumbering target for the American sub.
The Bowfin was on the sixth of its nine World War II patrols, and under the authority of Commander John H. Corbus for the second time, having left Pearl Harbor in July. It had a crew of 80: 10 officers and 70 enlisted men.
The maximum speed for Balao-class subs was 20.25 knots surfaced, and 8.75 submerged. They generally carried 24 torpedoes.
About halfway to its destination and off the coast of Akusekijima, several torpedoes destroyed the Tsushima Maru between 10 and 10:30 p.m. Passengers who had left the stifling holds hoping for some fresher air on a humid summer night jumped from the listing ship's upper decks into the sea. Many of the schoolchildren, crammed into berths on lower decks, died where they slept.
The Bowfin reported seeing secondary explosions, which may have been the Tsushima Maru's boilers in flames. It sank in less than 15 minutes.
Some children, wearing their hastily donned life vests, huddled on rafts or clung to flimsy pieces of bamboo, increasingly frightened when sharks were sighted nearby. These conditions are depicted in survivors' sketches that are on display in the museum.
Leather satchels for schoolbooks were among the few items recovered from the water.
Fishing boats and patrol boats eventually plucked 177 evacuees from the water — some had been drifting for several days. Fewer than 60 of the rescued were children, and about 82 of the crew and gunners survived, bringing the overall total to about 280 (some made it all the way to nearby islands).
The exact total of passengers who left port are unknown to this day because no investigation was undertaken in 1944. Some students didn't turn up on departure morning, August 21, and others were unexpectedly shoved onto the ship by anxious parents. In the chaos, no one was recording an accurate list of names.
The Japanese destroyer Hasu and gunboat Uji in the convoy also suffered direct hits.
To compound the tragedy, Japanese authorities, fearing a plunge in morale, imposed a news blackout. "You mustn't mention any single thing to anyone in the neighborhood. It's strictly confidential," says a letter at the museum. With the ban in place, families assumed their children had arrived safely at their destination and were informed only after the war of the devastating event and, ultimately, their heartbreaking loss.
The entrance to the ship-like Tsushima-Maru Memorial Museum is on the second level.
This disaster is little known in the United States and the West in general, and no guidebook I consulted before my trip mentioned the museum. No tourist information booklets I got in Naha publicized it either. I found it listed on only one map. And that was just the name, no capsule description or details about the sinking or its aftermath.
Most of the displays are in Japanese, with very little English translation. A map shows the Tsushima Maru's fateful route and there is some information on the Bowfin's specifications and a lengthy excerpt from its patrol report.
Also upstairs is a scale model of the Japanese ship, and many long skeins of colored paper and copper origami cranes, a symbol of hope and peace.
Part of the re-created schoolroom on the lower level, across from the victims' portraits.
Downstairs is a reconstruction of a schoolroom, with desks, a blackboard and a textbook's cover showing a smiling boy holding a rifle and dressed in a military-style uniform. A girl is seated to his right, in a nurse-like outfit with a Red Cross cuff on her left arm. Underlying message: Even as children, you can help in the war effort.
By far the saddest part of the exhibit is the photo wall, with black-and-white portraits of many of the children who lost their lives. With so few survivors, recovered personal effects, aside from some leather book satchels, were also scarce.
A bronze dove of peace (center) was added to the Kozakura no To memorial in 1978. A plaster replica of the bird is at the Tsushima-maru museum.
Southwest of the museum, across Asahigaoka Park bordering Naminoue-dori Street, stands Kozakura no To, a mostly white memorial with a ship motif dedicated to the children who died. It was unveiled in May 1954.
The Tsushima Maru sinking was not an isolated incident. In the period of July 1944 to March 1945, more than 70,000 evacuees on 178 ships lost their lives.
While the Bowfin crew accomplished its mission, it wasn't until many years later that the sailors learned that they had sunk a ship loaded with mostly civilians. They had no way of knowing that the Tsushima Maru's latest passengers weren't military, which they had been coming into port on August 19.
The Tsushima Maru had arrived in Naha with the cargo ships Gyoku Maru and Kazuura Maru. From China, they had transported a total of almost 9,000 soldiers of the 62nd Infantry Division and about 900 horses for the build-up to the confrontation that the Japanese suspected was inevitable on Okinawa, especially after American and allied forces had reclaimed Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Mariana islands the previous month.
The military increase was the reason for the islanders' evacuation in the first place.
With civilians on board, Tsushima Maru had not requested safe passage, an option that the Japanese knew was available. Instead, with a naval destroyer and gunboat escorting the three cargo ships, they were all fair game as targets.
The Bowfin was decommissioned in 1971. It was later restored and opened to visitors on April 1, 1981, as part of the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. Its website mentions the sinking of the Tsushima Maru but not the more than 1,400 who died.
In December 1997, the remains of the Tsushima Maru were positively identified, near where it went down, at a depth of 2,871 feet (870 meters) by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology Center using deep-sea detection equipment.
No attempt was made to salvage any artifacts or raise the ship, according to "In Titanic's Shadow: The World's Worst Merchant Ship Disasters" by David L. Williams.
A very satisfying lunch of three triangular rice cakes (known as onigiri), salad, mackerel teriyaki and vegetables from Kitchen 33 in Naha, Okinawa.
This is the first in a series of entries about my March 2018 trip to Okinawa, Japan, Tokyo and Guam.
Sea grapes, seaweed soup, a tulip-shaped deep-fried minicake, dark brown sugar cubes and mango gelato: This may be the oddest combination of food that I've ever eaten for breakfast while traveling in Asia — and that covers some ground.
Live sea grapes sway in a tank at Heiwa-dori arcade. They're sold in small clear-topped plastic containers and have a short shelf-life once they're out of the water.
I didn't eat them all together but rather while grazing as I explored the Heiwa-dori arcade, which intersects with the even-larger Makishi Public Market, on a March morning in Naha, the largest city in Japan's Okinawa prefecture.
The habu snake, related to the rattlesnake, is native to the Ryukyu islands, of which Okinawa is the largest. Here it's immersed in awamori, high-alcohol-content sake. Smaller bottles are sold in liquor stores. Yes, people really drink this.
Heiwa-dori is several blocks long, with meandering offshoots, where side-by-side vendors display their wares (often offering samples), ranging from the above items to still-squirming seafood (or fish on ice), all of the pig except the oink, vegetables well-known and other-worldly, rice, clothing, souvenirs, and on and on … and the famous (and deadly) habu snakes, coiled, open-mouthed and seemingly ready to strike save for the fact they're encased in wide glass jars.
Umibudo — sea grapes — are an Okinawan delicacy, sold in small quantities and sometimes referred to as "green caviar," quite an upscale nickname for algae. Pop a skinny chlorophyll-heavy strand into your mouth, and squash them: The salty liquid explodes from the tiny bubble-like grapes, indeed, quite like the more familiar fish roe. Umibudo is often an accompaniment or garnish for sushi and sashimi.
This cool cat is a puffer fish, which can be deadly to diners if it is prepared incorrectly.
The fried cakes, "sata andagi" locally, were much less healthy. Think not-too-sweet, hush-puppy-heavy dough, eaten alone or with a cup of coffee or tea. For about the equivalent of 60 cents, I nibbled on the mango-flavored "doughnut" as I continued my wandering.
Eventually, I went upstairs, where fuzzy, black-and-white historical photos of post-World War II Okinawa rimmed the top of the steps. Information was sorely lacking, only occasionally pinpointing the year. There was, however, no mistaking the uniformed American military men in the right side of one photo, ambling past shaky-looking wooden buildings. One picture was dated 1950, and I wondered if the series was showing the area where the market is now, as it grew in size and energy over the years.
Several denominations of blue military currency, referred to locally as "B scrip," were also on display. It was issued by American military occupiers after the war, and was in use until 1958.
Several open-seating restaurants ringed the second floor, but because this was still midmorning, most were not yet set up for lunch.
At the opposite end was a young woman in a black apron and white short-sleeved shirt, standing at a table wielding a formidable ax, chopping off chunks from a solid rectangular bar of dark brown sugar. The sweetener is another product in which Okinawan pride is evident.
Okinawan brown sugar is said to be higher in calcium, potassium and iron than its relatives produced elsewhere, crediting the coral found in fields where sugar cane is grown, ample sunlight and sea spray for its nutritional assets.
I sampled a few small pieces, and found the molasses flavor quite strong, but in a pleasing way. Many of the market's vendors sold brown sugar in chunks or granulated, and while on a side aisle, I found sealed 300-gram (about 10.5 ounces) packages for 350 yen (about $3.26).
Nearby the brown-sugar-chipping woman was a small gelato stand, where it also looked like the vendors were just opening. They let me sample a few of the flavors before I settled on mango, again. The Okinawan version of gelato is not to be confused with what you get in Italy.
The man mushed cubes of fresh, bright orange mango, then hand-mixed the pulp into what reminded me more of vanilla ice milk than ice cream. It was refreshing, but not what I was expecting. It was also inexpensive, only about 300 yen (about $2.79).
I knew that if I walked the length of Hewai-dori, at the far end I would be near the Tsuboya pottery area, dating to the 17th century, and location of a museum, ancient outdoor kiln and a street with shops devoted to hand-made ceramic goods. This was to be my post-lunch destination.
After meandering in the market for about two hours, I could have picked up several freshly made items and had a picnic, but I had in mind finding a small restaurant. I saw a sign pointing toward Tsuboya, and as I turned the corner on a side street, came to a halt in front of the plant-laden exterior of Kitchen 33. In white chalk, a blackboard announced "lunch ¥780," which is all I could understand. The rest was in Japanese. This looked promising, so I went in.
This was not an obstacle, in this age of easy translation via smartphone. For the equivalent of about $7.26, I would be served miso soup, salmon teriyaki, salad, rice, vegetables and iced coffee.
Within minutes of nodding my head yes, I'd like to have lunch in this patronless, green-ceilinged restaurant, a couple and a teenage boy sat down at the bar, and then two women settled in to my left.
The background music was a mix of current pop tunes and oldies, all in English, with a British-accented DJ. I couldn't tell if it was a local radio station, but I did hear the news that Professor Stephen Hawking had died.
In Japan, presentation is as important as the actual food. The square white plate that proprietor Masashi Shio set before me was perfectly balanced. Three thick rice triangles, each with a different coating on the outside edges,were back-to-back-to back on the upper left, across from a tangle of salad greens topped with a dollop of light orange dressing. Below the salad were two V-crossed, skin-on fish fillets in teriyaki sauce, to the left of which was a piece of roasted green bell pepper, a short cylinder of cucumber, and two T-crossed beige "logs" of an unknown vegetable.
I never pinned down what was atop the greens, but smartphone translation came to the rescue again when I was trying to figure out the third rice coating. One was the obvious nori (seaweed) and the second was sesame seeds. The third was slightly sweet and deep purple. My guess was dried purple sweet potato flakes (the purple sweet potato is another Okinawan specialty).
Wrong. One of the women told me it was plum shiso. Mmmm. The logs were "gobo," or burdock root, a member of the thistle family. Very crunchy but not terribly flavorful. And the fish was not salmon but "saba," which is mackerel. I rarely (as in almost never) order anything from the ocean when eating out, but even with the tiny bones I had to pick out of the fillets, I enjoyed the fish at this memorable meal.
Thus fortified, I spent the next several hours checking out nearly every pottery-selling shop in Tsuboya. All of them are quite small, selling a less refined version of pottery than some of the delicate porcelain you find in other places in Japan.
This kiln in the Tsuboya section of Naha dates to the 17th century. The stone pillars holding up the red-tiled roof do so without benefit of cement.
I knew of the ancient kiln from my pre-trip research but I found it quite by accident. I climbed the exterior stairs of what I thought was another shop, aiming to get an overview photo of the stone-paved street. It was really a cafe, and through its back window I could see the huge kiln.
One of the pottery shops selling a variety of handmade plates, bowls, cups and vases.
At one time there were at least 10 outdoor kilns of this size, used to fire unglazed water jars, containers for awamori (high-alcohol-content sake) and burial urns. Only this kiln survived the war.
Also distinct are the stone pillars that help to support the red-tiled roof. The columns are comprised of hewn natural stones and fitted together without benefit of cement.
My first day in Okinawa, I intended to get my bearings, sampling local delicacies and take advantage of pleasant March weather. A stop at the tourist information center on the way back to my hotel helped me set up logistics for the rest of my stay.
Quick reference: Makishi Public Market, 2-10-1 Matsuo, Naha, Okinawa. 8 a.m.-8 p.m. daily, closed fourth Sunday of the month. Heiwa-dori arcade can be accessed off Kokusai-dori, the main shopping street in Naha, both about an 8-minute walk from Miebashi monorail station. Kitchen 33, Open 6 p.m. Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (no closing time given), noon to 10 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, closed Tuesdays; 1-1-15 Tsuboya, Naha, Okinawa. kitchen33.crayonsite.net (Japanese only). Naha Municipal Tsuboya Pottery Museum, 1-9-32 Tsuboya, 10 am.-6 p.m. daily, closed Mondays. Admission 350 yen (about $3.26).
In September 1944, George Tweed returned to Guam and, with a Navy photographer and several of the people who helped hide him in tow, posed at the cave in the northwestern part of the island where he hid for 21 months. He found everything just as he left it in July. This photo of a photo is part of the exhibition at the War in the Pacific Museum on Guam. By his count, Tweed was in hiding for a total of 31 months.
© 2018 text and photos except where noted. All rights reserved.
Within hours of the sneak attack on the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Hickam and Wheeler airfields on December 7, 1945, the Japanese military had other targets in its sights.
In quick succession, Wake Island, Guam and airfields in the Philippines, territories all under the jurisdiction of the United States, were bombed.
The Japanese invaded Malaya, occupied Thailand and took control of the international settlement in Shanghai, China.
Two days later, Japanese forces began landing on Luzon, the Philippines' largest and most northern island.
Growing up in Oregon, he learned to hunt, be self-sufficient and enjoy the solitude of the outdoors. And, stationed on Guam since August 1939, he'd made friends with some of the Chamorros, who he was certain he could count on to provide shelter should he need it.
There was no question in Tweed's mind which option he'd pursue. He and a Navy buddy grabbed canned food and other supplies, and with a member of the Insular Force along, jumped in Tweed's six-cylinder 1926 Reo and drove inland.
Thus began a remarkable, 31-month odyssey of criss-crossing Guam, a Western Pacific island 30 miles long and four to 12 miles wide. An increasingly anxious yet ingenious Tweed lived by his wits and a particular set of skills in evading the Japanese while he awaited the return of the U.S. Navy.
He was confident this would happen. As it turned out, not nearly as quickly as he had hoped, and not before some of the Chamorros, who brought him food, water and tools and reading material, and provided intermittent companionship, would pay a very high price for knowing a most-wanted American — the Japanese put a price on his head — was hiding somewhere on Guam.
The machete that Tweed relied upon while in hiding, and reproductions of other materials he kept with him. The letter at left is illegible in the exhibition.
Tweed, 39 years old and a Navy man for 16 years, moved often in the early months of lying low, living sometimes in a cave, a swamp or a Chamorro ranch or farm. For part of the time, he was with Al Tyson, also a radioman, with whom he had first fled. They were always ready to bolt at a moment's notice.
In some locations, the dense scrub and indigenous trees and plants provided heavy cover. Having recently visited Guam myself and hiked Mount Lamlam on the southwestern part of the island, I can attest to the tropical landscape's ability to disguise the presence of any humans.
The lack of real news from the outside world led to Tweed asking one of the Chamorro men to steal a radio, which he connected to an old car battery, and from which he also generated electric lights. In perhaps a foolhardy move, Tweed typed up the latest war developments for his Guam Eagle, and copies were distributed among trusted communities with the caveats not to disclose the source and to destroy the evidence.
In Tweed's mind, his actions were a morale-boosting necessity, not a frivolous risk to himself and the Chamorro helpers. This four-month journalistic endeavor morphed into self-made calendars and furtive notes that later aided in providing a fairly detailed recap of his life on the run.
In October 1942, Tweed settled into an "eagle's nest"-like crevasse, only four miles from the northwestern tip of the island. When he scrambled onto a camouflaged cliffside perch several times a day, he had an unobstructed view of 20 miles of southwestern coastline.
This was to be his home for the next 21 months, fairly well-stocked with provisions his friend Antonio Artero brought in wide, woven baskets, and supplemented with plenty of papaya, bananas and coconuts Tweed could collect on his own.
With his trusty machete and pocketknife, Tweed made a real table and flat-backed chair (from a hardwood), patched leaks in his "roof" and eventually taught himself how to make shoes from deerskin that Antonio provided.
He was ever-vigilant, sleeping lightly, with his gun near his head should he need to make a quick escape. Tweed even devised a crude yet effective alarm, connecting 300 feet of shredded and twisted bark and the workings of a deconstructed clock. One of the daylight false alarms was caused by a crow sitting atop a limb near where the cord connected with a small tree.
Among the low points was learning on separate occasions that five of the other Americans who were hiding in less well-concealed locations were eventually captured and executed. While the Japanese were torturing some of the Chamorros, trying to extract information about Tweed, he believed his freedom gave the Chamorros hope that U.S. forces were coming. Conversely, some Chamorros thought Tweed selfish and reckless, encouraging him to surrendered and put an end to their misery.
The longed-for day finally arrived on June 11, 1944, as Tweed — by now 30 pounds lighter — recognized the distinctive hum of American bombers and began seeing a buildup of U.S. Navy ships offshore.
From white medical gauze, he fashioned semaphore flags, and used a three-inch pocket mirror to signal American ships. This went on for about three weeks, with Antonio reminding Tweed that if the U.S. Navy could see him, so could the Japanese.
Throwing caution to the wind, Tweed's efforts finally paid off on July 10, when one of the destroyers saw the mirror flash, and the flags, and understood this message: "I have information for you." He warned the ship that it was in range of Japanese coastal guns, attempting to indicate that his contact was not a trap.
Thus began Tweed's rescue by the U.S.S. McCall and the whirlwind that followed, included his pocketing more than $6,000 in back pay and a promotion. He missed U.S. forces retaking Guam (the island was secured by August 11), but he was back in September, meeting again with the brave and resourceful Chamorros who had hidden him and finding out about those who paid the ultimate price.
On the initial route home from Guam, he was interviewed by Robert Sherrod, and the article ran in the August 21, 1944 edition of Life magazine.
Tweed's wife and two young sons were in California during his ordeal, but curiously he never refers to them other than their departure from Guam. He does mention his mother, to whom he wrote regular letters, which he concealed in a coconut shell in case he was captured, and told one of his helpers where it was.
He confided to Sherrod that he wouldn't be surprised if his wife had remarried after his lengthy absence, but that was not the whole story. By the time the magazine was on newsstands, he had already been granted an interlocutory divorce from Mary Frances Tweed, 27, in San Diego, The New York Times reported. A bit of Internet digging revealed that he and his wife had separated much earlier in 1941.
Tweed remarried in 1945, and was on active duty until 1950 when spinal arthritis forced his retirement. He eventually returned to Grants Pass, Oregon, and ran a TV and radio repair business for 40 years.
He returned to Guam in 1946, and shipped a four-door Chevrolet sedan to Antonio, who had refused any sort of remuneration in the many long months he cared for Tweed.
Tweed (July 2, 1902-January 16,1989) died in a car accident in northern California in 1989. He was 86.
Decades after the end of WWII, former Japanese soldiers were still in hiding on several islands. With Guam liberated in 1944, a former sergeant named Shoichi Yokoi and some comrades took to the jungle. When he was discovered by villagers in January 1972, he'd spent the better part of 28 years in a 10-foot-long tunnel about eight feet below ground, and outlived all the other soldiers. He died at 82 in 1997.


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Sarna News: Clan Invasion Box Set 'Mechs Revealed!
2004th Battle Regiment
Clan Invasion Box Set 'Mechs Revealed!
Unit Profile (as of 2764)
Parent Formation 297th Mechanized Infantry Division
Formed unknown
Disbanded 2784[1]
3 Officers
4 Tactics
5 Composition
Overview[edit]
The Two Thousand Fourth Battle Regiment was a part of the Star League Defense Force Regular Army.
In 2764, the unit was assigned, as a part of the 297th Mechanized Infantry Division, XII Corps, Eighth Army, to District 1 within the Free Worlds League Military Region, and transferred to District 2 during the Periphery Uprising.[2] Though the 297th itself suffered heavy losses during the Hegemony Campaign and was disbanded, the 2004th did survive the war, to be absorbed by the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns[2][1] in 2784.[1] The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns redesignated the 2004th the Third Avalon Borderers, expanding the Avalon Borderers brigade using the 2004th and two other former SLDF regiments.[1]
Officers[edit]
Commanding Officers of the 2004th Battle Regiment
Tactics[edit]
Composition[edit]
As an SLDF Battle regiment the 2004th would have been composed primarily of medium to heavy 'Mechs.[3]
↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 First succession War, p. 33, "Those Left Behind"
↑ 2.0 2.1 The Star League, p. 156, "Eighth Army"
↑ The Star League, p. 133
First Succession War
The Star League
Retrieved from "http://www.sarna.net/wiki/index.php?title=2004th_Battle_Regiment&oldid=534442"
Star League Defense Force Commands

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Triumph Speed Triple has been significantly Updated for 2008.
The Speed Triple, with its mix of a monstrously powerful three-cylinder engine, a top quality chassis and an aggressive, stripped down stance, enters its fourteenth year as part of Triumph's Urban Sports range. This year it brings with it a host of styling refinements to refresh this iconic motorcycle, helping ensure its status as the definitive factory streetfighter.
Starting from the front of the bike, a redesigned radiator shroud gives the bike a more integrated appearance, while the new tapered anodised aluminium handlebars and the black anodised front forks enhance the aesthetics. The brakes have been upgraded to high-spec twin Brembo radial front caliper four pad, four piston units with a radial master cylinder for outstanding braking performance. The alloy multi-spoke wheels have been completely restyled too.
The 1,050cc, DOHC, fuel-injected, three-cylinder engine that powers the Speed Triple remains unchanged for 2008, and for good reason – the gnarly character of the inline triple is intrinsic to the Speed Triple's brutish charm. The engine pumps out a great surge of bottom-end torque, followed by a massive mid-range punch and an impressive level of overall power, all of which is delivered to the rear wheel via a slick shifting six-speed gearbox. Peak power is 132PS (131bhp) at 9,250rpm while peak torque of 105Nm (77ft.lbf) arrives at 7,500rpm.
Triumph's second generation Keihin Engine Control Unit offers sophisticated mapping for quicker starting, cleaner running and fuel economic engine.
A rigid aluminium frame contains the engine and provides massive strength with steering geometry that gives fast-steering neutrality plus great stability. The fully adjustable 43mm upside down forks and rear monoshock – specifically developed for the Speed Triple – add superb levels of quality and control. The evocative single-sided swingarm adds style and substance while the twin-level oval section exhaust pipes enhance the engine's distinctive and addictive induction roar.
The Triumph Accessory range for the Speed Triple includes the popular Arrow 3 – into – 1 full race system (for circuit use only), as well as a host of other factory-approved parts. The list includes fat handlebars, high performance silencers (for circuit use only), belly pan, rear hugger and a wealth of carbon fibre goodies and other cosmetic additions, such as the anodised radiator cowl and heel guards.
Three colour options are available for 2008; Jet Black, Fusion White and Blazing Orange. Delivering undiluted attitude and a unique presence on the road, the Speed Triple has always been synonymous with motorcycling in its most direct, rawest form available, and all the better for it.
Exhaust 3 into 1 into 2 stainless steel, twin high level silencer catalyst insecondaries.
Instrument display/functions LCD multi-function speedometer, trip computer, analogue tachometer and programmable gear change lights.


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Tag Archives: Notting Hill Gate
Notting Hill Gate: the other High Street
After my marathon series on Kensington Church Street it was suggested that we simply turn left at the top and carry on into Notting Hill Gate, the actual street of that name, formerly High Street, Notting Hill. Some of it changed considerably in the late 1950s and early 1960s, while other sections remained much the same. I've covered the 1960 development already but we've never seen the 1970s version. The Photo Survey pictures were taken about the same time as most of the pictures of Church Street, although there are a few gaps which I've filled in with picture from other decades.
I went back and read that post from 2016, and I'm perfectly happy with that opening paragraph about my personal history with this part of London so I won't waste your time by repeating myself when through the magic of hypertext you can see for yourself. Let's just start with a picture from 1963 which shows the north side of the street when it was brand new.
From this angle it looks clean, spacious and optimistic. Note the WH Smith and the Timothy White's, with a Boots nearby. I think I may have mentioned before that my wife and I bought a number of household items at Timothy White just before we were married. We have agreed that the only remaining item is a cheese grater, which we still use. I'm also sure that after Timothy White there was a branch of Virgin Records there. I can recall buying the first Joy Division album there, and the second XTC LP (which came with an EP of dub versions as I recall).
And having taken in that old vision of the future we can go back, but this time turn right at Church Street.
Astley House is on the south side of the street next to the intersection with Church Street. If you look back at that redevelopment post you can see the site before it was built, obscuring the 1930s block of flats behind it. The picture is from 1980, as is this close up.
Bank, dry cleaners, bank. Quite standard high street stuff for 1980. (The Midland Bank is still there as HSBC)
Below you can see another anonymous looking block. On the north side of the street the buildings are very much older, surviving from the days of the High Street.
Note the sign for Bland Umbrellas at number 24b, a fine old firm.
The next set of pictures go back to 1972. Number 2 Notting Hill gate was a branch of the employment agency Manpower. I think I may have had some temporary work from them in the 1970s, as many others did.
There's Bland again, on the corner of Linden Gardens.
Moving west from there you can see how the street retains its small scale pattern with buildings of different heights.
Below, numbers 36 and following – more employment agencies, a tiny boutique called Brave New World and an Aberdeen Steak House. The Nat West branch looks small but still grand.
Yet another agency, Alfred Marks, and another boutique (Pop-In). A tall person crosses the street.
I think there's a Reed Employment agency in the mix there, but on the corner of Pembridge Gardens a large branch of Burton and Montague (tailors).
It all seems rather dull considering that Notting Hill Gate was just a stone's throw from the heart of the counter culture in 1972. Here with the Devonshire Arms, is the corner of Pembridge Road. just a few steps from the start of the trail down Portobello Road.
We haven't got any picture from 1972 of the south side of the street from Church street but this picture shows the view looking east, taking in the colored panels and the tower of Newcomb House.
This picture is one of a group given to the library by PhotoBecket (website) so acknowledgements to them and thanks for filling in a visual gap.
Below, the companion view looking west.
Now, back to 1972 and to the location of the first picture.
This shows the central crossing, the Coronet cinema, and Woolworths. I must admit to barely recalling that branch.
We now take another jump back to 1960.
The Hoop, located by the narrow passage to Uxbridge Street would have been relatively new in 1960.
The Classic Cinema, later of course, the Gate had also been redeveloped at this time. If I think about it, I haven't been to the Gate very much, but I do recall my wife and I seeing Tim Burton's Batman there. One of the first of that era's summer blockbusters.
We're on familiar territory in 1972. WH Smith, Boots, a Wimpy Bar and Woolworth's. I'm pausing now for a bit of confusion. Boots must have ousted Timothy White's from their position at the start of this post at one point and pushed them aside. Kelly's Directory came to my rescue, showing that in 1980, Boots were at 96-98, and Timothy Whites (described as hardware retailers) were at 102. So my recollections were not mistaken. Phew.
In the next three picture, you can see the rest of that parade, west of the entrance to Campden Hill Towers.
More ladies' outfitters, small grocers, dry cleaners and of course Radio Rentals.
The road starts of slop away from the hill of Notting Hill and retailers give way to residential properties.
A final look back up the hill.
I don't know which direction to go from here, so I might do a Chelsea post next time. My apologies for not publishing this last week, but I was quite busy.
Thanks to PhotoBecket for their photographs, which are copyright by them.
After the previous Notting Hill post there were some lively exchanges in the comments about St Vincent's Primary School which was at 6 Holland Park Avenue. Many former pupils have exchanged email addresses through the blog. I can pass on the email addresses of any more interested parties without breaching any regulations on privacy if anyone is interested.
3 Comments	| tags: Notting Hill Gate	| posted in 20th Century, North Kensington
From the air: Kensington
Just like the picture postcard the fascination of the aerial photograph is in the detail. The difference between the two is the puzzle element of the aerial view. The angle you are looking from is unnatural possibly even unimaginable when some of the places you see were first built. Even when buildings were constructed in the age of aircraft you see things the observer from the ground could never see.
I had quite a number of images to choose from so this selection (the first in an occasional series) is simply some of the photos which struck me as interesting or showed some buildings I have dealt with before in the blog. Like this one:
This 1965 picture shows the gas works in Ladbroke Grove which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. North of it you can see Kensal Green Cemetery, most of the ground concealed under foliage. At the edge of the gas works site is Kensal House. This is the last stretch of Ladbroke Grove before it hits the Harrow Road. The 52 bus used to take me along here up Chamberlayne Road to Kensal Rise. Either before the railway bridge or after it was the block of shops and houses which was the location of Hamrax Motors where I (the owner of a Honda) used to go to be patronised by the owners of British motorbikes. South of the railway you can see Raymede and Treverton Towers, like two open books propped up on the ground and to the left of them this building:
Is that a grand ecclesiastical building? In another universe perhaps but in our world it's St Charles Hospital a well known building but quite different from the air.
We're heading in a roughly southwards direction now to see a quite different building.
The trick with aerial photos is to orientate yourself using some obvious landmark. You can just make out the Commonwealth Institute at the top of the picture. The mass of trees behind it is Holland Park. Move to the foreground where Holland Park Avenue is going to meet Holland Road.
At the time of the photograph that long building was owned by the BMC (a forerunner of British Leyland) but it was built as a roller skating rink. The Hilton Hotel is now on the site.
Now we move east into Notting Hill Gate.
This picture is also from 1965 when the redevelopment of the former Notting Hill High Street was relatively new. You can see Campden Hill Tower, that unexpectedly (in this neighbourhood) high building and all the working spaces between it and Ladbroke Road which curves up to meet Pembridge Road. To the right of the picture you can see Holland Park School and another old friend of ours:
The Campden Hill Water Works, with its microwave mast which one of my readers wrote a comment about in the post about the tower. This picture shows the location of the Water Works for another reader who enquired about that.
We can follow Campden Hill Road south now to the Kensington High Street of 1967.
St Mary Abbotts Church should be easy to spot and Barker's department store opposite. Next to Barker's is Derry and Tom's with its famous roof garden.
You get an idea from the air of how big the garden is and some sense of the effort involved in creating it. Ponting's, the diminutive cousin of Barker's and Derry and Tom's is also visible. The size factor alone shows why Ponting's was the first to go.
Here is another close-up from the same picture:
It's my place of work again, Kensington Central Library, but this was before the building of the Town Hall so all there was in front of the Library was a car park and the two houses on the top of the site Niddry Lodge and the Red House which I've written about before. I've also covered the building which was there before the Library which is in this similar view from a 1939 picture:
There it is – the Abbey, the gothic folly built by William Abbott, before the bombs fell. This picture shows the full extent of the grounds.
Now another close-up from a few years before in 1935:
The Derry and Tom's building before the Garden, a bare canvas.
Before we leave Kensington High Street let's take another step back in time.
You're now looking at 1921. The narrow spire of St Mary Abbotts dominates the picture. In the foreground is Kensington Barracks and at the top of the picture an older incarnation of Barker's but it's that block in the centre which intrigues me.
The interesting thing about this building is not that it's gone but that it's still there. So is the fire station in front of it and the short row of houses almost attached to it. Other buildings have grown up around it so it no longer looks separate. With the row of modern shopfronts on the High Street side there is complete continuity. At first glance anyway. When I finished writing this I went out and walked round it just to be sure.
We could look at Kensington High Street in much more detail but I can't end this ramble through recent subject matter seen from a different angle without moving to South Kensington.
In this 1951 picture you can see the Albert Memorial swathed in scaffolding again, the Albert Hall and in the foreground the Natural History Museum. But in the centre you can see the building whose interior we explored a few weeks ago, the Imperial Institute. There are other details here: is that the site of Mrs McCulloch's house on the corner of Queen's Gate and Prince Consort Road Road?
But we'll come back here another day.
This week's images were almost all taken by Aerofilms Ltd, the UK's first commercial aerial photography company. English Heritage now owns their historic collection and many of the images can be seen at www.britainfromabove.org.uk
5 Comments	| tags: aerial photography, kensington, Kensington High Street, Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill Gate, Photographs, South Kensington	| posted in 20th Century, Kensington, North Kensington
London Transport: travelling in Kensington and Chelsea
In his recent book "What we talk about when we talk about the tube" (the District Line volume of Penguin Lines, a series of books which celebrate the 150 years of the London Underground) John Lanchester makes the point that London and the Underground grew together. The railway lines made it possible for workers to travel further to work and so communities like Morden for example sprang up because the railway was there. London grew around the railway map – the city made the map but the map also made the city. He makes the further point that the reason that the London Underground network was started thirty seven years before the Paris Metro (a huge number of years in a period of rapid technological development) was that sending steam trains through underground tunnels was daring to the point of recklessness. But they did it anyway, and made London the biggest city in the world (two and a half million people in 1850, seven million in 1910).
[A steam train at West Kensington 1876]
Look at this map, a section of Davies's 1841 Map of London and its environs:
Davies's map is interesting because it's one of the first London maps to show railways. You can see the main line to Paddington and the West London Railway heading south towards the river with a proposed route alongside the Kensington Canal. You can also see the empty space between the comparatively built up Chelsea and the line of development along the Kensington Turnpike, the road from Hammersmith to Hyde Park Corner or Kensington High Street as we now know it.
Click on the map for a bigger version and look for the villages of Little Chelsea and Earls Court, the Hippodrome race course north of Notting Hill, Notting Barn Farm and Portobello Farm, the "proposed Norland Town" beside the Railway and the "proposed extension" following a similar route to the eventual District Line.
In the second half of the 19th century those spaces were filled by housing, and the railways which linked Kensington and Chelsea to the rest of London.
This Kensington parish map of 1894 with the wards shaded shows how most of the space devoted to market gardens and open country was occupied by the end of the century and how the railways made their mark. (Apologies to Chelsea for being squeezed out a bit at the bottom but maps which show both parishes equally are hard to find before they became London Boroughs and eventually joined.) You can also see how development north of Notting Hill Gate moved northwards first to meet the Metropolitan Line at Ladbroke Grove and then to meet the main line.
As I said in the Gloucester Road post the stations were often built before the housing and the major roads. The District, Circle and Metropolitan lines crossed the two parishes knitting them together. The sub-surface lines weren't actually underground for most of their routes (the longest underground section on the District / Circle line is the tunnel between Kensington High Street north to Notting Hill Gate) so they had a visible impact on the map especially in certain areas such as the Cromwell Curve where three lines (and the trains of three companies originally) met.
This is a rear view of Cromwell Road after building development showing the District Line rails in 1902. It's by Ernest Milner, and has one of his characteristic faces at the window.
After the sub-surface lines came the deep tunnels (the actual Tube as Lanchester also points out) of the Central Line and the Piccadilly Line.
This one is the short lived Brompton Road Station opened 1906 and closed in 1934, being by then too near to both Knightsbridge and South Kensington Stations.
This picture shows the Piccadilly Line station at South Kensington, which like the one at Gloucester Road sat right next to the Metropolitan and District Line Station.
The picture also has a good view of a comparatively small horse-drawn bus. The buses which had carried people around London before the railways could not compete in terms of numbers even when motor buses were introduced in the 1890s and early 1900s. But they would soon catch up, and I can't leave the subject of transport without some pictures of the buses that have served Kensington and Chelsea.
A horse-drawn bus proceeds along Notting Hill Gate.
Below an early motor bus on its way to Westbourne Grove.
The bus routes we know today were established quite early.
A number 27 departs from Hammersmith bus station. The buses got bigger and more frequent.
This picture shows an AEC Regent on Kensington Gore in 1953 when the border of the Royal Borough was decorated for the Coronation. Below, the most iconic London bus of them all, the Routemaster, heading into Kensington in the 1960s (The Royal Garden Hotel is visible in the distance.)
Finally, on Kensington High Street the bus I use most frequently.
At any given bus stop the bus you're waiting for is always the least frequent. Or is that just me? At least there's the Tube.
That was the last of my transport related posts which were part of our contribution to this year's Cityread campaign. It's been a bit of a challenge to do four whole posts on the subject so I hope the strain hasn't shown and I've showed you some interesting images.
John Lanchester's book is one a series of 12 . (Link) They're a bit of a mixed bag and I haven't seen them all but I'd also recommend Paul Morley's Earthbound (the Bakerloo Line).
Other writers have made the same points as Lanchester, such as Andrew Martin in his history of the Underground "Overground Underground". but Lanchester's little book was the first I read. It's a subject with a large bibliography.
Next week a special post for May Day heading taking us right back into the depths of the Edwardian imagination.
Leave a comment	| tags: Brompton Road, Buses, Cromwell Road, Kensington High Street, Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill Gate, Photographs, South Kensington	| posted in 19th Century, 20th Century, Chelsea, Kensington, Transport
Return of the Edwardian sartorialist – Sambourne's Kensington street style
I have good reason to be grateful to Edward Linley Sambourne. My original post about his street photography (Street Style 1906) has been the most popular single item on this blog and has brought in many readers who might not otherwise have heard about the Library Time Machine. What is it about his street photography which is so compelling?
The first point is one I made on that first post. We are used to thinking of the Edwardian period as the last great period of formal dress for women and men, the last gasp of 19th century fashion and the ancien regime of costume before the revolution of the Great War and the 1920s. Sambourne's pictures show another side to the early years of the 20th century, a casual attitude to dress demonstrated by the mostly young women in them. The roots of the dress revolution are apparent from the 1890s onwards in candid photographs and picture postcards. Sambourne's pictures are one instance of this movement.
The other point is another one I have made on previous occasions. We shouldn't think of these photographs as curious items from past times. These pictures are of the present. When Linley Sambourne roamed the streets of Kensington with his hidden camera between 1905 and 1908 he was catching images of the now.
Have I spent too long on opening remarks? Let's look at some pictures.
20th July 1906 in Notting Hill Gate – even in summer gloves are worn and one of these two women carries a muff. They're in a hurry, striding along, oblivious to the photographer.
Back in May of the same year in nearby Kensington Church Street:
This woman is slightly more formally dressed than the first two. Perhaps she is on her way to work. Sambourne liked to record women at work as below:
This picture taken in Cheniston Gardens shows a young maid engaged in the perennial and tedious task of cleaning the steps. You might think this is another example of Sambourne's secretive gaze, spying on her working life but to me it has the look of a posed picture. Sambourne had many contacts in the Kensington area across the social classes – people he used as models for his studio photography and the young maid may have been one of them. I think it's more obvious in this image:
A different set of steps, and (I think) a different woman but she looks to me as though she is responding to a request from Sambourne to hold that pose for a moment.
There is probably a great deal to be said about the interest shown in maids by gentlemen of Sambourne's age and class but in the absence of firm evidence we can probably acquit him of improper thoughts. As has also been discussed on the blog and in comments, the concept of privacy with regard to photographs taken in the street was underdeveloped in Sambourne's time. It's probably true that as an upper middle class man he thought that his right to pursue his art outweighed any violation of his subjects' privacy. (Some photographers still believe that today.)
To complete a trio of servants here is a maid taking a break, no doubt well deserved:
The next subject is someone much closer to Sambourne's own class, a distinctly middle class married woman.
In May 1907 she is escorting her two sons along a tree-lined Cromwell Road with just a few horse drawn vehicles in the background. Cromwell Road looks more like a prosperous wide street of upmarket houses as it was originally intended than the major transport artery of today.
This is one of those pictures where the woman is looking right at the photographer as though she knows what he is doing.
I think this may be a picture of the same woman from behind. They were both taken on the same day in the same place so that may be a reasonable assumption.
Perhaps you recognize this woman:
I think it's the same woman who featured in the first Sambourne post photographed in Earls Court Road in 1905. (I've looked back and forth comparing details of dress and features. I know that some of my readers are very eagle eyed so I won't commit myself absolutely.) It's a slightly less flattering image but that is a feature of candid photography. Everyone has seen poor pictures of people who normally look good in photographs. I would say she had been caught by the flash but I'm not sure if Sambourne's camera had one. Actually the detail I like is the dog sniffing something out in the background so I hope she would forgive me for showing her not quite at her best.
This picture is another example of the big hat, still a common fashion item at the time:
This view is of Kensington Church Street, with some horse drawn buses in the background.
Another family group, from the front and the side:
This was in St Albans Road, well off the main streets of Kensington and well out of Sambourne's main patch.
Another of his pictures from the rear:
Finally, I've been saving one of Sambourne's best pictures till last. This picture is simply captioned Kensington. It looks a little like one of the streets running off Notting Hill Gate but really it could be any number of streets.
Sambourne captures a young woman of the early twentieth century walking confidently forward looking straight into the eye of the camera. Forget the photographer. She is looking out at us.
Just as this time last year I'm about to start a month of posts related to this year's CityRead campaign. The book is A week in December by Sebastian Faulks. The posts will all be transport related and the first will be A tale of two tube stations.
One of the many bloggers who wrote about Sambourne after my first post coined the phrase Edwardian Sartorialist to describe him. I can't remember which one, but my thanks to her/him.
The Sambourne pictures belong to Leighton House Museum. If you would like to reproduce any of them in a book or magazine ask my colleagues there.
The other Linley Sambourne posts are here (Holland), here (Paris)and here (at the beach).
The text is written by me so if you run a website based in Spain which likes to reprint vintage photographs why not write your own words?
18 Comments	| tags: Cheniston Gardens, Cromwell Road, Earls Court Road, kensington, Kensington Church Street, Notting Hill Gate, Photographs, St Albans Road	| posted in 20th Century, Edward Linley Sambourne, Fashion, Kensington
Return of the secret life of postcards
The unknown photographers who took this week's pictures were working in the street like Ernest Milner who took the pictures in our Empty Street series. They were unlike Milner in two respects. They were working for themselves speculatively, taking photographs hoping to sell them later. And crucially they were working mostly during the daytime hours when the streets were no longer empty.
This view is of Notting Hill Gate looking west. Postcard images vary enormously in quality. The best ones give you the opportunity to zoom in on the action and catch a flavour of the individual lives of the people in them.
On the northern side of the street a man uses a hooked pole to pull out a shop awning. He keeps an eye on the approaching woman who won't thank him if any water drips on her from the canvas. There are horse drawn carriages and in the distance a motor bus.
On the southern side of the street:
Henry Hobson Finch's Hoop Tavern, William J Tame, fruiterer – his staff are loading a delivery wagon- and Matthew Pittman, stationer. This is the corner of Silver Street (then the name for the northern section of Kensington Church Street) about 1904. There's a rather dejected looking girl standing next to the delivery wagon and in the foreground a woman with a pram.
She's looking at the display to her right; her arms are straight, pushing the front wheels of the pram off the ground possibly getting ready for moving it off the pavement. The sleeves of her dress are tight to the elbows and then much bigger – the so-called "leg of mutton" look, reaching its apogee in the early 1900s. We can almost see what will happen next as her routine day continues.
The postcard is a picture of the street as a whole. Perhaps we were never intended to look this close. But as I'm sure you know by now I can never resist the details which are often found at the edge of the picture. That's where the secret lives are found.
Still in Notting Hill, just a little further west:
This picture shows the Central Line station which was on the other side of the road from the Metropolitan Line. The street on the right is Pembridge Gardens. On the left you can see the buildings on the west side of Pembridge Road – the angle is deceptive and made me puzzle over the maps for a while. Let's go back to the first postcard.
There you can see the station, the same buildings on Pembridge Road, and the motor bus. My transport correspondent tells me that the starter arm is visible underneath the radiator and that the engine block is quite low slung which indicates that this is an early model – later models were higher off the ground to protect the undercarriage and give the driver a better view. Horlicks Malted Milk was not imported into the UK until 1890. Horse-drawn and motor buses co-existed for some years before the horse drawn versions were superseded in the early 1900s.
Look at the horse bus again:
There are people waiting but the bus looks pretty full. That woman striding away from it has the air of a passenger who has just alighted and wants to get moving under her own steam again.
In contrast to the busy high street along the road in Holland Park Avenue things were quieter.
During the day the quieter residential areas would be mostly given over to women and children with a few street workers and delivery boys.
At the portmanteau and umbrella warehouse some window shopping is going on. This picture is not as sharp as some so it's difficult to be sure if the two women standing together are wearing some kind of uniform.
Something about the hats, I think with a piece of material draped down on one side.
Here's another quiet street a little further south:
Nothing much is happening but some of the locals are paying attention.
The two women ignore the photographer and go on their way but the children and the man on the delivery tricycle are taking a keen interest.
A little further west the stillness is almost palpable in this view of Gilston Road.
The church in the background is St Mary the Boltons. Instead of terraces of houses there are what one architectural guide has called "crude Italianate villas". A little sharp if you ask me. I would call them grand suburban villas and the two women who have paused for the photographers are respectable middle class ladies
It's a quiet dusty summer's day in the new suburbs.
But it wasn't all quiet at this end of the old Borough (or Vestry, depending on the date ) of Kensington.
I've always found this particular picture of the Old Brompton Road looking towards South Kensington Station quite intriguing, mostly because of what's happening on the right of the picture.
What does the expression on that boy's face mean? Or is he just dazzled by the flash? Or is it just one of those odd in between two states expressions which the camera sometimes captures? Something about the body language of the girl tells me that she's playing some part in this. Has she just said something sharp to the boy? Are they related? Or is she just posing for the camera? There's just not enough information here. I can't help thinking that if we just knew a little more there would be a story.
Below Fulham Road, at the junction with Drayton Gardens. Fifty years or so before this scene would be fields, market gardens and cottages in the hinterland between Kensington and Chelsea.
But now this is another busy street.
A belligerent looking shopkeeper, three men just hanging around on a street corner, and that man in the centre, looking to see what's coming before stepping off the pavement. He looks like a man with places to go and people to see, not a man you want to trifle with. And of course unlike the women in these images if he was to stride out of the picture onto today's Fulham Road we might not give him a second glance.
We've moved quite a short distance from one part of Kensington to the edge. Let's go back for one more picture. This is a slightly unpromising view of Pembridge Gardens, a little discoloured with age and not particularly sharp.
But on the left you can see a woman and her maid.
It's unusual to see a household servant on the street. Perhaps the delivery man has something which the lady didn't want to carry in herself. Make your own story out of this one. Sometimes the past is just too out of focus for us to tell exactly what is happening.
5 Comments	| tags: Fulham Road, Gilston Road, Holland Park Avenue, kensington, Notting Hill Gate, Old Brompton Road, Onslow Gardens, Pembridge Gardens, Photographs	| posted in 19th Century, 20th Century, Kensington, North Kensington
The secret life of postcards
Picture postcards have been with us for more than a hundred years. People have been collecting them as well as sending them from the beginning. Before cameras became a common consumer item they were the only way many people could get a photograph of their street. Professional photographers it seemed roamed the streets of London taking pictures of any street they liked the look of, perhaps hoping to sell postcards to the residents. It's possible anyway, all I know is that there are a lot of postcards of quite obscure streets taken from the 1890s to just before the First World War, Postcards like this one:
This is the view looking north down Pembridge Road from Notting Hill Gate. Most of these buildings are still there now, only the shops have changed. And the people of course.
Regular readers of the blog will know that I like a good close up. This is what I mean by the secret life of postcards. The photographer was trying to get a good picture of the street. The people in it were incidental for his purposes. But whether intentionally or by chance he captures the passers-by in unguarded moments. The girl waiting impatiently for her mother to finish taking to her friend. Or are they waiting to cross the road?
This is the Earls Court Road fully developed on the east side with a hoarding enclosing a vacant lot or building site on the other side. There are plenty of people too.
In this case teenage girls hanging out by the shops? Two of them at least with sonewhere definite to go striding out of the picture.
A slightly less crowded scene. These mansion blocks on the western side of Elm Park Gardens have now been partially replaced by modern blocks of flats but the street is still recognizable.
In the close up the woman and her daughter are too blurred to see much detail but you can see her lifting up her skirt to protect it from the dirty surface of the road.
This is an excellent action view of Kensington Park Road looking north from the junction with Elgin Crescent. Look at the barely visible cyclist, the horses in motion and the woman leaning forward to start pushing the pram across the road. The close up adds a little information.
The woman in the foreground has noticed the camera, and maybe the man with the umbrella too. You can just about make out the child sitting up in the pram.
Maybe half a mile away, but possibly a few years apart, in Notting Hill Gate there is another bustling street scene.
You can see the Metropolitan underground station and another bus covered with adverts.
All the figures in this picture are interesting in some way, even the dog, but the two that catch my eye are the bearded man and his younger companion. Are they out for a leisurely stroll or pursuing some business venture?
Moving south here is a picture of the now demolished Kensington Crescent, an unsuccessful development in the Warwick Gardens area. The two children in the photograph are aware of the photographer perhaps even consciously posing for him.
I can't tell if the expression is curious, resentful, bored or whether they're just standing still as the photographer asked.
This picture shows numbers 1-14 Kensington Crescent. Normally I avoid fascinating facts but I cannot avoid telling you that Kenneth Grahame, author of the Wind in the Willows lived for five years at number 5, just before the photo was taken.
Finally a personal favourite, one of the first postcards I subjected to the scan and zoom process.
A good crisp view of Kensington Park Road showing St Peter's Church. Try it on Google Maps street view for comparison. The pattern of the facade is still there exactly.
But naturally what I want to know is what the woman in the middle is doing with her left hand. Is she scratching her nose, and has this idle gesture been captured for posterity?
There are so many postcards full of compelling details and questions that we will probably be here again soon using the time machine to catch more of these details of everyday life.
Author's message
From next week I'll be tweeting a preview of the week's post a couple of days before posting – assuming I know what I'll be writing about before Wednesday. Follow me at @daveinlocal .
6 Comments	| tags: Earls Court Road, Elm Park Gardens, Kensington Crescent, Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill Gate, photography	| posted in 19th Century, 20th Century, Earls Court, Kensington, North Kensington


text:
July 25, 2017 May 16, 2018 / RedheadRambler
Nestled in the hustle and bustle of Old Street is the achingly cool Book Club. This hipster's paradise serving delicious food and cold beer (alongside a ping pong table – of course) was the venue for a fantastic 'StorySLAM' event, The Moth.
Launched in 1997 in the USA, The Moth is live, true stories told at themed events. Speakers volunteer themselves on arrival, have around five minutes to tell their tales, without notes, after which they are scored by selected judges in the audience. The winners of these 'StorySLAM' events will then go on to compete with each other at a 'GrandSLAM' Championship.
Over the last 20 years The Moth has evolved into a Radio show and a podcast – which is how I found out about them. Live events are held in London once a month with tickets normally selling out in a flash. I was thrilled to dip my toes for the first time into the potential well of human experience.
The spotlight and 'rules of engagement'
This month, the chosen theme was simply 'Beauty'. Hosted by Sara Barron, author of two essay collections titled "The Harm in Asking" and "People Are Unappealing", she humorously got our evening underway as we settled underneath a ceiling decorated by a solid layer of lightbulbs. These jangled as heavy footed folk treaded on the floor above us and made me feel like I was sitting in a sleigh, adding a fantastical quality indeed.
In all there were ten storytellers brave enough to face the spotlight. Their styles and stories varied greatly. Adam was the first who spoke of seeing beauty in accomplishment, followed by Sarah who spoke of learning to find it in life and those she loved instead of objects. Ju spoke of his definition of beauty as being when the implausible and the comprehendible touch. Korsa shared her experiences with a toxic sense of beauty while Alison commented on her appreciation of natural beauty hiking in the Himalayas. Lucy spoke about her mother's beauty evolving in her own eyes while Annabel touched on a kind of blind love one would feel for one's own children. Will hilariously spoke about vapid 'skin-deep' beauty and Natasha finished the lineup telling us about once finding beauty in a religious context and how the meaning has since changed.
While some stories offered much which made me chortle, there were many moving moments too. The vulnerability of the speakers was immediately apparent and the small and snuggly seated audience were receptive and eager. The sense of appreciation made the room feel warm and inclusive. It seemed like we were on a journey discovering and celebrating our mutual sense of fragility together.
During an intermission I was in the bar queue and one of the speakers, Ju, was chatting to an audience member who was praising him on his well-delivered story. He openly asked the question about what makes something like The Moth so engaging and I had to chime in and say "it's humanity". That's exactly what it felt like. In a world where we are more connected than ever by technology we have also never been more isolated, making these occasions of strangers coming together and sharing such personal aspects of themselves a rare and precious treat.
It seemed slightly odd in the spirit of things to pick a winner, but the top 3 were announced and enthusiastically applauded for their efforts. Third was Annabel, second was Ju and Will was crowned the victor.
Champion Will with runner up Ju
Coming together and relating an experience from our own lives connects us almost instantly and even though we are all so different, in many ways we are also just the same. The evening as a whole was absolutely delightful; uplifting, moving and belly-achingly funny too. I felt proud of my own frailty and humanity and wanted to share the sense of celebration and community that was built in those few hours.
The next event is on the 30thAugust at the Rich Mix in Bethnal Green and I've already bought tickets. The chosen theme is 'Caution' which I am a little tempted to perhaps throw my own name in the hat and tell a story of my own. Encouraged by our host who at one point said: "Find your own mic, tell your own stories", I might just do that.
Moth fans
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4 thoughts on "The Moth"
I will be there to witness if you do in fact throw your name in the hat #ticketsbooked
B, like Beyonce
Thanks B! Very much looking forward to it 😉
Teresa Ulyate
We are all connected! And sharing the human experience is something that helps keep us sane in this crazy world. Another brilliant blog post. 🙂
Thanks T! It's great to be reminded that we are all in this together 🙂


For many years, the Holy Grail of sustainability has been to understand the impact of different design choices over the whole life of a building. There has been much discussion over how to achieve this with available data, with emphasis shuttling between embodied and operational impacts. The best answer needs to consider the lifecycle of the building's components and materials and their contribution to minimising the overall impact.
This is now within reach of the designer. The challenge has been to identify the many complex factors that come into play before a building gets to site and over the rest of its life and eventual demolition, and then to define appropriate metrics by which to measure them. Happily there is now a European standard, EN 15804 for products, which provides the framework for measuring whole-life impacts, reassuring specifiers that they are comparing apples with apples. In time, EN 15978 for whole buildings is likely to become the dominant calculation method used by the industry, bringing together all the elements of whole-life assessment into a single methodology.
In 2016, the industry launched a project to prepare generic environmental product declarations (EPDs) in accordance with EN 15804 for a range of concrete products will provide designers with a key component of their whole-life sustainability assessments through the different design stages of a project. This project forms part of the industry's Sustainable Construction Strategy.
The This is Concrete magazine explores these themes in more detail with features on: whole-life carbon, resilient thinking, product lifecycles, high-performance homes and concrete's whole-life credentials.


text:
The Dirty Habit
Habits: The good the bad and the ugly
If I was to say there is no such thing as a bad habit, would you believe me? In the fact, there is no such thing as a 'bad' habit, only only a bad outcome, (bear with me). Your argument could be, 'taking drugs is a bad habit. It's illegal and messes people up'-right, I get that. For the individual however, what is the purpose of taking the drug? To feel good.
Ok-ok, lets go for a softer example; nail biting. Yes nail biting can damage teeth, damage the skin and cause infection. So why do people do it, even though know it's bad? Comfort! The person could've used this habit in response to fear, anxiety or stress to calm down, to relax and feel comfortable. Now any time the person wants those feelings again (even when there is no obvious stressor) they're doing it with a subconsious-positive intent.
The Habit loop
Every habit can broken down into a very simple process. 'Cue' or 'trigger', which could be for example time, boredom or walking past a bakery. 'Routine' could be, drink a coffee every hour. Scrolling through instagram on your phone, or walking into 'said' bakery. The 'Reward' is personal satisfaction, comfort or happiness.
The response to the habit can be slightly different though...
The bad habit, is when we're 'unhappy with the result'. ie walking past the bakery (the 'devil cue')-going in and buying a doughnut and relieving the craving for the doughnut (satisfaction). But then, if it's not coherent with your long term goal, you become unhappy with the result. Conversely, if you were to take a different route around the bakery (the 'angel cue'), you can't see or smell the doughnuts. You've changed the routine. You feel slightly smug. You've done it, you've avoided temptation and now you're happy with the result.
You are more likely to stick to habit that makes you happy!
The thing is, the 'devil cue' never dies, it will always be carved into to the brain as a mental shortcut. However when you change the routine, the 'devil cue' gets put to the side, it's there, but now we've engraved and new 'angel cue'. You just need to make sure you keep doing the new routineit.
Why we have habits
Simply, habits are 'modern world solutions, for old world problems'-survival. For instance, we crave recognition and social acceptance, as 'back in the day', if you were outcast from your tribe, you'd be in danger. The modern day solution is to scroll through social media and check how may likes we have, or how many friends follow us. We start smoking, because our friends at school did. We get on the beers, because it's a Friday night after work with colleagues. Being socially accepted guarantees survival. The result now being, we constantly compare ourselves to others, we get lung disease and we suffer with a hangover every weekend. Harsh.
If we use food as an example, we tend to eat more when there's food in abundance, for example a wedding buffet*. The survival instinct is to consume as much food as possible, because 'you don't know when you'll be able to eat again'. We are genetically made up to eat and hibernate-survival. The result being we consume too much and put on weight.
Setting a better habit
As always, start with your goal. What is the ultimate goal/objective/target? It's important having the goal, but even more important is having the system, the how are you going to actually achieve your goal? Once you've come up with the plan, that sets the wheels in motion, but the result is in the doing. You actually have to start.
Next, to make a habit achievable, you'd best to make it:
Habits are 'mental short cuts' built up by repeating patterns, to ultimately take away the slow processes that are inefficient. The more you repeat a habit the easier it becomes, so stick with it. You're not automatically going to see results, but you're certainly on the way.
Keep it real guys
*Did you know? If you're eating with 7+ people, you will consume up to 96% more food, than if you were by yourself.
at August 24, 2019 No comments


It is all good theycan say what ever the want. I have big sholders, and I'm not a hater!
And Happy Turkey Day to you and your family too!
Not a problem. Some times I wish I could careless. But what fun would that be!


text:
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