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The United States bombed Iran on Sunday (ABC News). I’m writing this after a ceasefire has been announced (albeit one that might not last) so I have the benefit of some hindsight but the best analysis I’ve come across has been from a new podcast, Geopolitical Cousins (also available via a YouTube channel). Marko Papic has argued that it’s unlikely that indications are that Trump does not want this to expand further. I hope he’s correct.
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In more mundane news, Mum, Emma, Rowan and I took a shinkansen down to Hamamatsu to spend a night at the Grand Mecure at Lake Hamana (Wikipedia). It was a strange place. Apparently nobody stays Friday and Saturday night because when we arrived at about 1 pm on Saturday afternoon there only five or so cars in the entire customer parking lot and I had that feeling you have whenever you enter any commercial establishment that is not long for this world. Turns out that was misplaced as within a handful of hours a full complement of hotel guests descended on the building.
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It’s difficult to overstate how dramatic the change was and I’m still not entirely sure why. I can only assume it’s because of the onsen as there was precious little else to do in the hotel and the surrounding area was almost devoid of life. I have fond memories of walking the late evening streets of Urayasu as I listened to Accidental Tech Podcast last year (when we were staying at the Hyatt Regency Tokyo Bay). No such experience this year as the road outside the Grand Mecure literally didn’t have streetlights.
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I wrote last week that I might buy a Mac Mini as part of a focus on writing an app for Apple platform. After posting that entry, I then decided not to do this and to instead focus on Japanese. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to cancel the notification I had registered at Refurb Tracker and when an alert came through on Sunday afternoon saying that a Mac Mini with an M4 Pro was available, I pounced. I stand by my suspicion from last week that this was almost certainly not a good idea.
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A reason I gave last week for why it wasn’t a good idea was that I frequently am so tired after getting the kids to bed that I fall asleep on the sofa. Well, that happened again on Wednesday night after I had ordered a pizza. Fortunately, the pizza was to be picked up so I didn’t have the indignity of sleeping through a poor delivery driver waking everyone up in the house in a desperate attempt to get someone to open the door (which almost certainly would have happened). I got a call the next day from the Domino’s where I’d placed the order and couldn’t catch all of what I was being told. I knew I was meant to pick-up another pizza on Thursday night but not if that was complimentary or that I had to pay. A co-worker insisted it would be complimentary but I thought that couldn’t be right given that it was entirely my fault that the Wednesday pizza hadn’t been collected. She was right and I got a free pizza! Japan is the best.
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I sent W. David Marx’s essay on the throughline from Ashlee Simpson to Addison Rae to Eugenia. She didn’t much go for it but maybe you will?
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I don’t know if this is a standard aspect to ageing but there are a number of bands that I listened to in the 2000s who completely dropped off my radar in the 2010s. Occasionally, Apple Music will suggest a song from this period and I’ll find myself utterly surprised that I had no idea this music existed. In this week’s case it was Goldfrapp and their 2013 album, Tales of Us. How had I never heard anything about this album until 2025? Take a listen to ‘Jo’ and see if takes your fancy (Apple Music).
