Olga, Paul O'Grady's stoic Cairn Terrier

THIS clip is so hilarious I laughed out loud for the first time in ages... it's not the dog who's funny, it's Paul O'Grady reading out viewers' letters...
Paul O'Grady, used to do the best teatime show on TV... until Channel 4 inexplicably axed it... now we have to put up with ITV1's dreadful Alan Titmarch Show on ITV1, which Alan Titmarch seems to think is amazing.... The best thing about Paul O'Grady's show was his dogs, Buster the shitzu cross (too posh for me) and Olga the cairn terrier, who sat on the desk like weary balls of fur, oblivious to most goings-on... Here we see Olga sniffing a knitted poo as Mr O'Grady reads out letters from the viewers to the audience's uproarious giggles and guffaws...




MARIANNE FAITHFULL, interviewed in 1978 when she was still bang-on drugs of many descriptions, talks to a British TV interviewer about her wayward existence, "low boredom threshold and dilettanteism" and admits her life had been (to that point at least) a disaster:



MARIANNE FAITHFULL, ANITA PALLENBERG ON ROBERT FRASER
Famous art dealer to the "smart set"who lived in the fast lane and died when "only" 49..!
And doesn't former 1960s "actress-model" Anita Pallenberg (whose career highlight was a longrunning affair with Keith Richards) look rough!?!..

Sopranos Dairy-Mouse Tune ...

NOT A HUGE AMOUNT to say today... my actual post is trapped somewhere cyberlike half-done until tomorrow... I was writing about the future of the English language so you can either sigh with relief at being spared THAT one a day longer, or piss your pants in anticipation. Ooer!!

Here's a video from Marianne Faithfull ~ I really like this tune, it is from the "ovular" (non-un-a-politically-differently-incorrect (is that arcane enough? surely I'm PC now!!) contemporary way of saying "seminal"... it's from Faithfull's seminal 1979 LP BROKEN ENGLISH...

TAKE A WALK AROUND TIMES SQUARE...

MARIANNE FAITHFULL: TINES SQUARE
Set to videomontage...





I WAS SHOCKED, in a 4am rerun of Sopranos on Channel 4 (why did no-one tell me how good it was ~ I thought that show was daft comedy which is why I never bothered watching 1st time round, I mean what else can a man be, whose name is "Mr Soprano"..? Not a father, for one thing... I mean, surely, a male soprano is by rights a EUNUCH!!...

Anyway I was watching the episode where Tony Soprano's associate gets married and can only attend his own daughter's wedding on bail if he pays $400,000 for US Marshals to be at the reception with metal detectors and all...

... when I heard strains of one of my OWN SONGS being sung to the cutting of the wedding cake!
I don't think Andrew Lloyd Webber will be shaking in his boots, but this IS one of my most famous Hamster Songs ~

This is the song I used to sing Baby Itchy Roborovski when she was pinging up the clingfilm tube, popping out the other side looking "surprised" ~ as hamsters are so wont to do ...


Itchy's covred in fur
Itchy's covered in fur
She's a tubby dairy mouse ~
and she's covered in fur..!

How on earth did Hollywood TV producers get hold of my work?!?







IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG
rhyming slang: "it's all gone wrong"...
Pete Tong was a BBC Radio 1 DJ, famous for his Friday Night dance-music round-up...
I've seen the film ~ the story is too true ~ set on the "British" party isle of Ibiza, it tells what happens when it really does all go "Pete Tong"....



GREGORIAN: VOYAGE VOYAGE
Here is a Gregorian chants version of yesterday's top tune by Desireless...
... ever so French!!



A no-nonsense video-edit of the same:



DJ YAHEL: VOYAGE (TIESTO REMIX)
This is a bit chilled out for my taste... and it's another tune entirely... but it's quite nice





What a charming little ro-ro!


Stop Press: $1800 for a baby Norwich terrier?... What planet are these people on?...
The United States of America!

PS: No Norwich terriers to be found this side of the Pond, but Norfolks are about £400, which would be $600. Look at this tiny trotter! Is it because American breeders are trying it on..? Or are the tiny terriers cheaper here because they're indigenous to this island and thus more widely available..? What do you think..?




THE HUNGARIAN MUDI
A rare Central European herding dog...
Anyone ever seen one of these? They seem even rarer than the elusive Norwich terrier!

Here's a blue-eyed huskie named Thunder having a little bay on his 4th birthday... and even doing some tricks!

Broiling hot

YES it's very hot indeed... I believe "broiling" is the word some of you Americans use when you mean you're putting something under the grill... and that's how hot it is today. I'm sweating like an amphibious swine, it's terrible. If I were going to be like a swine I would want to be something like a Japanese pig-dog, a buta-inu 豚犬 like those trotter Norfolk and Glen of Imaal terriers from the other day, who look like a wild boar, minus the little trotter tusks.
In all this heat I've been reading Grimms Märchen ~ meine Familie sent me a charming antique volume in the original German, so I've been reading that. It's from the early 20th century, printed in the curly blackletter type with the kind of Edwardian colour illustrations I really like (they remind me of my own childhood, reading handmedowns from my grandparents' era) ... nearly all German books were printed in Gothick type prior to World War II. I think it looks really funky. Why SHOULD everything look sanseriph and crap just because we're in 2010?
I've been trying to dig out youtube screens that teach Japanese for my language blog. There's plenty about, it's just a question of pasting up the good ones. I actually had better luck with Chinese, because the BBC ~ who usually do this stuff well ~ made some excellent teach yourself Mandarin videos for late night TV. I do want to learn Chinese as well, but don't want to overburden and lose my thread... Confucius, he say: he who chase two rabbits catch neither one...

This song reminds me of doing GCSE French at school... here in the UK it got to number 5 in 1988... in much of continental Europe, including the Soviet Union, it got to number one the previous year...

DESIRELESS: VOYAGE VOYAGE



And finally ~ how could I drop the dogs theme? ~ we have CARKIES ~~
Doggies who are Yorkshire-Cairn Terrorizer Cross




Did I say very much? Did I say what I wanted to say? Did I remember? My brainbox is too well broiled to know..!

PS I didn't think I was that fussy, but the two major doggie rescue centres I consulted had only one small mop mutt each: Eddie at Battersea Dogs' Home, South London and Scruffy (as mentioned the other day) at the Wood Green Animal Shelter, North London. I couldn't take either one as both have been rehomed, the lucky 豚犬 butas! Eddie is only about one and a half, but Scruffy is seven... I wonder what happened to them?... do you think their old owners died? Poor little swines. I hope they are happy now ... poor little furries :-)

Maltese Terriers

LIKE THE BICHON FREEZE (as I like to spell it)... Maltese Terriers are another sort of cloud dog...

This young lady's expression seems to say, "I am queen of the daft looking cloudies"!



Weighing in at 1.8 to under 3kg, they are among the tiniest of all terriers ~ smaller, even than many porkies:

Famous for their long fur, which can grow to ridiculous lengths:

They actually look far better ~ in my opinion ~ in a so-called "puppy" fur-cut. This, by the way, is a fully adult doggie:



Look closely: again, this ain't a puppy, just another "puppy cut"!



This is what an actual Maltese terrier puppydog looks like... how amazing!!



THE FURRY SWINES!!

Dogs that do tricks...

I'M CURRENTLY RESEARCHING so if/when I do get a terrier, I can teach her (I would prefer a she-dog because they're even tinier and don't hump your legs and can have puppies if required)... teach her to do tricks.

Does anyone know much about this? Except that you encourage the tiny trotter to do what you want and reward her with chocolate drops/peanuts/etc...

Talking of tiny terriers, I was reading a dogfood can in the corner shop today and realized the food situation is indeed as suspected ~ that a tiny porkie can go all day on a single standard 65p 400g can ~ whereas an American Akita would require FIVE times as much ~ that's £20 a week on doggiefood as opposed to £4 for a porkshire... know what I mean..??!?

I wasn't joking when I said I wanted to train my Norfolk/Porkie/Cairn terrorizer to bundle into a bag and lie quietly as I quickly rush through Morrisons. No way could I leave the poor swine tied outside ~ I would be far too terrified of dogknapping, which IS rife. E.g. my dealer lost a prize Staff(ordshire bull terrorizer) ... I was once accused of eyeing up a dog with theft in mind. It was a grizzled old West Highland with cloudy eyes so what on earth the crazed black man who did the accusing had in mind I don't know but the owner laughed and laughed when he heard it. "The dog is fifteen years old!!" he hooted.

I have noticed that dogs who do tricks are without exception very well behaved (well it stands to reason that trained=obedient). If I can and I ever do get a doggie I want her to do a selection of tricks, including standing on back legs and hopping, jumping over held-out newspaper (like a steeplechase), staying where told, trotting round in circles until told to stop, playing dead etc... in short the type of tricks the Jack Russel Eddie used to perform from time to time on Frasier... then perhaps my tiny troting mophead terrier might become star of a Talented Pets agency and get a starring role on a longrunning TV show ~ y'know as the family pet porkie on a sitcom or whatever...

ANYWAY, can anybody tell me more about teaching a tiny trotterdonkey terrier to do tricks? What tricks she might be persuaded to do?.. And how? Is it possible to train a tiny terrorizer never to yap? Surely the going-2-bed-in-a-bag trick is easy to train...? Lots of posh ladies take their toy doggies everywhere ... into posh restaurants, bars, shops etc... and only get away with it because the furry mutants (I'm not too keen on pomeranians/chewawas/etc ~ I wouldn't want anything more ridiculous than a porkie)... because these furry swines are well trained and habituated to going in a bag and behaving... know what I mean..??

We did have dogs as I was growing gup, but I've never had a doggie of my "own"... only cats, hamsters, tropical fish (inc. giant snail and dwarf aquatic frog)... freshwater prawns ... and a mouse. Never the canine sort of trotters... so:~ ANSWERS PLEASE!!

ANSWERS PLEASE!!

CAIRN TERRIER TRICKS...
I love doggies with furry "beards" growing out of their "boze" (their snout)... aren't they CUTE!!

These are the kind of tricks I'd want my tiny terrier to do... but they'd have to be more professionally executed for TV...
... but this beautiful ケアーン・テリア is still doing a wonderful job ...
... hey do you really think I could get a baby cairn or porkie caste as the next Eddie on the next Frasier?... wouldn't that be amazing!!



YORKSHIRE TERRIER TRICKS...
THIS is the type of puppy I want ~ a very bright little porkie!



You can see some more tiny terrier's tricks on my Amazing Pets blog...

Porkshire Sunday

I SAW an American Akita, really cute, who looks like he's got shades on, such is his face pattern. He walks down the road two streets away. The owner caught me staring. "But his tail isn't curly!" I remarked.

"Ooh aye!" she replied. I think she comes from Yorkshire.

Talking of Porkshire terrorizers ~ there's a Japanese girl on my street who walks one that looks just like Baby Itchy Roborovski when fur-bashed, soaking wet and compulsorily groomed by Bashful and Spherical. Very sweet.

And talking of Japanese, I'm doing really well with it. Studying every day. I know 200 kanji now and have a vocabulary of about 600 words. I'm aiming at 7000-word fluency within the next two years...

I'm still in a quandry about dogs. There's no room at my place for an Akita, much as I'd love one ~ and I really love them. (Who would ever guess~~!!?!) I found a mop terrier called Scruffy at a North London animal shelter, but I he is reserved and I think I would have to get a puppy anyhow, to train it to do tricks, including smuggling itself in a bag into supermarkets etc (and when my landlord comes round and I mysteriously have to leave every time). We're not really meant to keep pets, though I didn't sign anything. The guy downstairs has a staffordshire bull terrier, but he has access to the back garden... well I'm still working on it...

... and I have to go, I'm about to be timed out as per usual. Hope y'all are having a CHEERY WEEKEND!!

Back tomorrow...

Border Terriers

FURRY FRIDAY (on Saturday)

I haven't a huge amount to say, so here's some shots of tiny terriers... they remind me of the robo hamsters I used to keep, when soaking wet from being "washed" by their friends...

This is said to be the natural "stripped" coat:



And this is what "standard" border terriers look like:



This pepsome puppy reminds me of Itchy Roborovski jumping for joy... (escaping from me!!)



And a cheery weekend to y'all..!

Norfolk Terriers

FURRY FRIDAY ~ ACTUALLY ON FRIDAY, FOR ONCE!

Norfolk terriers are the tiniest furry-mop terriers you can get...



They are almost the same as Norwich terriers, which at about 5kg are just as tiny ...



... the difference being that Norwich terriers have ordinary perky ears, whereas Norfolk terriers' ears are lopsy-down...

In case you are reading this on faraway shores, by the way, Norwich is the capital of Norfolk county ~ hence local names for very similar doggies...



The Norwich ones remind me of my late hamster, Baby Itchy Roborovski, who was the tiniest one, with perky-up ears and a bashed-up looking coat from all the compulsory licking and grooming the bigger two roborovskis put her through!



The tiny terrier puppies are, of course, really charming and cute..!



HAVE A CHEERY WEEKEND, Y'ALL!!

Free Puppy Offer!

I GOT OFFERED A FREE PUPPYDOG YESTERDAY!!
I'm not sure the "act" has actually taken place yet, but when it does, the father will be a pitbull-mastiff cross and the mother a perky staffordshire bull terrier~...!!
I am saying nothing!!!!
The male dog I know well. He is enormous. When they got him, his owners thought he was a rottweiler. I thought "well I got their temperament all wrong" (quiet, standoffish, dignified) ~ this one is really cheery with most people and really aggressive with other male dogs. He barks loudly when tied up, has huge zest for life and never goes unnoticed wherever he is. He looks like a rottweiler on steroids or a rottweiler-brown bear cross ~ with his gigantic head...
... which of course belongs to a mastiff.
I was very flattered at the offer, but not to be nasty: Pitbulls, Mastiffs and Staffs are probably the three breeds I would LEAST likely go for. About HALF the dogs you walk past on the streets in some areas of London seem to be of these types. Their owners usually seem to want to look "hard" ~ and yet many times the dog is walking them. Which pretty much says everything.
In the library today I found a book called Your Akita. Now Akitas ARE the sort of big doggies I like because 1. they are beautiful with bushy fur and 2. I like their nature which is quiet and reserved ~ but not at all timid. They have the most magnificent bearing. But enough about doggies for one day I have to go as I'm about to be TERMINATED yet again..!
SOBER TODAY!! HAHA!! :-)

Drunk counselling session

COUNSELLING, COUNSELLING, PSYCH-IN... TOTAL PSYCH-OUT, I have appointments coming out of my ears. Yesterday I was in such a tizz. "Tizz" is a nice way of putting it. All I wanted was to take a fat hit of gear, jump out of a 50th floor window. Or stay by myself staring at the wall. Actually TALKING about anything was not on my agenda. But I HAD to go to a pure counselling appointment ~~ not a druggieservice appointment but a counselling centre one, where the format is 50 blank minutes, unstructured, with the counsellor staring across and I so much could not handle this. Did not want to go. Missed the last one because did not want to go. Thought "I'm just wasting your time here. We should call this off." Didn't want to let the counsellor down, who I knew was coming in just to see me. So I turned up "reeking of drink". Laughing, Crying. I wasn't that drunk (I mean, 2 hours later I was stone cold sober.) I was only laughing out of nerves and a penchant for self-mockery. Somehow whenever anything bad happens to me, part of me finds it hilarious, no matter how bad it is or was. I don't know why. The counsellor tells me that these years of drugs have made me remote from myself. I'm constantly switching my emotions off. Like other people on heroin (and methadone only perpetuates the state at a lesser intensity) "the lights are on but no-one's home". This is the state of heroin intoxication addicts crave. Many of us have probably witnessed this on the bus. Someone gets on obviously out of it. Sits down, barely conscious ("the lights are on ~ no-one's home"), jolting and swaying to the motion of the vehicle. But because the lights are on, and burning bright, a smackhead ~ as opposed to a drunk ~ is highly unlikely to fall off the seat, trip over or crash into something on the way home. Weird.
Anyway the counsellor said "I cannot work with someone who is pickled with alcohol" so sent me home early (I was so glad).
I don't want to give up on the counselling because it is a link with normality. And thought therapy-speak does annoy me, I am able to tolerate it. For example, the notion that emotional pain is somehow self-inflicted or wallowed in and thus easily escapable to one who sufficiently desires escape. So I said "what about someone swathed in bandages with horrific burns in a hospital bed, can that person convince themself to stop hurting?" "No, because that's not emotional that's physical." So I said "but emotional mechanisms are as real as physical ones..." blah blah blah, we went on from there.
I had two huge chunks of counselling in the past. 3-&-a-half years of it, at least... so how far down I can dig in just 12 more weeks, I'm not sure...
I had about 18 months or two years of "person centred" (ie crap) in my early 20s. Two-and-a-half years of "psychodynamic" (ie deep) in my mid 20s. The bookings were supposed to be limited to 24 months only at this place as it was staffed by qualified volunteers, working pro-bono. But I was such a mess I got this 6-month extension. The latter counsellor, who was spot-on and very bright kept saying "I think you need more help than I can give you" meaning seeing a sinister psychiatrist. I was totally against the idea.
Then I turned into a raving smackhead. Now I'm here. Nearly 40 and no hope left. What a wondrous journey life has been!!

Underground Overground

FURTHER to my metro/subway/tube post the day before yesterday ~ about tube stations in cities near and far of which I know nothing about where they actually ARE ~ ie what's actually there above ground, here's the pictures:

TOKYO: HIGASHI-NIHONBASHI



Nihombashi/Nihonbashi (you can spell it either way) "Japan Bridge East" is Tokyo's major business district, full of high class hotels...

BERLIN: UNTER DEN LINDEN



This is what's actually under the legendary lime trees ~ rather a nice park with the Brandenburger Schloss at the end...

PARIS: LA MOTTE PICQUET GRENELLE



This interchange station, about 2 stops from the hostel where I once stayed in Commerce, in the 15th arrondisement, on line number 8, direction Balard, marks the intersection of Aveunue de la Motte Picquet and Avenue de la Grenelle. Pictured above: Avenue de la Motte Picquet (all very left bank) ~ and very swish!

LONDON: MUDCHUTE



Although, most disappointingly, there is no mud and no chutes to be seen at this DLR station, Mudchute is, amazingly, well known for its city farm where sheep graze against a backdrop of glittering towers..!

Cairn/Imaal Terrier, Volcano Chaos, Liberal Democrats to Win!

I MET some Scottish people I know today and they said if I get a doggie I should go for a tiny terrier... like this golden cairn terrier pictured.

I know it's really sad but I still want a dog. Even though I shouldn't really keep one.

My only problem with a small dog would be, I would want to take it walkies everywhere I go, but would be compelled to leave it tied up outside supermarkets, druggieservice appointments etc... where I would be absolutely terrified the poor thing might get STOLEN. Doggieknapping is increasingly common these days. If I could, I would like to train the tiny trotter to curl up contentedly in a backpack with the zip half drawn... but knowing my luck, right in the middle of Morrisons the little swine would get the scent of freshly roast chicken, do a bound over the glass counter and start savaging the legs of the poor Indian gentleman who works there... Ooer!



The other sort of tiny terrier I like, in fact as small dogs go this these, in looks at least, are exactly what I think is cutest, are GLEN OF IMAAL terriers. Look at these tiny trotterdonkies here!



Bear in mind, before y'all accuse me of fickleness, that I said there are THREE types of doggies I like best. 1: large wolf-like dogs (Akitas) 2: medium-sized mop-head dogs (some water dogs, Disney-style mutt dogs) and 3: tiny terriers esp. Glen of Imaal or Cairn type. So there you have it.



And now we're on to the pesky Icelandic volcano that has brought flight chaos to the entire continent of Europe. Today the Royal Navy are cruising to Calais, northern France which if you're from faraway shores I suppose you wouldn't know is the traditional sea-gateway to Britain (via Dover)... where THOUSANDS of British businessmen, tourists, hen-and-stag partiers... etc etc have trekked by hire car, train (the trains are doing great business ~ you cannot get a Eurostar seat Paris-London till Thursday earliest)... one woman on the news even claimed to have spent 2500 Euros to travel in style from southern Spain to Northern France, where she is still stuck for lack of boat space...

This is all due to an enormous, mostly invisible (by the time it gets to British airspace) cloud of volcanic dust. Civil aviation authorities insist this dust could melt inside jet engines causing jumbo jets to fail and crash... and yet British Airways' chief exec, to name just one, claims to have been on an explorotary flight two hours into the Atlantic from London Heathrow in a jumbo jet... and NO DAMAGE AT ALL... which makes me wonder what's ACTUALLY happening.

All I do know is literally 100s of 1000s of people of all nationalities are stuck all over the globe unable to return home. Weddings are having to be cancelled... exams missed. Utter chaos. Not nice.

And all down to one irritable mountain over a thousand miles away!!

Here's some lovely close-ups of the eminently pronouncable Eyjafjallajökull spewing luminous tomato soup everywhere:



This report from Russian State television (in English)





And last but not least, in the current yawnsome general election SOMETHING INTERESTING appears to be happening at last...

Over the decades, British politics has transformed from a staunch class war, with hard left/hard right at it undoing years of one another's work in successive governments to a much more American-style system where the parties vary less on a communist-capitalist basis than a newer (to us) liberal-illiberal axis... People are totally and utterly fed up with New Labour, who amongst other things actually had the cheek to pass laws allowing motorists to be fined for parking violations weeks afterwards, if local councils happen to film the unauthorized parking on CCTV. I don't know why, because I don't even drive, but this really takes the biscuit for me. The relentless harrowing away at civil liberties. The sheer ignorance and folly. I think the librarians at the local library could do a better job of running the exchequer than that lot... Then there's ~ o man I can't even remember the smarmy git's name. Him. Posh Boy's conservative mob. Nobody really likes them. Their popularity was mostly an illusion inspired by protest against the status quo... Now something amazing is happening ... the THIRD PARTY, polyglot Nick Clegg's LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ARE IN THE LEAD! If this happens it will produce the biggest change in the political landscape for generations. It will all be for the worse, of course. But hey, at least it will be DIFFERENT for a CHANGE!

I have to say I do like Nick Clegg far more than Toryboy Smarmypants (still can't remember his name... o yeah DAVID CAMERON, that's him. Gordon Brown I cannot stand, as much because he cannot bear ever to be seen to be wrong, admit a fault or say he is sorry ~ and boy does that man have a lot to apologize for ~ and even though I disagree with many of his policies ~ e.g. "tax the rich". I want to be rich, and I don't wanna pay high taxes! I do hope in a way that they get in (it will have to be a multiparty alliance type govt anyway ~ Britain's first past the post election system, where the party is divided into constituencies, you vote for your local MP (never the leader) ~ the party with the most seats rules... all this will have to change in favour of proportional representation, which leaves the former top two sweating and weak at the knees...

WOW I can't wait for election day. I know the country's going to the dogs, at least it might go to Akitas and Glen of Imaal terriers now rather than pitbulls and staffs... know what I mean..??!?

Metro Mystery...

SURELY y'all remember arriving in a big city, full of names ~ legendary and half familiar... you get off the plane, train or bus wanting to see as much of this place as possible ~ yet the first thing you have to do is plunge into a hole deep underground and ride the city's metro system before you can really see anything.

These are five metro stations in four cities (only 2 of which I've been to). The metro stations themselves are a point of fascination because I NEVER GOT TO SEE what was actually there...

PARIS:



Paris was the first metropolis I ever got to wander round at leisure for days on end ~ not London (long story). I was there for just over a week and saw more of Paris in this time than just about any place I'd ever been on earth.

LA MOTTE PIQUET GRENELLE was the interchange station about two stops from the Three Ducks Hostel in Commerce ~ which has a traditional provincial style park where old men play boules ~ and is about 10 mins walk from the Eiffel Tower. A pretty cool place to stay.
The name evokes no imagery in my mind as I haven't a clue what a motte, piquet or grenelle mean, but there is something catchy about those words, which is why it remains in my brainbox to this day...



LONDON: MUDCHUTE

In theory I should have seen something of this, perhaps the ugliest-named place in town, because the EastEnd Docklands Light Railway runs above ground. But no. No mud... and no chutes! Pity!



BERLIN: UNTER DEN LINDEN

Linden trees are lime trees. Unter den Linden U-bahn stop was for many years just to the west side of the Berlin wall and, railways aside, I have always wondered exactly WHAT is under those legendary trees...

TOKYO: HIGASHI NIHOMBASHI



You could translate this literally as "Eastern Japan Bridge", or render it in metro speak as "Japan Bridge East"...
I like the way it rhymes. And I would like to see the bridge. And I really want to go to Tokyo one day soon...



TOKYO: TSUKISHIMA

This means "moon island"... I would really like to see the moon shining on this mysterious isle in central Tokyo...

YOU CAN FIND OUT WHAT'S above/around these stations by clicking the highlighted links...

PS: so much for romantic images of the moon glittering mysteriously on waters around silhouetted kimono-clad geisha-girls strumming tuneless mandolins against cherry-blossom-strewn pagodas. THIS is what "Moon Island" actually looks like!!