...yeah...fun...

So I really like my job.

Last Friday I gave a speech at Miyajima island, which became part of our city last November. Following it, at the obligatory "have-a-nice-cup-of-tea-and-a-natter" session attended by some of the town elders they regaled me with tales of Miyajima past.

In particular they informed me that the cigarettes and tobacco given to them by New Zealand occupying forces after the war, was....

"The best tobacco I have ever had..."

This was greeted by furious agreement, much nodding of the head and a round of "yep", "delicious" and "mmmmm" by the assembled folk. Then, to a one the five elderly chaps present all mimicked the PERFECT Roll-Your-Own style roll-lick-roll-pinch. It bought a tear to my eye.

What was most interesting was, after extrapolating their ages it became obvious that some of the Kiwis stationed here with J-Force after the war were in fact encouraging smoking in minors. But still, never let it be said they didn't appreciate it.

In other work related news, I just had a chap come to the office and try and convince me for 40 minutes that 9/11 was faked with radio controlled aircraft. One theory to be sure, but made all the more vague and unintelligable as he INSISTED on speaking in English and, rather unfortunately, had a commanding grasp of only about 5 English words (not including, interestingly, "Nine", "Eleven" or "Aircraft" - although in all fairness when someone sticks both arms out, stands up, walks a figure eight and goes "brrrrrrrrrrrrrr" in a crowded office, you get the picture pretty quick.)

No one knows where he came from, and with full respect to my collegues, no-one tried to intervene. They were more than happy to sit there and let me take one for the team.

And bloody good on them too.

As I said, he insisted he speak in English and anytime I tried to enquire about the finer points of his story in Japanese, he would stare at me, raise his fingers to his lips and say...

"...Radio Controlled..."

After 40 rollicking minutes of perfecting my 1000 yard stare he pulled out a pocket radio mid sentence, and, locking eyes with me, put the headphones in and strolled out of my life.

I will miss him.