Like Fountains

It makes sense to start a blog with an introduction and a coherent description of what sort of topics will be covered. Unfortunately, I have not the slightest idea what I'm going to use this for. I have never liked the idea of writing about myself directly - I can't imagine many people would be interested reading about what I do every day, which is mostly fairly mundane. Blogs with a specific purpose make for much more interesting reads, but the only thing about which I know enough to write coherent, regular and interesting pieces is music, and it makes much more sense to continue to use Last.fm for that. The name 'Like Fountains' is therefore temporary (it is the name of one of my favourite tracks by The Gathering, for anyone interested), and will eventually be replaced when I've decided on a proper direction.

Whilst the longer-term purpose for this space is unclear, it is much easier to say what I plan to use it for in the short term: posting up the record of my trip to Japan with my friends in early September. I had originally planned to use Last.fm for this, but in the end, I decided to keep Last.fm for purely music-related thoughts, and write about Japan somewhere else. Whilst Last.fm makes it much easier to get casual readers, I can't imagine casual readers (or indeed, anyone with any sanity) will get past the first few paragraphs of the report. Those people masochistic enough to want to read the entire thing should be aware that there is a huge amount of trivial detail and that (with the exception of a few paragraphs) it has mostly been written unedited and only fairly briefly proof-read. It is therefore unlikely that it will possess any great degree of coherence or literary quality. Anyone who wishes to get a general idea of the trip is advised to read the first paragraph of day 1 and then any selection from days 3, 4, 6, 9, 12 and 15.

As mentioned above, I wrote this with the original intention of posting it up on my journal on Last.fm, and had planned to use a relevant modification of a rock or metal track as the title for each day. Whilst that appears much less appropriate here, I will retain the music-related titles I had planned to use, if only because some of them work so nicely, I can't bear to let them go to waste.

One point of note is the Japanese exchange rate: when commissions are factored in, ¥100 can be approximated as £0.80. Finally, I should say that there will inevitably be numerous references to Japanese anime and manga. Whilst I have translated as many of these as I can, some terms simply do not translate elegantly, and I recommend that anyone who isn't a fan of either medium keeps open something like this to help with terminology.