Barry's Journal

According to The Telegraph the Chinese are formulating plans to build a high-speed rail network that would allow passengers to travel by train from King’s Cross to Beijing in just two days.

Passengers could board a train in London and step off in Beijing, 5,070 miles away as the crow flies, in just two days. They could go on to Singapore, 6,750 miles away, within three days. The network would also run to India and Pakistan, according to Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a senior consultant on China’s domestic high-speed rail project.

A second project would see trains heading north through Russia to Germany and into the European railway system, and a third line will extend south to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.

And whilst we’re talking about epic railway journeys, go and have a look at this – a virtual journey on the great Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok on Google Maps.

Times Online - Yoko Ono: Back to where she once belonged
Yoko Ono is forever associated with the Beatles, yet her aristocratic family life in imperial Japan, long before she met John Lennon, was equally intriguing

Interesting when she talks about John going to meet his Japanese in-laws for the first time:

He was surprised to find that his monumental fame cut no ice with his in-laws. The couple had known each other for four years, but Lennon had only the smallest inkling of Yoko’s social status and made no effort to ingratiate himself.

“He just went to my parents’ place unshaven, and wearing an army-surplus coat,” she says. “Just the most hip outfit, very rock’n’roll! I mean, rock’n’roll can be a performance in a theatre, a beautiful, gorgeous thing. But he was just looking like a bum.

Must stop by this place if I’m ever in Liuzhou, China.

via Liuzhou Laowai

via Omniglot

Nüshu (女书) is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in Jiangyong Prefecture, Hunan Province, China. The women were forbidden formal education for many centuries and developed the Nüshu script in order to communicate with one another. They embroidered the script into cloth and wrote it in books and on paper fans.

I’m just over half way through my week of night shifts and my attempts at trying to sleep during the daytime have been hit and miss so far.

On Wednesday I had my sleep disturbed throughout the entire day by the sound of hammering coming through the walls of my bedroom, and then on Thursday the builders decided to take down the wall surrounding the front garden of the house next door with a pneumatic drill, meaning that I couldn’t get to sleep until well after 2pm.

Yesterday wasn’t quite as bad and I actually managed to sleep until the early afternoon without being disturbed.

I’m hoping for some peace and quiet over the weekend, but if not, I might just pop next door and skullfuck the owner with a sledgehammer. Happy days.

• The White House Mystery Drug
  While the White House won’t say what the president is actually taking, Provigil (also known by its generic name modafinil) is an intriguing possibility. The drug has acquired an almost mythic status in recent years as a pill that makes it possible for the user to bypass the all-too-human need for sleep and work 24 or even 36 hours at a stretch

Quite unusually for me, I’ve had a reasonably busy weekend. On Saturday I made a special trip to that unholy place otherwise known as Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd’s Bush only to find that the store I wanted to go in is no-longer there, then on Sunday I went to play a few frames of snooker at a club in Twickenham. It’s been a long time since I played snooker and even longer since I last played on a full-size table so I’m not ashamed to admit that the highest break I made was only 9. Still, I enjoyed myself and will definitely go back and play again when I have time.

I’ve got a week of night shifts coming up and it seems like it’s going to be yet another week where I’m deprived of my sleep.

I was woken up just after 8 o’clock this morning by more banging, drilling and hammering coming at me through the walls from the house next door. Admittedly, the noise wasn’t quite as bad as it has been in recent months, but it’s still irritating enough to wake me up, and definitely annoying enough to prevent me from falling asleep.

Now starts a long and likely messed-up week of night shifts. 1/7. Goodnight.

Clicky link to official product page for Asuka Sawamoto’s fuck-film debut
(obviously, do not click if hardcore Japanese pornography easily offends you)

Asuka Sawamoto’s AV debut available in Japan from 1st April.

Another beautiful (and a previously unreleased) song from Smile Down Upon Us as part of the February edition of the Arctic Circle Explorers Club podcast, which you can download from here.

An old photo of my Tibetan friend Tsepa with her brother.

Once again, apologies for the lack of recent updates. I’m at that point in my month where I’m going to bed earlier than a toddler, and then having to haul myself out of bed at the crack of sparrowshit the following morning. I’m averaging about six hours of sleep a night.

Before I go, I just want to thank to everyone who used the widget in the sidebar to send me a message, but you know, it’d be much more fun for both of us if you got drunk first and then sent me messages.

Okay, the neurons in my brain have stopped firing and vital biological functions are beginning to shut down, so I think it’s time I left the web to it.

I’m posting this again because I have to attend a corporate propoganda event on Thursday. Goodnight.

King’s X at 7:30 on a Monday morning (via @HarukaAbe)

• Paul Nash: The Elements – Dulwich Picture Gallery
  Exhibition includes paintings, watercolours and photographs from the whole of his career, showing how he selected elementary objects, to put them in relationships of conflict or harmony, and found pathways, nests and thresholds between them and within them

The final magnification is e.214. A magnification of e.12 would increase the size of one actual single particle, to the same size as the earths orbit! e.21 would make that particle look the same size as the milky way. e.42 would be equal to the universe.