The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, novel and play (2)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, novel and play (1)

So, I visited a theatre in London to watch the play of this work.

Some theatre sell special tickets in the morning. You can get a seat in the front row with only 15 GBP. To get one, I got there early morning and waited for opening the theatre at a cafe in front of it. At a half past 9 o'clock, a line for buying tickets began. So, I joined in it.

The front seat of the stall is not so good position to watch a play, to be honest. It is too close to the stage to look around the whole stage at a glance. You hardly recognize what kind of items are on the ground of the stage. On the other hand, you can look at actors' faces in detail. It is fantastic. I felt as if the breath of the actors reached me.

The play was awesome. Christopher almost always had some strange gestures such as keep fiddling his fingers or rolling a pen. They are known as autistic behaviors frequently seen in patients with Autism. Christopher has some other rituals to calm himself down. He sometimes recites prime numbers. Such actions looked not studied, but quite natural.

I wondered how to describe Christopher's feeling in the play. In the novel, he wrote his thoughts in detail in every scene. But actually, he was very bad at express his emotion on time. Thus, it would be unnatural if he talked about his thought with his own tongue. In the play, Ms. Siobhan, who understand his character the most deeply, read his diary instead of him, to explain his thought of mind in some scene. It is a cool direction. Actually, I felt it was a little redundant. In act 2, she never read his diary, suggesting that Christopher gradually becomes capable to express his mind.

The stage is surrounded by walls with cross strips. They worked very artificially. In some scenes, he drew something on the ground, meanwhile the wall projected it. The walls often express Christopher's confusion, with projecting prime numbers or some other busy movies.

Totally, I was very satisfied with the play. The storyline exactly copied the original novel. In addition, some directions were effective to make his own emotion visualized. I entirely enjoyed it.

This play has been introduced to Japan. Goh Morita, played it as Christopher.

Sankei: Goh Morita plays a boy with Asperger syndrome in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (in Japanese)

*sequel

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, novel and play (1)

Very recently, I read thoroughly an English novel titled "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".

It is a novel by Mark Haddon. Once published it gained an honorable reputation and was translated into Japanese.

Amazon.com: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The hero of this novel is Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15 yr old boy with Autism spectrum disorder. One day, he found a dog belonging to a neighbor killed with a garden fork. He decided to detect the murderer. With all his efforts to mimic Sherlock Holms, However, his communicative disabilities caused many troubles. Then, he accidentally revealed a terrible fact about his mother who seemed to died 2 years ago as his father told him.

This novel has a form as Christopher wrote the whole dialogues following to an advice of Siobhan, his teacher. Any numbers of each chapter are composed of prime number. And he often inserts some information which he is interested in, such as mathematics and astronomy.

There are three topics to be enjoyable in this book. First is the mysterious storyline. Who killed the dog? Who could do it? And who was motivated to do so? Christopher proceeds his reasoning with his logical mind. Second, his characteristic as Asperger syndrome is quite funny, a little odd and much cheerful. As a psychiatrist, I thought that the his traits and agony are precisely described. Furthermore, the later part of the novel describes the growth of him. His father and related persons are also involved in the case. They suffer from the difference of each of the stances, and struggle for a happy ending with Christopher.

I was able to read this book completely in English in spite of its length of over 200 pages, because it was quite interesting. In addition, the rhetorical style written by Christopher was so easy to understand. I strongly recommend it for English learners.

This work was arranged into a stage drama. I enjoyed it, too.

(To be continued)

Apple unveil iPhone6, iWatch, and Apple Pay

Apple held a conference in Cupertino yesterday. In this place, it presented some new products including iWatch, as many prospected.

Apple Live Sempember 9, 2014

The scene of presentation could be broadcasted all over the world. Apple made only Safari users be able to watch it. However, I could not connect the site to see the streaming, perhaps too much traffic of the digital signals. Many other viewers made similar complaints on the Twitter.

So, I could just imagine the content of the presentation from Apple's official blog and several comments of professional of amateur reporters.

TechCrunch:  Live From Apple’s iPhone Event In Cupertino

Today, many media reported the whole contents of the presentation by Apple. According to them, there are 3 main topics:
1. iPhone6 and iPhone6 plus
2. iWatch
3. Apple Pay

To be honest, I was not so impressed upon the former 2 topics, because they are easy to be forecasted. If iWatch were able to work completely with stand alone, I would be fascinated. However, iWatch needs iPhone connected, to make use of it, as same as previous smartwatches powered by other companies. iPhone6 is also not so innovative, simply more high functional. I do not think it will make my life different.

I am interested in Apple Pay. It is a new system of electric payment. The reported said that iPhone would override your credit cards since Apple Pay is more secure than credit cards. Actually, I would reduce an item in my pockets using Apple Pay. It is secure, and comfortable. But there is another point of view.

Electric commerce is one of the biggest battlefields among IT companies. It is vitally related to their business. And it is essential to our daily lives. As a proof, Amazon has also declared to join in this field.

Apple has already possessed a market named iTunes. It is an absolute advantage of it. It seems that the companies ready to introduce Apple Pay are not so many. If Apple wins an important position in E-commerce market, it will gain more gigantic power, it leads to crises for conventional companies dealing with this field.

WHO publish report of suicide rate in 2012

World Health Organization (WHO) published estimated suicide rates in all the countries in 2012. This is the first official report by WHO to prevent suicide.

WHO: First WHO report on suicide prevention

Actually, WHO has been gathering data about suicide continuously. This is a graph in 2012 referring a part of data by WHO.

The approximated trend has not changed from the past. Korea, Russia, and Japan are suicide rich countries.

My past entry: Suicide in Japan

Suicide in Greece seemed to be reduced a little in 2012, although I was afraid that Greece was suffering from financial crisis.

My past entry: Suicide in Greece

Interpretation about the statistics of suicide is quite difficult because it contains many factors such as mental health, economy, religion, and other environmental ones.

To begin with, it is not certain if this data in Demographic People's Republic of Korea and some other countries is reliable. In some developing countries, many people are killed by infectious diseases before suicidal events occur. Therefore, it is not concluded that citizens are happier in low rates of suicide. It is also interesting that suicide is relatively frequent in Bhutan, which emphasize Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH). Whether any regional conflicts can inflict suicide is not certain in this data.

Women are more resistant to suicide compared to men, regardless of regions. It is surprising that women are more likely to commit suicide than men in China. Gender Inequality Index in China is not so bad, according to Human Development Reports by the United Nation. Perhaps the high rate of female suicide is due to some specific cultural factors.

Anyway, there is a strict fact that more than 800,000 people killed themselves in a year. It is quite, absolutely  serious.

Trying instant noodle in London

As mentioned to food in London, I have to refer to instant noodles.

Actually, there is no microwave oven in my flat. Additionally, the kitchen is shared with my flatmates. So, I hardly cook anything on my own with great effort.

Therefore, I decided to try some instant noodles for breakfast.

This is one of the series of KOKA produced by TAT HUI Foods Pte Ltd.
It costed only 1 GBP for 3 packs.

The content is quite simple. No additional ingredients were contained.

After 4 minutes, ready to eat!

It tasted not bad, similar to Japanese instant Ramen.

I also tried this one, Pot Noodle by ASDA. According to a Japanese blog, it is terrible. The author dropped it all without eating.

SUMEBA LONDON: Tabete ha ikenai kappu-men [A cup noodle not to eat] (in Japanese)

I chose one with original curry taste, because I think there is no bad curry.

The instruction was so interesting. I knew making an instant noodle is difficult nearly as much as launching a rocket.

I felt bad feeling about dry peas above the noodle.

After pouring boiled water, I needed to stir in the cup repeatedly, according to the instruction. Generally, stirring is not required in Japanese cup noodles.

Finally, The time had come to dig it!

Hmm, the taste was not so, good, to be honest. The noodles were easy to tatter. The flavor was persistent.　The peas were horrible as I had predicted. The whole taste was dull.

Nevertheless, it was not so extremely bad to drop it.

I ate it completely.

However, I will never try it.

*sequel

Cuisine in London

Perhaps you are curious at cuisine in London. It is deemed that foods in London are not delicious. Indeed, I had not been satisfied at cuisine during last three journeys in London. However, the position is changing.

I have been in London for a week. Every day, I have delicious, or not bad foods.

The first day
I visited at a Chinese restaurant. I ate some spicy foods.

The second day
I bought some breads and cheese at Sainsbury's, a famous supermarket. They are soft and mild.

The third day
I visited the Chinese restaurant again. I ate curry, quite delicious.

The fourth day
I visited McDonald's for the first time in London. Its taste was as same as any other McDonald's, not bad, but not so delicious either. The price was also relatively low as same as others.

The fifth day
 I had a lunch at Vineyard Greek Taverna. It is a Greek cuisine restaurant. Kebab and some dips with Pita were great.

The sixth day
I went to Noodle City, a franchise of China and East Asian cuisine. This store I visited served buffet style dining. I enjoyed it.

The seventh day
Zeret Kitchin holds a high reputation in Tripadvisor. It is an Ethiopian cuisine. I ate some spicy meat enveloped by Injera, rice paper with sour flavor. It was quite strange but great.

The eighth day
I visited at Nando's, a casual restaurant offering African spicy Chicken. It is introduced by a Japanese blog. Not different from the saying in it, it was quite yummy.

SUMEBA London: London de tension ga sagattara Nando's he Go! [Go to Nando's if you are tired] (in Japanese)

To sum up, London gather many great cuisines from all over the world.

The only problem is that I have not eaten British cuisine yet.

*sequel

Seeking house in London (3)

Seeking house in London (1)
Seeking house in London (2)

The next day, I decided to visit some estate agencies nearby my office.

There are several estate dealers in London such as Haart, Foxtons, Eaton Green, and so on.

To be honest, I visited some offices and asked for flats a few days ago. The agents told me to call back if available flats were found. But nobody replied. I guess that they felt bothered because I visited there in the evening. So I walked around in the morning this time.

As a result, all three agencies I talked to introduced a flat. I could look into each of them in detail.

You have to know that the properties advertised in front of the offices are false, or overestimated. You never get them. Instead, I got offered another flat, a little more expensive.

The selection was very difficult. The first one was clean and inexpensive, but far from my office. The second was also nice and very close to my office. However, it was the most expensive. In addition, it is a little hard to go to the center of London from there. The last was located in the center of the district. I would able to walk to my office in 10 minutes. So it would be very convenient to live there. But this property was not so clean. There were few furniture attached.

After a long consideration, I chose the last one. The location cannot be compensated for money afterwards. I believe my decision is correct.

*sequel