Dickensian Celebration

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

To celebrate the exact 155th anniversary of Charles Dickens‘s death and the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Charles Dickens Museum in London, the museum will be free of charge to all visitors on June 9 when it will also be guest-stewarded by members of the writer’s family.

Among the members of the Dickens family welcoming visitors will be:

  • Lucinda Dickens Hawksley (great-great-great-granddaughter) who will also give a talk about Dickens’s international travels
  • Gerald Dickens (great-great-grandson) who will discuss the Staplehurst train crash on the 160th anniversary of the Kent train derailment which Dickens survived and which inspired him to write ghost story The Signalman
  • Mark Dickens (great-great-grandson) who will read A Christmas Carol in Dickens’s study alongside the ‘Lost Portrait’, painted while Dickens was writing perhaps his most famous story
  • Ian Dickens (great-great-grandson) reading David Copperfield
  • Ollie Dickens (great-great-great-grandson) who will read from Oliver Twist in the room in which the story was written

The Museum’s birthday exhibition, Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens is a celebration of the life of Dickens and the museum, running through June 29.

 

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Minding Your Manners

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

I’ve just returned from an amazing three-week trip to Japan and was delighted and overwhelmed by so much that I encountered, including the fabulous graphic design work everywhere. Passing through Kyoto Station I spotted a clever ad campaign while heading to catch a speedy Shinkansen train to Tokyo. When I returned home, I did some research and found out a little about it.

Kodansha, one of Japan’s leading manga publishers, has launched an innovative campaign titled “MANGA MANNERS” to educate visitors about Japanese etiquette through beloved manga characters. Following the success of a similar initiative at Narita Airport in 2024, this new campaign is prominently featured at major Tokaido Shinkansen stations, including Tokyo, Shinagawa, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Shin-Osaka, from April 24 to June 30, 2025.

The “MANGA MANNERS” campaign utilizes characters from 17 popular Kodansha manga titles to illustrate various aspects of Japanese etiquette. Themes range from hygiene and attire to food and also safety. Sailor Moon teaches how to properly wear a Kimono while Akira educates on traffic laws.

These visual guides are strategically placed in high-traffic areas within the stations, offering travelers engaging reminders of local customs.

To further assist international travelers, Kodansha is distributing limited-edition leaflets at the participating stations. These leaflets compile all 17 etiquette tips, allowing visitors to take home a unique souvenir that reinforces their understanding of Japanese customs.

 

 

 

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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Grossing the highest box-office of any British film in the US when released in 1975, this “cult classic” comedy from the Monty Python team loosely follows the legend of King Arthur (Graham Chapman), along with his squire (Terry Gilliam) and his Knights of the Round Table (John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin), as they embark on a fearless quest in search of the elusive Holy Grail. A hysterical, historical tour-de-force from Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Now during it’s 50th anniversary year you can steam the funniest film ever for free.

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I can’t believe that NYC is #17

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

To paraphrase Tolstoy’s famous opening line: All happy cities are alike; each unhappy city is unhappy in its own way.

Maybe that’s too clunky a way to introduce the 2025 Happy City Index, but I’m seriously jetlagged so it will have to do today. According to the Happy City Index “it is not fair to establish a single city as the leader. It is more appropriate to recognize a group of cities committed to cultivating and growing happiness, where education, inclusive policies, the economy, mobility, environmental protection, access to green areas, and innovation are not only important components of official policies but are also evident in the solutions implemented. These solutions should be tangible for residents and have a direct impact on their quality of life.

Since every city is a dynamic landscape, their activities must be periodically reviewed, especially with regard to the quality of public services provided and the application of place-based knowledge in response to new challenges that arise. We undertake this process daily and publish our findings annually. Every year has its highs and lows, and the past year was no exception— from debates related to AI to various hot and cold conflicts and polarizations around the globe, as well as the aftershocks of the pandemic, such as the increased focus on wellbeing in public debate. This is a positive development, though it remains insufficiently inclusive.

The challenges of today’s world are complex, requiring a holistic approach and tailored solutions. We all know it’s better to prevent than to cure. Strong leadership in the implementation of wellbeing policies is more crucial now than ever. Policymakers are often perceived as slow to react and quick to be blamed, but we believe this is often an unfair bias, especially concerning local leaders. Local governments have a direct and significant impact on people’s everyday lives and, consequently, their happiness—our shared fundamental human goal. So here they are”

Happy City Index 2025

  1. Copenhagen
  2. Zurich
  3. Singapore
  4. Aarhus
  5. Antwerp
  6. Seoul
  7. Stockholm
  8. Taipei
  9. Munich
  10. Rotterdam
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A Little Fable

Posted on May 28, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

“Alas,” said the mouse, “the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.”

“You only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.

–Franz Kafka’s “A Little Fable”

 

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It’s going as planned

Posted on May 27, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Passenger train networks: United States vs Europe.

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It Explains So Much

Posted on May 26, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

“Neglect”

by

Joy Williams

from 99 Stories of God

The Lord was asked if He believed in reincarnation.

I do, He said. It explains so much.

What does it explain, Sir? someone asked.

On your last Fourth of July festivities, I was invited to observe an annual hot-dog-eating contest, the Lord said, and it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever witnessed.

NEGLECT

 

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A good book and a chilled Sancerre

Posted on May 25, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

 

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In my dreams the world would come alive

Posted on May 24, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

In my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life. But then I have long since grown accustomed to the thought that what we call dreams is semi-reality, the promise of reality, a fore glimpse and a whiff of it; that is, they contain, in a very vague, diluted state, more genuine reality than our vaunted waking life which, in its turn, is semi-sleep.

Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

 

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Watching the Detectives

Posted on May 23, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

“Detective Novel”

by

Robert Walser

translated by Tom Whalen

HE PRETENDED to possess technical expertise. Anyway, the title seemed quite brilliant. I resolved to learn more and started reading him, but he left much to be desired. Both he and his author lacked a certain finesse. He seemed to have no place to call home. How can I cuddle up to someone who isn’t comfortable with himself? His sentences were laborious paths for those who tread on them. I remember far more beautiful rambles and gladly admit this, since I gain by this admission. He was viewed quite kindly. An attempt to create interesting situations was discovered with delight. Already the first chapter stretched out to the most accommodating length imaginable. Each paragraph elicited from me a grateful yawn. By the way, I think the time of the detective novel is over. The puzzling disappearance of refined, charming people doesn’t seem very fresh these days. Authors have operated more than enough with chemicals and the like. I did my best to succumb to his charms, but alas I failed in this endeavor. Perhaps I lack the openness, I said, smiling at one of those persons (I mean myself) unsympathetic to some new releases. In fact, I find it aggravating to say yes to everything. In the course of the events he let me gaze into a Russian female. It may be that I’m expressing myself a bit sloppily here. All in all, for what he was, I found him unable to live up to himself. I hold his father responsible that I’m pained by his existence. My contemporaries may note his innocuousness. But can a detective novel be innocuous? Doesn’t he fail when, instead of arousing suspense, he allows us to be bored in his presence? Ambitious lackey, it would be best if you vanished. That you were published was your misfortune. Whoever reads you pities you. Whoever investigates you has to laugh at you, though, alas, alas, you’re innocent! In any case, you’re not what you should be. What you could be if things had turned out right you aren’t, because things didn’t turn out right. Fare thee well, unwarranted detective novel.

 

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