Quote of the daY

A creature who can only perform good or evil is 'a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State'.

Anthony Burgess

The great cola controversy

Source: Aljazeera.net
by Firas Al-Atraqchi

In what is becoming a raging debate over the safety standards of bottled carbonated soft drinks in India, the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment has dismissed government findings that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are not harmful to human consumption.

Disputing studies conducted by the ministry of health which gave the cola companies a clean bill of health as "junk science", the CSE on August 23 reiterated its position that "colas are not safe" and pressed for greater government transparency over the issue.
But Anbumani Ramadoss, India's health minister, told parliament that further testing of the cola products was necessary.
"I have stated in my answer that we are not contradicting the CSE report," he told the media. "It is not that the report is right or wrong. Currently it is inconclusive and we need more details."

The CSE says that the health minister told parliament a total of "two" bottles were tested by the government, which he has used to give the cola companies a certificate of safety. Another 28 bottles have been tested in Gujarat, for which no details are available. "This is dangerous, as it amounts to misleading us about the health impacts of these drinks," the CSE told Aljazeera.net.

On August 25, the CSE said it had been threatened with legal action by pesticide companies for its campaign against pesticide residues in soft drinks. A CSE press release said: "The pesticide industry has been behaving like the proverbial bully. It should immediately stop these intimidating tactics. We dare it to take us to court."

Sunita Narain, CSE's director, said: "The right of individuals and organisations like CSE to carry out action in public interest and in favour of public health cannot be questioned. It is a right to hold industries and governments accountable for their action, and should be strengthened - not suppressed." The CSE is also asking the government to divulge its testing methodologies, its sampling and whether it will provide this information to the Bureau of Indian Standards.

Awakenings...

According to NY Times, Poll Shows a Shift in Opinion on Iraq War!
It says that the US citizens that elected GWB now think that war on terror and the invasion of Iraq are not necessarily related! YAYYY! Nice and refreshing to see some gray cells at work. Of course, they could have asked the rest of the world had they really care. We could have informed them 3 years ago that they were not related!

If you are patient enough to read a whole NY Times article, and come to the last sentence on the second page, it reads:

"Most of those surveyed, 56 percent, said they did not believe that the country
had a responsibility to help resolve the conflicts between Israel and other
Middle Eastern countries, while 39 percent said it did."

Err... maybe not so nice and refreshing, huh? Also very nicely NYTimes-style me thinks...

A in NL w/ Humpty Dumpty etc.

I am trying to learn a language that is simultaneously intuitive and counter-intuitive. Funny to note how your previous languages determine the way you learn a new one. Entertaining, too...
A few notes:

• I am taking a crush course which is called Dutch for Absolute Beginners by the Department of Dutch as Second Language (not foreign language!). I don't think the name of the course is misleading, but even a more appropriate one would be "Dutch as third language". It is mostly building on
  
• a) your listening and remembering abilities (which doesn't work with my "structure first!" understanding -comes from my Turkish heritage of course, I am not sure why, but knowing /learning a language is such a mythical issue, assumed to be soooo difficult there that it almost blocks one. So you should start with the grammer first. Because Turkish is so different. It isn't.)
  
• b) your abilities of other languages (particularly German but also English, that for instance doesn't make life too easy for French speakers!) It feels good to have studied German for a change, as I can never meet Germans whose English is not better than my German. Yet, I obviously remember the grammar fine!

• Dutch makes your imagination go wild: I have been fantasising that I was walking from Germany to England and on the way I was stuck somewhere where everything sounds familiar, but is both pronounced and spelt wrongly! Some kind of Alice situation, in particular the Humpty Dumpty bit, because it is not only the pronounciation and spelling that is shifting with the geography but also the meaning! Uh oh! (Well, starting to read Alice this time in Dutch so it may be normal)
  
• I noticed how much I miss learning a language. I think I lost it between Japanese and Arabic, as I was trying to find my way around those 4 new alphabets at once. It was a bad idea, I know... But what else should I do in a snow-county for 6 months?! Learn skiing?! ;) Much better to try to memorise 3 different ways of writing each letter in a warm classroom. It was my laziness I do admit that made me try those at once.
• Every language has its fun stuff. My fave today (although yesterday I had others) is the Dutch to ask the time in a "how late is...?" format. As a result, you also have to make use of your maths skills to tell the time: you have to figure how late it is! For instance you have construct time around "five past half ten", which I suspect means 9.35 but I might be completely wrong. Sander can tell me tomorrow that it actually means 10.25, and I wouldn't mind. The way to learn it seems to be forgetting whatever you know about telling time. As Erkut says (more likely that used to say) "time is irrelevant!" :)

So I'm enjoying myself, and frantically reading in the afternoons to make up for the work I am missing. Apologies for being out of contact every now and then...

quOTe oF The Last two dAys

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.

Benjamin Disraeli

looking-glass poetry (and prose...)

by Lewis Carroll

A: Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!
Unicorn: Well, now that we have seen each other, if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you...

Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

A: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.

Humpty Dumpty: The question is, which is to be master—that’s all.

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought--

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

A: I can't believe that!

The Queen: Can't you? Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.

A: There's no use trying, one can't believe impossible things.

The Queen: I daresay you haven't had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

The White Queen: She can't do Subtraction. Can you do Division?

Divide a loaf by a knife—what's the answer to that?

A: I suppose—

The Red Queen: Bread-and-butter, of course. Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?

A: The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it—and the dog wouldn't remain: it would come to bite me—and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!

The Red Queen: Then you think nothing would remain?

A: I think that's the answer.

The Red Queen: Wrong, as usual, the dog's temper would remain.

A: But I don't see how—

The Red Queen: Why, look here! The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?

A: Perhaps it would...

The Red Queen: Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!

The Unknown Citizen

W. H. Auden

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a

saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content 

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his

generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their

education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Links of the day

Seymour Hersh on Lebanon and Iran on CNN
Chomsky on BBC4 (Part1/2)
Chomsky on BBC4 (Part2/2)

Civil Direct Action in front of the US Embassy, Istanbul

press release is in Turkish -naturally... It asks the US government to stop "free" the people in the world, and to quit supporting Israel's attack on Lebanon.

The country I live in...

This news is from Expatica.com's News in Brief...

Dozens of drug arrests on trains

Railway police used a sniffer dog during spot checks for drugs on trains travelling between Maastricht and Liege in Belgium. A total of 71 people were arrested, mostly for possession of small amounts of hard or soft drugs. Six passengers were fined for having more than five grammes of soft drugs or more than half a grammes of hard drugs. The rest only had to hand over their drugs.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"

I think the quote above was from Eric Hobsbawm, but Hank Williams Said It Best, and Mick Harvey sang it better than Guy Clark ;) [to listen to the song enter Mick's website, click on download/music video in the pop up window.] The line changes to "one man's killer is another man's brother," which I find less touching, but both the song and the album are great!

Anyway, after reading it (or something around these lines by Hobsbawm) for the first time in a Nurettin Rençber album (Eşkıya Türküleri -I would like to translate it as 'Songs of Rebellion'), I bumped into the quote again on a website called information clearing house. Their slogan is "News you won't find in CNN or FOXNEWS." It's a good enough start for me, still, am curious how they calculated the table below on their homepage. But more importantly, I would like to share something I liked watching: A SkyNews interview in which George Galloway "lambasted media coverage of the war," accused Bush and Blair to have politically organised the occupation, and finished off saying "You believe that the Israeli blood is more valuable than the blood of Lebanese and Palestinians!"
CLICK TO WATCH

Finally, yet another petition to sign on the Israeli attack on Lebanon, this time for an immediate ceasefire... (thanks mum! x.)

Bonus (can't resist it!):
Lyrics of Hank Williams Said It Best (the Guy Clark version)

One man’s hawk is another man’s dove
one man’s hug is another man’s shove

One man’s rock is another man’s sand
one man’s fist is another man’s hand

One man’s tool is another man’s toy
one man grief is another man’s joy

One man’s squawk is another man’s sing
one man’s crutch is another man’s wing

One man’s pride is another man’s humble
one man’s step is another man’s stumble

One man’s pleasure is another man’s pain
one man’s loss is another man’s gain

One man’s can is another man’s grail
one man’s curse is another man’s sail

One man’s right is another man’s wrong
one man’s curse is another man’s song

Chorus

For every father’s daughter
For every mother’s son
The only thing the same
Is that it ain’t for everyone
Hank Williams said it best
He said it a long time ago
"Unless you have made no mistakes in your life
Be careful of stones that you throw"

One man’s deuce is another man’s ace
one man’s back is another man’s face

One man’s reason is another man’s rhyme
one man’s dollar is another man’s dime

One man’s tree is another man’s post
one man’s angel is another man’s ghost

One man’s rain is another man’s drought
one man’s hope is another man’s doubt

One man’s false is another man’s fair
one man’s toup is another man’s hair

One man’s hand is another man’s stub
one man’s feast is another man’s grub

One man’s dread is another man’s dream
one man’s sigh is another man’s scream

One man’s water is another man’s wine
one man’s daughter make another man cry

Chorus

One man’s famine is another man’s feast
one man’s pet is another man’s beast

One man’s bat is another man’s ball
one man’s art is another man’s scrawl

One man’s friend is another man’s foe
one man’s Joseph is another man’s Joe

One man’s hammer is another man’s nail
one man’s freedom is another man’s jail

One man’s road is another man’s rut
one man’s if is another man’s but

One man’s treasure is another man’s trash
one man’s landing is another man’s crash

One man’s word is another man’s lie
one man’s dirt is another man’s sky

One man’s skin is another man’s colour
one man’s killer is another man’s brother

Finally!

On Sunday (16.7.06), the fifth day of the war, the (then) largest demonstration against it took place in Tel-Aviv, where over 600 people protested. The biggest demonstration against the war held in Israel until now took place last Sunday (5.8.06), in the fifth week of the war. It was in downtown Tel-Aviv, and according to the reporting website "almost 10 thousand demonstrators from all over the country marched from Ben-Zion Boulevard, along King George Street, to Magen David Square." It's probably less than what they claim, but definitely more than 600 people.
All I can think is "What happened? Why are people protesting now?"
Naturally it takes a while to gather and organise as peace activists into a meaningful and active opposition group. Plus, it feels undignified to think "they must have reached a target of some sort, hence people are now allowed (and willing) to protest and the state can claim democracy, where there is none..." This is what wars does to people like me: I feel sick to my stomach, when I think of the things I am capable of thinking...
Still, it feels great to know that not all Israeli people are supporting this war (I wish one day I can say the same thing about the Jewish people I know as well...) It's great to know that some of those people that are against these crimes are still alive. And yet, it doesn't change the fact that more than a thousand civillians have been murdered by the Israeli army on government's decision...
hmpff... :(

An ad published in Haaretz, 26.7.06 reads
BACK TO 1982
THEN: The war was prepared well in advance.
THIS TIME: The same.

THEN: We went to war only to protect "the Peace of Galilee".
THIS TIME: We go to war to protect Haifa and Afula, too.
THEN: We waited for a provocation (the attempt on the life of Ambassador Argov).
THIS TIME: We waited for a provocation (the capture of two soldiers).

THEN: "We shall advance only 40 KM in order to eliminate the Katyushas."
THIS TIME: "We shall advance only a few kilometers in order to eliminate the rockets."
THEN: Sharon acted behind the back of the cabinet.
THIS TIME: Olmert-Peretz-Halutz act behind the back of the ministers.

THEN: We destroyed Lebanon.
THIS TIME: We are destroying Lebanon.
THEN: Only the PLO profited from the war. A few years later they returned to Palestine. THIS TIME: Only Hezbollah will profit from the war. Their prestige in the Arab world increases every day.

THEN: We were stuck in the quagmire for 18 years.
FOR HOW LONG SHALL WE BE STUCK THIS TIME?

more photos and articles

We refuse to submit to this brutal force and be accomplices to its crimes...

Here is the declaration prepared by 7 scholars / opinion leaders

from Turkey, against the Israeli attack on Lebanon.

If you would like to sign or read the Turkish version click here.

WE ACCUSE:

· G.W. Bush, T. Blair, and E. Olmert, the chief executives of

the imperialist, colonialist, belligerent policies and actions of the US-British-Israeli coalition,

· of perpetrating the composite crimes of war of annihilation, occupation, and the

premeditated mass murder of children and civilians in Palestine and Lebanon,

· following their atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq and foreboding the same in Syria and Iran,

· sinking into utter barbarity in transgression of all universal norms of human morality.

THE FOLLOWING ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE:

· All government employees and agents, advisors, civil and military functionaries

who partake in collective and individual responsibility in these states;

· the legislative and judicial branches that have not curbed the criminal activities of their governments as they violate basic human rights, most significantly the right to live, and as they trample international legal norms and commit crimes against humanity;

· universities, media, intellectuals, workers and citizens who do not restrain and sanction their governments through domestic democratic channels;

· UNITED NATIONS and other national and international bodies that actively or passively support, aid and abet this illegality, crude force, and aggression --

all bear responsibility for the catastrophe that is taking place.

WE DEMAND:

· An immediate cessation of this horror,

· the due trial, in international tribunals, as well as in the courts of conscience and history,

· of, above all, Bush, Blair, and Olmert as perpetrators of crimes against humanity,

· of their respective government agents and supporters,

· of the chief executives and state personnel in all countries that have been accomplices to these crimes against humanity,

· and their removal from office by the lawful and democratic initiatives of their respective citizenry.

AND WE DECLARE:

We stand at a critical juncture in human history.

These aggressive, colonialist, exploitative, and militarist practices are negating the achievements of humanity, destroying the basic pillars of international law, and thus, threatening the present and the future of this planet.

We refuse to submit to this brutal force and be accomplices to its crimes.

We refuse to give in to the (il)logic of blood-fed economies and lethal war machines.

We declare that we will continue to struggle for a different world.

V1.B.P5.1. THE Pre-Raphaelites /My story

I cannot postpone it anymore... I have to write about them before the excitement fades into memory. Yet, I think I will write about them in detail, in pieces...

As for my impression of them, they were gorgeous as well as scary! They took my breath away but I still can't imagine how much detail is detailed enough to prove Raphael did it the wrong way... -he most certainly did nothing "wrong", not in my opinion!-

Let's see... My story with the Pre-Raphaelites dates back to a solitary early-summer night. I was obsessed with a song Başak has sent me (Cemetry Gates by the Smiths) while reading a collection of Irish plays by Yeats, Synge and O'Casey I found in Eric's book collection. Cathleen ni Houlihan was worth spending some time on even for an outsider to Irish culture as myself, so I started to wiki Abbey Theatre and Yeats, as well as Keats and Wilde... Through a long journey that follows lines of loves, hates and passions of these people -sometimes in a circular fashion- I came to know the P-Rs. (Yeats had an affair with novelist Olivia Shakespear whose daughter Dorothy was the wife of Ezra Pound, who claimed that Yeats was "the only poet worthy of serious study". According to wiki, Ezra's early poetry was influenced by his reading of the Pre-Raphaelites. He started to write in an archaicly poetic language influenced by Ford Madox Ford, who was the grandson of Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown. Although Brown was never a member of the P-R brotherhood, he is considered within the genre -see below). Then I remembered that long long loooong time ago, when I knew nothing and cared even less about art, I was taken to Tate Britain by Mark, and I was so overwhelmed by the sheer size of the collection that I decided to concentrate on one single painting: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Damsel of the Sanct Grael (i.e. the Holy Grail). This is curious because this painting is supposed to be owned by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Maybe it was on an exhibition by then, or maybe I remember it wrongly. Rossetti obviously enjoyed painting similar women in similar fashion...

So I learned a bit about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, although Christoph regarded as too dull for his taste, and figured some relations out: Rossetti was a pupil of Ford Madox Brown. He had met Hunt after seeing Hunt's painting "The Eve of St Agnes", based on Keats' poem.
The brotherhood was initiated by John Everett Millais (yes!!! all his work is great, particularly Ophelia, for which -according to a gossip I heard- his model got sick as she had to pose in water and he refused to pay the medical bills claiming it was an occupational risk she took, but my personal favourites also include Mariana and The Carpenter's Shop -despite all the sheep and particularly due to Charles Dickens' accusation of it for making "the Holy Family look like alcoholics and slum-dwellers, adopting contorted and absurd 'medieval' poses". One other reason for my amusement is that in Victoria and Albert Museum I saw what he could paint when he was 16: Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru. It was hard to grasp how one can paint like that at that age...), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (yesss!!! and yayy!!! for all that passion more than the perfection) and William Holman Hunt (with all due respect, no, thanks. paints too much sheep for my taste, plus too many conservative values in themes), and later included William Michael Rossetti (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's brother, he published a journal rather than painting I believe), Thomas Woolner (no idea), James Collinson (no comment!) and Frederic George Stephens (nothing to tell, really... I would much prefer Arthur Hughes as a part of the Brotherhood merely for the sake of April Love). Ford Madox Brown (yess and wow! he is absolutely brilliant, my personal favourite being The Last of England) was invited to join, but preferred to remain independent.

The Brotherhood was founded upon these four principles:

1. To have genuine ideas to express; (both Rossetti and Millais were accused of blasphemy for their early paintings on religious themes. Yet, my favourite "idea" is one that was almost painted by Brown: Take your Son, Sir! Pity he did not finish it.)
2. To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them; (goes well with John Ruskin's ideas on art-see On Art and Life, John Ruskin 1853/1859. The Brotherhood was supported by Ruskin both financially and in his critiques.)
   
3. To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote; (details, details, and more details... I cannot believe that they have actually painted tens of sheep in such a detailed fashion! Or check Millais' Ophelia for how detailed flowers can be painted.)
   
4. And, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

Their love life interested me, as their models were continuously appearing in different paintings. Among themselves Hunt and Woolner married three sisters, Effie Gray moved from Ruskin to Millais, and Rossetti idealised his wife Elizabeth Siddal's image as Dante's Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as Beata Beatrix (while Millais painted her in Ophelia). More to come on that as well as weird links to Darwin, Byron, Dante, Nabakov, Tennyson, and Lewis Carroll...

V1.B.P4 All those friends that made it better...

The most precious part my trip to England was of course seeing friends...

On my first day in London Jim (literally) took me to the Lovebox Festival. A "small" festival according to him and Emma, but the last festival I went to was the Roots Festival in Amsterdam, hence it was a real shift in scale for me. (like everything else in London, really. the distances, the crowd, everything is bigger compared to here, hence reminded me a bit of Istanbul) anyway, my perception of scale cannot easily adapt from one to the other, so I am still trying to get used to Amsterdam (again).

It was also great to meet Emma. She works for The Big Issue, which I admire greatly, and more... It was refreshing to be around them. Moreover, I had a chance to listen to Rodrigo y Gabriela (click to listen on their "myspace" or click on the photo above for info), who were absolutely stunning. I never thought acoustic guitar could get so exciting, so sexy, so free!

Next person to meet was Ümit, who helped me find my way around all the art and literature bulk of London. I was soooo lucky to have someone to spend a whole day in the bookshops with me, yet, next time I will leave my debit card at home. I literally am broke after all the books I bought, and probably once I digest them I will feel much less impoverished... AND we went to the Globe Theatre, thanks to a suggestion by David. We have seen Coriolanus. I was high on Shakespeare for the rest of the week!

And last but not the least (of course not the least!) I met Tolga on my way back home. He took me to Covent Garden and in return I took him to Lush!, which was a good deal in general. Hence I thought of Eefje and her insistence on taking me to Lush! Amsterdam and thanked her for that...

And special thanks to Erkut, for being my link to the real world and keeping me updated on what was going on re: the Israeli attack on Lebanon.

I am lucky...

V1.B.P3 A day on nature

Other than the hillarious photo on the left (click on it to read how the Rainbow Warrior fights our corner all day long), last Tuesday was full of amazement.
The natural history and science museums in London made me want to be a child again, which is a very rare occasion as I was almost always bored when I was a kid. All I could wish for in those childish little wishing games was to grow up. And I still think it makes sense. In the modern society being a kid is practically equivalent to being in a vegetative state and/or retarded. This bit is no different for the kids in London too probably, but if I had these two museums -instead of the ones dad took me to when I was 11-12, such as the maritime museum and stuff- I would be a happier child (and a more knowledgeable adult) ;)
so here are some pics to share my amazement with you..

The two entrances: The first one to the bio-centre the second to the geo-centre.

The Darwin Centre was unfortunately closed, hence I basically took a few pictures with/of him. On the other side of the room was sitting Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog" as they used to call him. Nothing against good old THH, and thanks for the concepts such as agnosticism and abiogenesis, but it was sad and infuriating not to see any mention (leave aside a statue) of Alfred Russel Wallace! History is a cruel means to accredit people...

One of the surprises was to figure the extent to which David Attenborough influenced the perceptions of nature (i.e. not only mine, as he was one of my childhood heros sharing the platform with Jacques Cousteau) and how iconised he was. This pic is from a poster at the natural science museum. I think it had no slogans on it but might be asking for a donation.

I touched a real meteorite!
That fell from outer space!
All of a sudden the idea of life on Earth being brought from the skies started to make much more sense! lol! I mean the PAH world hypothesis of course...
It felt very COLD and almost out of time and space...

I saw some real mammoth teeth and thought about vegetarian dinos... Which makes me think of sizes of these species. However smiley that dino looks it was said to be eating an equivalent of 300 kilos of tomatos and some tonnes of cabbages per day. Small is beautiful. I like the iguana in the David Attenborough picture better...

There was even a room which simulated the Kobe earthquake, in which I naturally did not take any photos. So, it was full of things you would like to do when you are a kid and not aprx. 30, but it was still a lot of fun.