I love the Royal Armouries in Leeds, I'm not a fan of war but I am a fan of History. Particularly Japanese history and they have a lovely Japanese section where I and the rest of my family will sit down and drool over the weaponry, costume and armour.
Discontinuity #1: About 20 years ago I was walking through the centre of London wearing medieval costume along with many friends similarly and dissimilarly dressed. (One of them wore beautiful fibreglass Ashigaru armour, the Japanese tourists loved it.) We passed a bookshop and my eye was caught by my name emblazoned across a book. A book about Samurai, which I hadn't written.
Discontinuity #2: Today, just for fun, we (the family that is) indulged in a little ego-googling (where you Google your own name). My wife's name comes up a lot, and much of it is actually her, she's had two major careers and made a significant impact with both. But there were others, of course, including a sculptress.
My daughter's name comes up too. Her name is quite unusual but there are others in the world, but again 50% of the entries are for her. (The boy was playing on his Wii, that he saved up for all by himself.)
Then I did mine. There are quite a lot of me. One of me is a sculptor in Australia who does some wonderful work, another is a web designer in Canada; both could be close relations as I have relatives in both those places.
And then there was the author of the book on Samurai. Who, it turns out, lectures at Leeds University and has a lot to do with the Royal Armouries.
The Jujitsu daughter (Jujitsu being the self-defence art of the Samurai) has come over all Wushu and wants to learn Kung-Fu. She's also discovered a Martial Arts competition she can enter.
What's on the turntable? "Never Be Mine" by Kate Bush from "The Sensual World"
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