Ofuda and Tanzaku

Following my previous post about omamori, I am going to write about ofuda and tanzaku in this post. Like my previous post, this post is inspired by an episode of the ‘Uncanny Japan’ podcast, Episode 43 Tsuno Daishi: The Great Horned Master. As noted in the ‘Uncanny Japan’ episode, an ofuda is a kind of…

Omamori – ‘Lucky’ Japanese Amulets

Like my previous post (The ‘Uncanny Japan’ Podcast and Culture Shock), this post is inspired by an episode of the ‘Uncanny Japan’ podcast. This time it was Episode 43 Tsuno Daishi: The Great Horned Master – but rather than the main topic of the episode, this post is about one of the two aspects of…

What Caused the JL123 Crash?

When I first started conducting research about the JL123 crash (also known as JAL123), I had no intentions of looking at the cause of the crash at all. As far as I was concerned, it was a known fact: following an accident in 1978, the rear pressure bulkhead was damaged, incorrectly repaired, and this led…

Plane Crash Recreated: JAL123/Japan

Further to my post about the TV series “Plane Crash Recreated” being shown on PBS America in the UK, this post covers one of the episodes – JAL123/Japan. There are two reasons for doing a separate post on this episode (my comments on the other episodes are in the original post). First, I have been…

Post 524 – Remembering The Victims of the JL123 Plane Crash

This is blog post number 524. For many I suspect that there is no particular significance of this number. But like 123 and 520, I will always associate it with JL123, Japan’s and the aviation world’s Titanic, which has been one of my research areas since 2007. 524 is the official number of crew and…

Post 520 – Remembering The Victims of the JL123 Plane Crash

This is blog post number 520. For many I suspect that there is no particular significance of this number. But like 123, I will always associate it with JL123, Japan’s and the aviation world’s Titanic, which has been one of my research areas since 2007. 520 is the official number of victims on board JL123….

“Anyway we delivered the bomb” – Telling the Story of the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis

Those who regularly follow my blog posts or come to the top page first, will be aware of a range of my research and personal interests. Three of these areas – Japan, atomic/nuclear weapons, and Jaws – come together with one event, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. In a sentence, the sinking of the…

Blogging and Social Media: Impact and Reach

Today I will yet again be giving a training session to post-graduate research students and early career researchers about writing blogs. I have run this session (or a similar one) a number of times now – not only to those at Cardiff University, but also to students on an MA programme at the School of…

Troubling Anniversaries – An Excellent Online Conference

On 21 and 22 October I attended an online conference on the theme of ‘Troubling Anniversaries’. The conference was organised through a partnership between the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) within the School of Advanced Study in the University of London and Centre for Public History,(Opens in new window) The online conference explored the uses of…

Designs That Defined Modern Japan: The Emergency Exit Sign

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I attended an excellent webinar on the topic ‘Designs That Defined Modern Japan’ by Professor Hiroshi Kashiwagi, and the audience were set the challenge of coming with their own list of 8 Designs That Defined Modern Japan. I have already done six posts (these are not in any…

Remembering 9/11

Today (11 September 2021) is the twentieth anniversary of the ‘9/11’ attacks. As with another recent post (All Accidents are Human Error), I have been inspired to write this post thanks to listening to the Take To The Sky Podcast. They have done a couple of podcasts recently in relation to 9/11 (on top of…

All Accidents are Human Error

Over recent weeks I have been listening to a number of episodes by Take To The Sky Podcast and watching some episodes of Aircrash Investigation (as it’s known on Disney+ in the UK). Naturally, one of the things that both look to discuss is the probable cause of the crash, and often this can end…