tomroyal.com

Last week, on a whim, I made a little website called www.teaandkittens.co.uk. As it turns out, people like tea and kittens. Quite a lot. And some of them even visited the website to see some photos.

In the few days since launch it's served up over 13,000 pageviews to just under 2,000 unique visitors – something of a shock to my poor server. It also took off somewhat on Twitter, where the reaction was huge and overwhelmingly positive. I received a few emails of thanks, and even some kitten photo submissions. Nobody has yet submitted a photo of a cup of tea, but there's still time.

I hadn't really planned anything for the site but it seems a shame to waste this kind of interest, so I've put an RSPCA donation link up on the page (there's another one here!). If I get some time I'll also add a tool for photo submissions. In the meantime, thanks to everyone for spreading the word, and please keep enjoying the kittens – caffeine and furballs FTW.

The domestic housecat: it offers fluff, hugs and a wonderful array of meowling noises between the hours of six AM and breakfast. Photograph: me.

Just as the frenzy over some kind of rather expensive but shiny smartphone threatens to overbalance the collective sanity of our national press, it seems like a good time to finally review what must count as one of the world's finest achievements: the domestic housecat.

Since the first cats were identified roaming various sandy parts of the world humanity has upped its game and risen to the challenge of creating similarly wonderful things. Cheese, for example, has been a big hit, as has democracy and Ikea furniture. So what can feline evolution do to wrench back the crown?

The modern domesticat housecat is a creature of rare beauty. Slimmer than a Ford Transit van yet a trifle heavier than a trifle (mmm, trifle) its moderate heft makes it ideal for holding over one shoulder so that it gets a better view of the pigeons in the tree across the street. Fluffy around the edges, it remains relatively comfortable when – and it will do so often – it falls asleep on your lap, stomach, feet or legs (other favourite spots: your laptop, your bag, the sofa, the sink, under the boiler). Jonathan Ive has not, to my knowledge, compared cats to any model of camera, but I'd suggest a Zenit E SLR, mostly because I own of those also and they too tend to be a little temperamental. The proof of concept model – the kitten – is similar but smaller, with brainfuckingly cute mannerisms and a head that appears, like an SD anime character, to be two sizes too large.

Photo: Ralph Cat, in "kitten" beta version.

Domestic cats are widely available in the UK, often for little or no up-front cost. I share ownership of two versions – one in "grey tornado of fluff" finish and another in "basement cat black" – both of which we adopted*. On the front can be discerned a giant array of whiskers, used largely to see whether it is possible to crawl behind the fridge again or whether the latest human attempt to block this space has proven successful, while on the back is a port through which the manufacturers of Catsan are kept in business. Cats cannot take photographs, and have no need to as their owners are guaranteed to spend hours photographing them instead and sharing the results with anyone and everyone online.

Although a standard for speech and video communication is supported – the cat will honk, meowl and burble, while the human end automatically steps-down to a kind of childish babbling interspersed with terms of adoration -  it seems limited to discussions revolving around food, cat hair on the sofa and who's the most adowable fuzzywuzziest wickle fuwbawl oh-yes-you-are. The cat's eyeball – using a technology that I shall call the retina, because that is what a fucking retina is, thank you very much, Steve – delivers astoundingly crisp images of toy mice, pigeons, food and sunny spots on the carpet. Or so it seems.

Various companies have produced cases for the domestic cat. Some even look like bees. They provide no real protection, however, and clearly anyone who attempts to throw a cat across a room,  bee-costumed or not, should be hurled into a vat of angry scorpions.

With fluffy coats, adorable big glassy eyes, fwuffy paws, a battery that lasts most of the day before the low power alarm is sounded at great length, a surprising amount of pep when toys are produced and a frankly adorable habit of following you around the flat while purring with sheer delight, the cat has once more pounced over the competition, stolen its mouse and hurried off to hide it behind the toilet. Dogs might be man's best friend, but the domestic cat is – apologies – purrfect.

www.tomroyal.com

* Buying details: please do not buy a cat – many hundreds are waiting to be adopted. If you own one, insurance is absolutely fucking vital and not very expensive. Monthly food tariffs vary from £20 (Rahph cat, Whiskas) to far more (Hunter cat, special medical food). Vet checkup costs (at least £100/year) apply. Meow.

After two days in Silicon Valley I transferred up to San Francisco. My stop in the city was a short one – a whole day Saturday, plus half of Friday and some time on Sunday before heading to the airport – so it was bound to be a case of picking a few things to check out rather than an exhaustive tour of the area. So what did I learn? Well..

Take walking shoes

I like walking, and I've always thought walking around a city as far as you can manage in a day is a good way to get a feel for it – I've tried this in just about every place I've visited over the years.

In San Francisco I arrived at 1pm, so carved a path down Nob Hill, through Market Street to the Ferry Building, up to the Coit Tower, down to Fisherman's Wharf, along the coast to Golden Gate Park, South to Haight/Ashbury and then back via Isotope Comics on Fell St. Coit Tower gives you a nice view over the city – here's looking towards the Ferry building:

.. and in the West I passed the splendidly mad Palace of Fine Arts, sadly surrounded by chain-link fence and signs soliciting donations to help save it:

The whole circuit, including long stops at various museums, restaurants and, er, to buy comic books, only took the afternoon, but it took in some pretty lengthy hills – especially ascending to Coit Tower from the East, and coming up North towards Haight from the shore. If I'd been wearing fancy shoes instead of a pair of battered New Balance my feet would have died.

You also get to stumble across interesting stuff that you wouldn't otherwise find, from huge signs:

to tiny ones:

Four wheels bad, two wheels good

I'd heard that it was easy to rent a bike in San Francisco – and having visited I can confirm that it'd be hard *not* to rent a bike in San Francisco. The tourist-trap that is Fisherman's Wharf (more later) is covered in huge bike rental stands with young men and women hollering for customers to BIKE THE BRIIIDGE in a way that seems likely only to put you off the idea.

Anyhow, on the second day – with the fog burning off and a few hours to kill – I picked up this Marin bike for $8 per hour. The brakes were a bit loose and the handlebars needed straightening (I got a few odd looks doing that), but hey – $8 per hour! Bargainous.

The journey to Golden Gate Park is easy thanks to a long cycle path that covers most of it, and heading across the bridge to Sausalito is a really easy ride – if you've ever ridden for more than an hour or so there are no hills that'll trouble you, and there are several lovely views. It surely beats the alternatives:

.. and even if you have no intention of crossing the bridge it's far quicker to ride to Golden Gate Park than to walk. Having left San Francisco rather late at 3pm I caught one of the last ferries of the day back across around the bay around two hours later to return the bike before its 7pm deadline, but if you set out in the morning you could explore far further around the headland and back.

Do go across the Golden Gate Bridge

There is, as you may have heard, a lot of fog in San Francisco. Quite often this completely obscures the Golden Gate Bridge – here's the view from around ten minutes before I crossed it:

And yet when on the bridge: sunshine!

The fog was still there of course, being whipped around the towers by the wind:

.. and it was pretty chilly, but the views were fantastic nonetheless. There's a scenic view point on the far side – if you cross on the West side of the bridge there's a path underneath (with steps – you'll need to be able to carry a bike comfortably to use it). In summer I'd recommend attempting to cross even if the fog does look a bit grim – just take suitable clothes for cold/wet weather.

Skirt around the tourist traps..

Fisherman's Wharf is, at dusk, kindof pretty:

.. and great for fans of illuminated signage:

By day, though, it's a bit of a dump – aside from the bike rental shops and a branch of In-N-Out burger there's not much that I'd want to see again, with piers dominated by craptastic novelty shops (including one selling pseudo-spiritual tat called "Enlightenment" – my irony gland committed suicide on the spot).

Similarly, here's Haight / Ashbury:

Yes, the corner is now what must surely be the world's most-photographed Ben & Jerry's. The only thing I'd recommend around there is a branch of KidRobot on Haight.

.. but do cross to Alcatraz

Besides crossing the bridge, the one really touristy thing I would recommend is visiting Alcatraz. I wasn't too interested in the idea of visiting the prison (reason 1: it's a prison, reason 2: it uses the dreaded audio tours) but bought a ticket because I thought the island and ferry crossing might be pretty.

As it turns out I was right on the pretty bit and wrong on the prison. You can cross every half-hour or so on one of these:

from which you get a great view of the island (notice how sunny it was by the time we were arriving – that's not Photoshop):

and then you get as much time as you like to explore the island, which is now mostly a bird sanctuary, and the surprisingly small prison block:

Even the audio tour, narrated by a number of ex-guards and convicts, is interesting, and I was intrigued by the many signs of the Indian Occupation, about which I knew pretty much nothing at all:

All in all, I'd thoroughly recommend it. Book in advance, though – the day I crossed most of the boats were filled up.

.. and do see the Museums

On Sunday I had only a few hours before heading for the airport, so I visited the museums around Market Street. If you're interested in photography, and documantary photography in particular, SFMOMA is unmissable. It also had some later Roy Lichtenstein works on show, and a rather lovely atrium:

Around the corner the Museum of Cartoon Art is also brilliant – when I visited it was dominated by an exhibition on Beetle Bailey (meh), but also included the original copies of the first Japanese Batman comic (bonus fact: in Japanese, Batman likes to use the expression われわれ! quite a bit, just like Kyon) and an amazing collection of feature strips from the golden era of newspaper cartoons – including an original Peanuts strip in its huge A3 original format. There's also a section dedicated to small press comics and a great bookshop – this, together with my visit to Isotope, turned out to be rather expensive for me.

Also interesting was the San Francisco Fire Department Museum, which is chock full of old hand- and steam-powered engines, photos and bits and bobs. Here's the front of one of the oldest engines there:

Pop in, gawk at the stuff, make a donation. It's worth the trip, and the Swedenborgian Church is just a few blocks away.

Eat at In-N-Out

This is an In-N-Out Double Double meal. Costs about £4:

Depressingly, its is better than any burger you'll find anywhere in the UK. Ever. And here's the secret menu. You're welcome.

Don't queue for the cable cars

Three of the old cable car routes are still running, more as a tourist attraction than any kind of useful public transport (for those see the BART and MUNI services, which are comprehensive). With only three lines there are a handful of terminus stations, and each one normally has a massive queue. It's certainly worth riding the cable car at least once – if you're standing on the side there's a great view:

.. but I found that jumping on at one of the many intermediary stops meant far less waiting around – just pick one a few stops into the line so somebody will have left the car to make room for you. Tickets are $5 a ride.

Drink the local beer

California is home to some great beers – Sierra Nevada, for example – and San Francisco has its own in the shape of Anchor Steam. Both are fantastic and available everywhere, and there are some other, smaller brews too (I quite liked Fat Tyre). If you like beer, it's a great place to sample loads. Apparently the Anchor Steam brewery runs tours, but these must be booked ages in advance. Also, if you're under, say, 35, then be sure to carry ID.

And finally, go visit

And that's about it. I brought my heart back to London, arteries slightly fuzzier than before thanks to the Double Double, but San Francisco certainly is a great place, and a far better city to explore on foot than, say, San Diego. If you're on a longer trip or tight budget you can see a few great parts of San Francisco in a few days, but a week would give you time to look around properly.

I never got around to reading the Scott Pilgrim books – what with Drawn and Quarterly's fantastic online shop I already spend far too much on importing Canadian comics – but with a film apparently due and UK editions available I finally picked up a copy, only to be reduced to giggles on the train by this.

It cheers me no end that the Secret of Monkey Island, which I played through on an Atari ST (complete with Dial-a-Pirate copy protection!) has become a cultural touchstone. And there are Final Fantasy gags, too. I'm sold.

Before heading over to Tokyo last year I'd say I was moderately interested in Japanese animation and mildly obsessed with the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Since returning, I've been hoovering up other anime films and television series, attempting to find the gems amongst all the truly godawful rubbish. In particular, I've found myself looking for anime set in a realistic present day setting, whether it's ostensibly a work of comedy (Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers), science fiction (Hosada's The Girl who Leapt through Time) or, in this case, romance.

I stumbled across 5 Centimeters Per Second on the web at the end of 2009, and it sounded interesting – a film in three distinct parts from Makoto Shinkai, who famously created the sci-fi short Voices of a Distant Star single-handedly on his computer. Getting a copy wasn't easy – details later – but a month or two later I finally got to watch it. As there are relatively few reviews available, I thought I'd put one online. I'll avoid spoilers as far as is possible.

The plot

The sequence of films follows two characters, Takaki and Akari. The first film, Cherry Blossom Story, is set as Takaki makes the (complicated, lengthy) train journey north from Tokyo to see Akari; as he does so a sequence of flashbacks explain how they met and became friends in elementary school before Akari's family moved out of the city. Since her departure a year previously the two have corresponded by post, but with his own family now moving far afield the two have one final – at least for the conceivable future – chance to meet.

The second segment, Cosmonaut, is set  years after Takaki's move to the island of Tanegashima – home of the Japanese space agency, NASDA. This section is narrated largely by Kanae, a female classmate of Takaki who has suffered unrequited love for him since his arrival, and who goes out of her way to arrange 'chance' meetings. The two, soon to graduate from high school, discuss their plans for the future, but Takake is somewhat distant and is constantly seen writing emails on his mobile phone. At several points we see Takaki and Akari together, but these appear to be dream sequences.

The final segment, 5 Centimeters Per Second, is set back in Tokyo. Takaki, now 26, is a computer programmer, and significantly depressed. One day, while walking across a level crossing, he spots Akari. The finale, which makes up the majority of this segment, takes the form of a montage of rapidly cut visuals shown as a song is played.

The look

It's worth noting immediately that 5 Centimeters Per Second looks beautiful. The animation slides between a slightly painted style and the more realistic look that you'd expect from computer animation but throughout the shots, and in particular the use of colour, are remarkable – many of the scenes are set in twilight or night, with an amazing luminous appearance and glowing pink washes that link the narrative back to the cherry blossom tree of the title.

The effect is a world that's immediate and real – Takaki's journey through and out of Tokyo is almost photo-realistic – and yet somewhat otherworldly, and in the second film this is taken even further as the setting introduces another glorious light source to both dream sequences and the segment's climax.

Swirling cherry blossoms are something of a specialism of Japanese animation – there's probably a firm somewhere in Tokyo that specialises in computer-rendering them – but here the blossom and snow swirl and dance beautifully as the camera moves through them, while light sources flare and glint off the surroundings. Even the rapid shots of the final segment, each on screen only momentarily, are beautifully put together.

The effect

Of course pretty animation is all for nothing in a drama if the viewer doesn't feel emotionally involved. Here, though, the Japanese voice cast does a wonderful job of conveying real-sounding emotion without recourse to the squeaky, shouty clichés that plague many teenage anime characters, and the plot is paced cleverly enough to suck the viewer in enough to build a sense of unease from that most mundane occurrance: a delayed train. Although ultimately a simple tale of young love it left me with enough emotion invested as to care what happened to both parties at the end, which is surely a success on the writer's part. And it's always a good sign when you watch a film through to the credits, then immediately pick up the remote control to flick back into the story again. Overall it's a simple but elegantly crafted tale that avoids saccharine sweetness in favour of the affectingly recognisable, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Where to get it

Picking up a copy of this film (legally) is a pain. There's a Blu-ray, but you'll need to import it from Japan, play it on a Japanese or American Blu-ray player and, not least of the obstacles, understand the Japanese-only audio. A DVD with English subtitles was available in the US, but it's Region 1, out of print and currently selling for $150 or so. In the end I imported a Region 3 DVD from Hong Kong via Ebay – this has the Japanese audio track and English subtitles.

There are few foods as versatile as japanese curry. In Tokyo we saw it served on or with just about everything, but katsu-curry (breaded pork fillet with cury) and curry rice (yes, that's just curry with rice) are staples of good-but-cheap food. If you want to make your own here in the UK, there are three options.

Of course, you can make it from scratch. This would provide both curry and an air of smug satisfaction, but it requires both a recipe and some skill. I have neither. If you're in the same situation you can buy it ready-made in a packet that must then be boiled or microwaved. I've tried these, and they're OK, but there's a definite air of Vesta about the whole business, plus they're very expensive.

There is, fortunately, a third option – and here it is:

This is ready-made curry roux. and you can buy it from just about anywhere that stocks Japanese food. It's cheaper than ready-made, plus you get to choose exactly what goes in the curry, and there's a certain degree of smug satisfaction to gain from doing some of the work yourself. So, what's the downside? Well, er:

Yes, that's the recipe. If you don't speak Japanese, or like me you speak a bit but know hardly any kanji, you're in for a world of translation-related fun. What you need, in fact, is a curry dictionary – and so, courtesy of the ten minutes I spent wrangling with my pocket kenkyusha, here's one I made earlier:

I've pasted this in as an image so it should show on any computer rather than relying on Japanese display fonts. Note that this may not be perfectly correct – I'm guessing that "sarada oil" is vegetable oil, but it seemed to work for me. Any corrections gratefully accepted. And so, on to the recipe.

Armed with that vocabulary and a packet of roux it should be easy to make out the necessary ingredients. For five servings, using Golden Curry roux, the recipe asks for the following:

• 200g meat
• 300g onion
• 100g carrot
• 200g potato
• 1 spoon vegetable oil
• 700ml water
• one packet of roux

Double these for the full ten servings. I had no meat, so I just added more carrots and potato – it's not an exact science. Chop the whole lot, add the oil to a pan, and cook the meat followed by the vegetables (or just chuck the veg in for a bit, in my case):

I cooked it until the onions were softening up nicely, which took a few minutes over a low heat. Next, add the water. The packet calls for 700ml, or 1300 for 10 servings:

The packet, if I'm reading it correctly, says to simmer for 10 minutes, or 20 if making ten servings. I found that about 15 minutes were needed to cook the potato chunks. Anyhow, after ten to fifteen minutes, it's time to break out the curry. Here's what's in the box:

If making ten servings we'd use both, but for five only one is needed. Open it up and chuck the incredibly attractive contents into the pan:

Obviously it's less than a feast for the eyes at this stage. Stir gently for a few minutes, though, and as if by magic:

Curry! Stir it for a few mintues more (be warned, it'll stick and burn given the chance), then serve on rice, katsu, or just about anything else:

Brown, glutinous, chunky, probably packed with MSG and yet strangely delicious. Enjoy.

Early warning: expect some mild spoilers here.

Earlier this year Helen and I paid a visit – or perhaps a pilgrimage - to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo. One of the main exhibits was filled with information about a film I hadn't at that point seen: Gake no ue no Ponyo. The exhibit was fascinating, with a special focus on the design and animation of the numerous wave and sea scenes in the film, and I made a note to search out a copy on my return to England. On getting back, however, we found out that for reasons unclear it won't be released here until sometime next year.

Last night, however, I finally got to see it. Ponyo, which seems to have picked up the rather unwieldly English title "Ponyo on the cliff by the sea", was being presented in Japanese as part of the Barbican's Japanimation season with an introduction by Helen McCarthy, and six of us managed to pick up tickets. Actually, on the subject of the title, if anyone with a better grasp of Japanese than I knows where the sea comes from, I'd love to know – it looks like "cliff (no) above (no) Ponyo", or "Ponyo on the cliff", to me.

The story is pretty simple: a young boy, Sosuke, meets a goldfish, Ponyo, and they fall in love. Obstacles are presented and – it's a children's film, so this shouldn't count as a huge spoiler – overcome. As with many of Hayao Miyazaki's films, though, this takes place in an environment where everyday Japan meets the supernatural, and with a subtle theme of environmental concern (the drag nets, the idea of nature being pulled out of whack, the moon, etc).

It's colourful, beautiful and beguiling, with a gorgeous look that mixes realism (the dry dock of the working port, the retirement home where Sosuke's mother works) with childlike drawings (the house on the hill, the simple boats bobbing out to see). And of course the waves – at times magically  transformed into giant fish and in one scene racing the camera as it tracks horizontally – are magnificently animated and almost worth the price of a ticket alone.

The film is funny, too – Ponyo's first encounter with a sheet of glass and her enquiries as to the profession of Sosuke's father, in particular, drew big laughs from the (almost entirely adult) audience, while the slightly crazed driving of Sosuke's mother Lisa raised gasps and smiles. The problems faced by Sosuke, Lisa and Ponyo don't ever seem *that* dangerous or frightening, and the conclusion isn't as uplifting as, say, the girls from Tonari no Totoro travelling by Catbus to check on their mother – but they build up and wrap up the plot neatly.

So, predictably, I'd entirely recommend Ponyo when she eventually swims up to these shores sometime in mid 2010. The English version is being distributed by Disney, is produced by John Lasseter and has a cast packed with well known actors – so I'm sure it will at least get a big release, and I suppose subtitles don't make too much sense for an audience of small children. See it in English, then rent the DVD or Blu-ray for the film as it was intended.

I've been avoiding the Tate Modern lately. None of the exhibits have been that interesting – I was surprised by how effective Rothko's famous paintings were when I finally saw them a few years back, but I couldn't be bothered to queue for hours and face the tourist crowds packing his recent Tate exhibition – and even the installations in the turbine hall have seemed a little half-hearted since Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth.

Now, though, there's a new and fantastic exhibition on. And, because it's of Russian contructivists rather than ikea-poster-friendly-material, there are no queues and you can actually get close enough to the art to see it.

I'm an art ignoramus and had only previously heard of Aleksandr Rodchenko because of his famous poster for Battleship Potemkin (the symmetrical one with the guns, not the one with the stairs). Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism begins earlier in his career with something rather different. The first few rooms are full of abstract, geometric paintings made before he abandoned traditional artistic techniques (abandoning artistic strokes in favour of drawing lines with ruler and compass) and then painting itself – his farewell to the medium, three panels of solid colour in which he "reduced painting to its logical conclusion", is remarkable when you consider when it was created. There's then a small collection of sculpture, a few pieces of which are striking.

This is all quite good, but then things become brilliant. Having given up on painting and sculpture ("as useless as a church") both artists turned their attentions to advertising and graphic design, and plenty of space is given to both. I read at least one review sniffing at this as inferior to the earlier art and deserving of less space, but if you like typography, propaganda art or commercial design you'll find it fascinating. There's also space given to one area where Popova found a genuinely popular use for her art: textile designs that were then mass produced by a state-run mill.

The exhibition ends with some film extracts, which are interesting but rather hard to watch – I attempted the 25 minutes of nonlinear socialist montage while standing up, but after about ten minutes it was beginning to resemble the visual equivalent of white noise – and, more effectively, a reconstruction of the "Worker's Club" that Rodchenko designed, which is rather like the set of a 1970s 70mm sci-fi film. Of course, things don't end happily for the artists. Popova died in 1924, aged 35, while Rodchenko fell out of favour as Soviet Realism became the only acceptable form of art in Stalin's USSR. The exhibition effectively ends with his 1925 work, including none of his return to painting or later photography.

I came away convinced that Defining Constructivism is one of the best things I've see at the Tate Modern since it opened, and it also reminded me that the museum has on display in another room a small selection of David King's collection of Soviet propaganda posters. It's great that the museum devoted so much space to Rodchenko and Popova, but I'd love it, in future, to make available so much room for King's huge archive of art and photos from the same period. For the moment, King has compiled many pieces in this book, which I'd also recommend.

Photo: Oak Ridge, taken by Ed Clark for Life Magazine in 1945. Details here.

Since visiting the Cold War Modern exhibit I've been looking for more information on the American National Exhibition held in Moscow in 1959. So far I've turned up depressingly little that I didn't already know, but I did stumble back into Google's Life Magazine archive.

When it was launched a few months back I vaguely noted that this project sounded interesting. Now I'm convinced that it's one of the best things on the internet. Search for anything from 1860 to 1979 (the Nixon/Kruschev kitchen debate, for example) and it turns up photo after photo after brilliant photo. If you have a few hours to lose, do go take a look.

On an entirely unrelated note, I've made some changes to the design here: out go the red leaves, in comes something more blue (this is a decision entirely unrelated to politics). If you spot any oddnesses, please let me know.

Thursday was one of the good London days: it started with the view above, was followed by a great bit of publicity for the magazine and ended with dutch beer and discovering soup-filled dumplings at a great Taiwanese restaurant. Fantastic.

On the minus side, karma dictates that Monday will be a bad London day:I will almost certainly be rained on, stressed at work and assaulted by a drunken tramp. Ho hum.