I thought that baseball at high school in Japan was as much about manners and discipline as it was about the sport itself. But obviously, judging by what I saw on the train today, I was wrong.

There were four high school boys, all baseball players. I know that because they were all wearing their school’s baseball caps with their school uniforms. On a busy train just before seven o’clock at night, when the trains are full of people commuting from work, they were taking up not four seats, but six seats. What’s more, they were sitting in the priority seat section.

Now call me heartless, but I strongly feel that if they’re baseball players, they don’t need to be sitting in the priority seats. What’s more, all four of the boys were using smartphones. One of the rules about the priority seat section is that smartphones shouldn’t be used because they can affect pacemakers and other medical devices.

I would suggest that before such boys start playing baseball, they learn a few manners. Surely that should be the priority rather than throwing a few balls around, shouldn’t it?

This may be too much information, but I bought some toilet rolls today, a pack of twelve.

At least there doesn’t currently seem to be a general shortage of toliet paper, though, unlike at the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, but even so, since when has toilet paper been so expensive? I don’t need to buy it that frequently because I live on my own, but the last time I bought it, it certainly wasn’t eight hundred yen for twelve rolls.

Is this something to do with the Iran war, or is it just general inflation? Actually, I suppose it could be either…

I finished work a little bit early today, so I had a walk to the supermarket. Well, it reminded me of nothing more than a children’s playground. There were at least three groups of elementary school-aged children running around like maniacs, and one of the groups even had a little toddler girl in tow. And the control by the parents? What control by the parents? In fact, I didn’t even see any parents!

I’d say that to all intents and purposes, as far as the children were concerned, It was just a big, wide open space, and therefore a space to play around in. And so what if there were people trying to do their shopping?

I’m glad that I’m normally at work at this time of the day.

I went for a walk earlier this afternoon.

Near my house, there’s a funeral parlour, and they were advertising the fact that you could get an estimate in advance as to how much your funeral, would cost.

On one hand, that’s a great idea.

But on the other hand, it seems rather gruesome, really, to be talking about how much your funeral would cost. And I’m assuming that either the person whose funeral is being discussed goes and takes part in the discussion, or that at least they are aware that the discussion is being had.

Either way, it doesn’t seem like a very pleasant thing to be talking about, does it?

Whenever I see traditional wooden houses in Japan, I always feel that I would really like a house with an engawa.

If you don’t know what an engawa is, it’s sort of an outside corridor around a house. It’s still inside the house, and it’s still enclosed. Normally, it’s framed or glazed with glass panels or sliding doors.

At the supermarket today, I saw a junior high school boy in school uniform, but wearing an apron. He waved to me, so somewhat puzzled, I went over to see who it was. It turned out to be someone I knew and, somewhat incongruously, he was stacking shelves.

Now, you may well ask why a junior high school boy would be stacking shelves in a supermarket.

Good question.