Welcome to Ehbygum’s Pages

Ehbygum’s alter ego is Buta.

The old and outdated Buta pages are Here.

A Lad with Two Views.

Ehbygum is a commuter between Arakawa in Tokyo and Haworth, a village in the hills of Yorkshire. In Tokyo he looks out over the Endless City from his fourteenth floor balconies. In Haworth, the prospect is the green of the Worth Valley. There’s something about both of these places in these pages, as well as a word or two about the joys and trials of travelling between them.

Ehbygum also has a word or two to say about his other interests, Cars and Four-by-Fours, Ancient and Modern, Trams and Trains, and Pigs.

Welcome, Come Inside.

Please do come inside and have a look around. A good place to start are the links at bottom of this page. And please do come back again next time you’re in the neighbourhood, because Ehbygum plans to update these pages now and again.

Ehbygum’s News Dateline February 2008.

2007 was a busy year, as usual. Ehbygum continued to labour at the chalkface in Tokyo, and make several trips each year to Haworth. An old friend from high school days visited in the spring, which was a very pleasant and interesting experience. Spent a shorter than usual summer in Haworth because of commitments in Japan, and am planning to do the same again this year. Made up for this by longer in Haworth in the winter holidays, almost two full weeks, although spent a fair amount of time on the sofa during the second week courtesy of a mild infection.

Saw the New Year in the company of very good friends at a really good Chinese restaurant in Keighley . After that an amazing three or four kilometre walk home over the hills through the gentle midnight drizzle, along old lanes that Ehbygum never knew existed.

Motor News: the Honda Stepwagon had it’s first shaken (MoT) last October, and Ehbygum continues to enjoy piloting this comfortable little van-cum-camper along the highways and byways of Greater Tokyo, as well as forays into the mountains of nearby Tochigi Prefecture. There’s more about Stepwagons here. In Britain the Morgan continues to be an occasional source of Deep Joy, though the Land-Rover did not see many miles on the road last year. Ehbygum really likes the old beast, but is beginning to wonder whether the time has come to replace it with something a little more useable.

Flying: Ehbygum continues to fly mainly with KLM, partly for the convenience of flights from his nearest airport, Leeds/Bradford, partly to take advantage of the benefits afforded by his enhanced level membership of their frequent flyer programme, and partly out of habit. KLM, now in thrall to Air France, is gradually becoming less of a good option. Prices are getting higher, while the many benefits of KLM’s previously friendly and generous Flying Dutchman loyalty programme are being eroded by the new Flying Blue scheme which was imposed by the Gallic master. The KLM people remain the same jolly, friendly Dutchpersons, but the systems are just a lot less user friendly.

Particularly missed is the Tokyo call centre which was staffed by Japanese persons of impeccable knowledge and courtesy and affording the legendary Japanese standard of customer service. It’s been replaced by a centre on cheaper foreign shores, where the staff are just people at computer terminals who seem to have little professional airline knowledge. The new centre’s shared with Air France, and so if service in English is requested, it’s most likely to be provided by a French speaker. Sadly, some of these seem to have the equally legendary attitude to customer service associated with La Belle France. Ehbygum is starting to wonder whether he should be searching out a new carrier for his excursions to the Occident.

Radio: BBC Radio really is a world service with the advent of the internet, and very accessible in Tokyo courtesy of very low cost very high speed internet connections offered by a bunch of very actively competing providers.

Rant: Isn’t it time that violent malefactors were locked up for serious lengths of time? The time has come for Britain to build enough prisons to house its sociopaths, and to house them in circumstances that make them sincerely wish not to return once they are finally released. Shame on the British government.

Rant2: Why is Britain devoting so many of its very limited resources to an extraordinarily expensive Higher Education for kids who have little to benefit from it except for acquiring huge debts which they could very well do without? Diverting these largely wasted resources to early years education would produce a very much better educational return. We might even get a mostly literate Britain sometime down the line.

On other pages.

New! The Storey. Ehbygum’s Tokyo Page. Ehbygum’s Yorkshire Page.

Ehbygum’s Motor Page. Ehbygum’s Pigs Page.

Ehbygum’s Flying Page. Ehbygum’s Radio Page Ehbygum’s Train Page.

Ehbygum’s Links. Email Ehbygum. Ehbygum’s Sitemap.

For More Information about this site, please click here.

Ehbygum’s Site is still under construction, some of the pages more so than others.

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Tokyo Time is

Haworth Time is