Thanks to Jonny who brought us some festive fare from England which we had with my in laws. This explains it:

I also fed the mince pies to some of my students but, in general, our Christmas goodies - mince pies, pudding and cake - are a bit too rich and stodgy for the Japanese palate but they did seem to try to appreciate them. They ought to, traditional Japanese Christmas dinner is a Kentucky Bucky!

If you look carefully you can see that I made an effort at MERRY CHRISTMASing, although the christmas dinner I cooked was without Turkey, bread sauce, parsnips or cranberry sauce. There are sprouts here but we decided not to. Mind you we did cook bouillabaisse, roast potatoes , coq au vin and sausages with bacon wrapped around. So I was happy there. I even made brandy butter which I ended up eating it all myself with the mince pies left over from my "christmas special" class.

Jonny came to join us for our honeymoon. Normally I like to test out my visitors as soon as they get here and while they're still jet-lagged. So I fed my parents a huge heap of raw fish at 7 in the morning and I left photographer Nick waiting for an hour in a very crowded station. With Jonny we decided to freak his noodle by taking him to the design festa that I had been to last year.

He coped pretty well, though; it was only the huge baby that really got to him. That and the very odd jeweller Takashi Higashi who worked in the medium of mice, crows feet and other things I won't say.

Also, as you can see I made a new friend again this year.

Someone told me that Japan is like a banana: yellow on the outside but white in the middle. Mrs C (formerly H) says it's more like an inverted banana - a nababa I suppose - ostensively white but with a yellow core. Myself? I say it's a topologically complex sequence of interwoven alternately inverted bananas - a babananabanabanabanananabababa. But what does it taste like? Is there an inflatable version?
These are deep questions.