Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
I woke up at half seven, the sun illuminating my bedroom. The window is annoyingly East-facing, so it always gets too much sun in the morning and not enough in the evening. My head feels mildly heavy which I immediately put down to dehydration. I get out of bed, pour myself a glass of water from the tap and down it. Now I need a wee. I run off to the bathroom (which is via the living room). It seems left my desk lamp on overnight, the yellow bulb is fighting against the curtain-filtered sunlight. Click, its off. Then I get back into bed, it's Sunday after all. I fall for the temptation and look at my phone. I answer a two or three messages. Then I switch over and put on a Youtube video which I'm not particularly interested in, I think it was something about Japanese verb endings. Closing my eyes again I test my body and see if it wants another forty winks. It doesn't. My mind wanders to last night's dream and replays it beat-for-beat in reverse chronological order. The nasally voice of the well-meaning Nihongo-guy begins to grate slightly so I switch him off. Oh well I guess I'm awake now. It's only been twenty minutes since I was last up, but I go through the wake-up routine properly again. Toilet, fill the kettle, shower, teeth. Any remnant of headache is vanished now, and I feel weirdly awake for the non-morning person I am (or wish to be). I pour myself a cup of tea from the boiled kettle and sit it down on my desk to cool as I open up the curtains and put away yesterday's clothes which I apparently unceremoniously and unwittingly piled onto the floor at the foot of the bed. Sip, ah... What shall I do today?
^ Today's wallpaper. Note "Friday" because these images were ripped from a 2004 calendar.
It's a nothing Sunday, I have something of a plan but nothing exciting. None of my friends are free, no particular event is happening, no pressing work is due. Still in my pyjamas I switch on the computer and wait warmly as she whirrs up. My automatically changing Mahoromatic calendar wallpaper announces it is the 20th September with a cute eggy frown (see above), and I proceed through the standard daily checks. Emails? Nothing important. Twitter? A few notifications, just "likes". Youtube? I already checked Youtube. Discord? I already checked Discord. Well that was simple. My only real plan for today was to go and watch the new remaster of Whisper of the Heart in cinema, so I open up Google Maps and check when the showing times are. It isn't showing today in Portsmouth. It isn't showing today in Port Solent. Huh, it is showing today in Southampton; I guess I'm going to Southampton then. Clicking back from the cinema webpage I check the train times: they're plenty often to not worry about them. Daydreaming slightly I begin to click around on G-Maps, it really is a wondrous invention up there with Wikipedia or Thesaurus.com isn't it?. The River Hamble; nice river that, I went kayaking up her once... Oh I didn't know you could get a ferry from Southampton to Hythe; woah, there's a tram up and down Hythe pier too? Oh, it's currently closed for maintenance... Totton. Been there, wasn't very nice... Peppa Pig World? Bizarre... Romsey? Where have I heard that name recently? Rather than wrack my morning brain I just googled "Romsey" (or rather Duckduckgo'ed it) and looked at the "news" tab. "BBC: Queen Elizabeth II Statue Unveiled". Oh yeah, I remember. As I (re)watched the jerkily shot phone-video of a rather pompous unveiling ceremony for this statue I'm already formulating a plan. Three trains: Fareham>Romsey, Romsey>Southampton, Southampton>Fareham. It will probably cost about ten pounds. I look up the relevant train times for Sundays. The next train to Romsey leaves in forty minutes... that's not really long enough to get dressed/breakfasted/etc and then walk the half hour journey to the station. The next one is only twenty minutes after, but it takes twice as long and costs more? Why? I guess there are two routes: either the Great Western regional service between Portsmouth and Cardiff, which only runs every few hours; or the South-Western local service via Eastleigh. As a bonafide GWR superfan, the decision was already made.
I got out of the door with 25 minutes to spare. The walk to the station is aggravatingly long, although over the years I've formulated the most efficient route albeit complex. This route I now executed at break-neck walking pace. Along the main road up to the busway (a bizarre elevated bus-road which runs through this town, and doesn't allow pedestrians). From the busway through the abandoned fort, then cutting through the forecourt of the Royal Mail depo onto the rugby ground. Sunday league was on this morning so I had to make the unfortunate 500m + 500m detour around the pitches rather than the optimum sqrt(500m^2 + 500m^2) losing me approximately 290m of ground. Through the bushes at the back of the park, across the road next to the annoyingly modernist church and through the Gillies (a park around the river with a pleasingly straight path cut across it). I arrived on Platform 1 with three minutes thirty to spare, which I spent pretending not to be winded in front of the group of teenage girls standing next to me. The classic old GWR locomotive pulled into the station precisely on time, her deep green livery glinting a little in the marginally-too-warm-for-September sun. I tried my GWR trick with success, that is sitting in the "first class" carriage. Few know, but a few years back GWR stopped offering first class on all but their intercity services, so now anyone can sit in the old 1st class carriage with just a standard ticket. I relaxed in my slightly comfier chair, putting my camera down on the slightly larger table and gazed out of the slightly more transparent window as the train pulled slowly from the station.
The ride was uneventful: the conductor-lady checked my ticket, and I made full use of the first-class experience like fiddling around with the slightly more ergonomic armrest. I alighted at Romsey at around half-past ten. I dwelled a moment on the platform to watch the train pull off, the conductor giving me a smile & wave as she leant out of the window of her cabin. Her dark-brown hair fluttered a little in the wind. I waved back. How nice it would be to be the conductor of a train. The stylish racing-green uniform with black ruffle-tie. Leaning out of the window like they do holding that baton thing. I wouldn't like asking for tickets though, what if they hadn't bought one? What do you do then? Maybe a career conducting wouldn't be for me after all... I set off walking down Station Road into Romsey Town itself, saying "good morning" to a few residents as I went (it seems this is the sort of town you do that in). The High Street was very nice, well kept with bunting red-white-and-blue strung across it. A little Sunday market taking place next to a grand statue of the Lord Palmerston (a particularly popular hero in this corner of England, in fact also the builder of that fort I walked through earlier). But the statue I was here for wasn't that of Palmerston, no matter how good a man he may have been, nor indeed was it of any man at all. Then I spied over the pitched roofs of the shops the blunt spire of Romsey Abbey, which was my true destination.
The following is a little compendium of facts compiled from a collection of reliable sources: the lady who talked to me in the nave, the printed history leaflet she gave me, and a few facts sourced from the very short Wikipedia page right now. Romsey Abbey is very old, originally established in wood-beam by the Wessex King in 907, this original version fell foul to marauding Vikings, and was rebuilt in its current form by St Ethelflaeda in 1000AD, the daughter of King Edgar and belonging to that slightly weird class of Saxon saints. She is most famous for singing psalms by night while standing in the River Test completely naked. A tale which there are unfortunately scant artistic depictions of, but one which my mind can only register as obviously moe. I imagined her singing all alone on a cold night, joined by the mooing of meadow cows who had come down to the water to see what was going on. Her white skin illuminated by the pale moon. She was enshrined in the Abbey on her death, and a convent was established there in her honour. The nuns of St Ethelflaeda came to be the economic and cultural nexus of the town, aiding its expansion into an important satellite town of Winchester. Later additions to the building increased its size dramatically but without regard for the original ancient style, leaving the curious nave with an architectural schism between earlier rounded arches at the eastern end, and "newer" gothic arches at the western. It was also one of the the few abbeys to avoid destruction during the reformation, although the nuns did sadly have to go. The local area is now under the patronage of the Noble Mountbatten Family, with their family seat at Broadlands Hall on the outskirts of the town; this connection lead to the late Queen and Prince Phillip honeymooning here in 1947, bringing a sufficient Royal association to warrant the erection of today's statue (also paid for by the Earl Mountbatten).
^ See the transition from older rounded arches on the left to later gothic (pointed) arches on the right. Fascinating!
It seemed the statue was incredibly popular, there were two dozen people crowding it taking photos and the like. I had underestimated the devout Royalists of my country, as I often do, and their fervour for anything remotely royal. Instead I went into the Abbey itself, hoping the statue would have fewer adorers by the time I returned. I learnt all about the Abbey from the sweet middle-aged lady there, who was obviously a long-time local and had a very obvious missing tooth which I tried my hardest not to look at. I joined in with the service which was going on, it seems they have five services here every Sunday! This one was mostly hymns, a few of which I knew. By the time it was over and I had paid my respects to the shrine of St Ethelflaeda it was past midday, which meant I really needed to get going since the film was at one forty-five and I had to get all the way to Southampton first. I did take a few photos of the Queen as I walked back, although the crowds of admirers had failed to subside. The quaint high street was still buzzing with a faint middle-class chatter and a local band of lute players (I think that's what they were) had begun to play a tune in the shadow of Palmerston. But I couldn't stay, I had to watch anime.
^ A very good likeness actually.
The train back down to Southampton was simple enough, although this time it was a South Western service: a rail company I am far less hot on, and not just because of their terrible uniforms. I will mention though that Romsey station is very nice, usually "art from a local school" portends aesthetic disaster, but the twenty-foot long mosaic they had made for here is rather impressive as it imagines a dream-like version of a train ride from Romsey to Paradise, a la A Tunnel to the Stars. I didn't really have time for lunch so I picked up a snack and a drink from a corner shop en-route to the cinema (most cinemas don't mind you bringing in your own stuff nowadays). I hadn't been to Southampton in a while, in fact the last time I was here was also to see an anime film: Maid Dragon in March. I guess this is where they screen them in Hampshire. I'm rather indifferent to the city to be honest, there are a few interesting areas but its overall rather plain for a city of its size. Portsmouth or Winchester are both much more interesting, if you're ever in the area. I arrived at the cinema several minutes early, but nevertheless I proceeded to my seat and sat through the excruciating ten hours of advertisements. Although I didn't actually watch them, I tried my hardest to stare at my phone instead and ignore them, although the deafening audio with which they play them made it hard to do so. I had some fun looking through the results of a stupid "Which Haruhi Character are You" personality quiz I put to my friends yesterday evening, which managed to waste enough brain power to get me through to the film's beginning. I shan't describe the plot of Mimi Sumaseba, nor shall I give it a "review" so to speak, that's not really the point of this article. Instead I guess I'll run through of what I was thinking about it as I watched. I think its fair to say the film is a slow-burner. Not "boring" but never particularly high-pace. It lulls you into the world of fanciful high-school girls and the distinctive life of early-Heisei Tokyo in the aftermath of the yen bubble-pop. The first half of the film deals with romance with a hard R: the whimsical yet listless dreams of teenagers. The second half deals with romance of the Venusian kind, and the difficulty of complex emotions first felt such as "rejection" or "unrequitment" which teenagers are sorely unequipped to handle as I'm sure we're all aware. Although I love the film dearly, I must say my mind went off on its own somewhere in the second act. As Shizuku rejects Sugimura I began to think of the girls who I've hurt through my own action by ways of love. My love-life isn't particularly accomplished, but I'm prone to mistakes as we all are. Such mistakes hurt others and one day, usually just after you have hurt them the most, you never talk to them again. It's like punching a friend in the face and then never speaking to him again. You never make it up to them like you would normally a friend or a colleague, the relationship just ends there, forever. It's sad isn't it? But such is the way of life I guess, it seems pretty universal.
^ I love this scene a lot. The emotional pay-off from the slower pace is immaculately pulled off here.
After the film I decided to get something to eat. I ended up going to the hamburger place Five-Guys: which I once described as "fast-food quality for restaurant prices", but it is unfortunately very tasty and also right next to the cinema. It's also very bad for you I assume, the greasiness would at least portend that. And although I'd rather be losing weight than gaining it, something like this once in a while is fine. Or I guess it isn't fine. Whatever. I think the sleaziness of American food is actually a weird kind of draw for me. It's "transgressive" because it's bad for you. Eating it is like wallowing in a pig sty and giving yourself up to temptation. But at the same time its not actually a sin to eat a burger, its a fake-sin which I sometimes wield as a tool to prevent myself from doing actually bad things. It's probably not a great way of thinking but my conscience goes "oh, you've done one bad thing today so you better be on your best behaviour for the rest of the day". So I suppose the extra kilogram is worth avoiding doing something actually bad? I don't know, I'm just rambling now. Back to trains.
There's this bit of the Southampton-Portsmouth line I really like, when you take the curve around the estuary of the River Itchen and swing round near the Bitterne. From there you can see across the estuary to the skyline of Southampton, and if you're lucky you'll see even beyond that the towering hulks of the mega-cargo ships moored in Southampton Port. Now I work with such vessels all the time, but seeing them in this context puts into perspective their ridiculously massive scale. They dwarf the churches and tower-blocks of the biggest city on the South Coast like a man dwarfs a baby. Their blocky outlines blot out the sky and make a whole city look like its in miniature. Today was such a day and the view from my slightly plusher GWR chair caught me offguard, as it often does. It reminds me of the Iron from Fooly Cooly, or the shadow-kaiju from Gridman, something too big for its environment, a very alienating sight. I arrived back home at seven o'clock, after a more leisurely stroll back across the Gillies/etc all while infectiously humming "Country Roads". I saw a full set of seven magpies (a secret never to be told) and picked up a pint of milk from the shop. I have a few things to prepare for work tomorrow and a bath would be nice as well... Oh crap, I better write an article too!
^ I did indeed have a bath. My hinoki tub I got from Japan is one of my prized possessions, the smell of the wood when it gets wet is one of the greatest scents in the world.
