Back in November Colin Marshall, the host of the Notebook on Cities & Culture podcast, visited Kansai from his home base in Los Angeles and interviewed a number of local characters including celebrated writer Pico Iyer and sound artist Tim Olive. He also interviewed me and that interview is now online.
I must say he did a pretty good job of editing it too, as I don’t come across as too much of a babbling fool. In my dotage though I did make the mistake of saying Minamata sickness was caused by lead pollution. I should point out that it was actually mercury that had been released by a Chisso Corporation chemical factory into the bay for over 30 years. This is no small detail when you consider the terrible consequences this had on local people’s health…
Anyway, I enjoyed meeting Colin. Very nice chap. If you’re interested in hearing my interview here’s the link: “The Foreign Guy“. I’m looking forward to hearing the other Kansai interviews he conducted with friends John Dougill and Stephen Gill, and will post links to those as they go up.