kantei time

[Jean]

Darcy wrote :

 

"If one turns to page 139 of Nagayama under the jihada tag, last sentence, "Masame hada is also sometimes seen, and is especially noticeable in the work of Rai Kunitoshi

 

Interesting but Nagayama is talking about jihada, now all the masame is on the shinogi ji which leads to Yamato, Nagayama does not precise if it is a mix of Ko itame/masame or masame.

 

Here in this case, there is no mix they are clearly separated.

 

I voluntary mentionned that at first glance my kantei would have been sanji Kunitoshi (not niji Kunitoshi) but for the masame located in the shinogi ji.

 

In my Kanenaga kantei, the only thing that keeps nagging me was the high shinogi. I have seen fantastic kanenaga jihada who could equal that Rai jitetsu.

 

My conclusion is as always : Nihonto is full of exception (booby traps ).

 

Statistically speaking, how many Rai blades are you going to find with masame only located in the shinogi ji?

 

Boshi fits Rai Kunitoshi probably better than tegai Kanenaga where it is generally more oustanding.

 

Darcy wrote :

 

Quiet and peaceful :-).

 

At that moment, I knew it must be sanji Kunitoshi but I prefered to stick to Kanenaga because of the masame located in the Shinogi ji.

 

Now Darcy, how many Ray blades have masame located only in the shinogi ji?

[Ford Hallam]

Jean,

 

I think you have put your finger on a very significant point...book learning will never be enough :? ...these things are so easily misrepresented in images, and as Guido has very eloquently explained, we miss so very much by not having the sword in hand to get a genuine response. All the features we use to define our opinions are dependant on the impact they each make...in relation to the whole sword. We can so easily be misled by some things and completely miss other aspects when all we have are flat images and cold text descriptions.

 

I avoid this sort of image kantei,as a rule, myself for the very reasons Guido cited. I made an exception this time because it seemed to be a wasted effort on Gray's part and felt it a little rude not to "have a go". I actually enjoyed myself...and was intrigued at what what we can in fact discern from images...at any rate, bloody good fun :D

 

Thanks to Grey for taking the time to so educate us and for the excellent debriefing.

 

regards, Ford

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

At that moment, I knew it must be sanji Kunitoshi but I prefered to stick to Kanenaga because of the masame located in the Shinogi ji.

 

Nihonto koza Koto part one; page 170.

 

Kanenaga:

 

Jitetsu: Those with a mixture of a hint of masame in itame are the most common, there are also some that are very tight, the ji-nie is thick, and there is chikei. In the works of the shodai, the color of the tetsu is comparatively blackish and is saeru. In the works that are attribued to the sandai, there are some in wich shirake is apparent.

 

None shinogi-ji in masame.

 

I've revised my classics :lol:

[Guest reinhard]

Hi Darcy,

 

I understood this sword to be o-suriage(?). Is it attributed to Rai KUNITOSHI himself or to DEN Rai KUNITOSHI ? Some features are slightly irritating when comparing it to zai-mei blades of Rai KUNITOSHI.

 

reinhard

[Darcy]

Reinhard, it is likely Den, I don't know offhand. It passed in 2005, and was one of 8 blades from North America that passed the shinsa that year, which was a very hard one. I accounted for 3 of the other 8, as I submitted a flawless Norishige, a flawless Kanemitsu, and I had sold my Ryumon Nobuyoshi just before because I was worried about having too many in the shinsa. I selfishly count it though :-). If you have the Token Bijutsu results issue from 2005 you can probably look it up.

 

On the masame in the shinogi, some comments. First is that this is not pure masame, it is kind of a stretched and undulating itame, and there is a coarser grain which is straight and there is finer mokume mixed into that. Might help to exaggerate the contrast in the high res picture if you can.

 

Second, I wouldn't get too worked up about shinogiji especially in regards to Rai and/or smiths who worked for 55-60 year timeframes. Rai is already something that has undergone wild style changes, and is known for extreme reductions of skin steel. Flipping through my small number of Tokuju books I see a Rai Kunimitsu with quite similar shinogiji to this, and it carries through on anything with a bohi. There are other blades where the shinogiji matches the jihada as well.

 

Rai Kunitoshi in particular has Rai Kunimitsu, Rai Kunitsugu, Ryokai, Rai Kunizane working under him. All master smiths, and since Rai is famous in this time you probably have each of these fellows with his own hammermen at various points in time making swords under the master's name. When you consult the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo listings, you will find that Rai/Niji Kunitoshi accounts for the largest number of Tokubetsu Juyo works and a very large number of Juyo pieces. Rai Kunimitsu I think is second largest, with Kanemitsu very close by.

 

Then you find smiths like Rai Kunitsugu, while pretty much every bit as talented as Rai Kunimitsu, do not have nearly the number of works that have passed Juyo and Tokubetsu Juyo, something like 1/4. The easy theory is that the house style is set by the head of the forge, and Rai Kunimitsu is the central smith after the passing of Rai Kunitoshi. The work of Rai Kunitsugu is first signed by Rai Kunitoshi and then Rai Kunimitsu. This leaves a smaller number accounted for in his own typical Soshu style.

 

You have similar situations with Nagamitsu, and Kanemitsu, great smiths who had excellent smiths working in the house. There then end up being a shocking number of Nagamitsu blades, and a surprising lack of Sanenaga blades. The reason being that most of Sanenaga's output falls under Nagamitsu.

 

And therein lies some of the variation that you see, combined with age, with changes in style, changes in team, and daimei and daisaku. And that gives us Den, which means the attribution is not in doubt, but you have +/- some minor features that are away from the textbook reference list of features of the smith.

 

At the end of the day, an attributor uses the pigeonhole theory. Each hole is a smith, and every sword that has been made fits in one of the holes. One of them is the best fit. Since we no longer have the full range of signed works, we can only approximate what the shape of the holes are for each smith, which gives us imperfect matches for many swords. Also, some holes are so nearly identical that a particular sword might fit into multiple holes. If you get a perfect match, there is no Den. If you get one that needs a bit of a shove to fit in, you get Den. If it fits multiple holes, you get a school attribution. If it is loose even for the school, you get a Den in front of that.

 

I'm including the Rai Kunimitsu I mentioned below.

 

The last note is that though we try to follow scientific principles in attribution, and a kantei answer sounds so obvious (helps when you already know the answer when you write this stuff out), it in the end is somewhat farcical as we're hoping that the smiths followed strict logic and rules all of the time. Since they are human beings and we lost the majority of their output, it kind of coasts a bit on faith. That's why every time you look at a feature and make a decision, thinking about statistics and odds comes into play. The discussion we had on sori a long time ago was a good one to illustrate this, because it started with someone saying "this sword cannot be koto because the sori is too shallow." And thereafter followed a series of examples of shinto swords with deeper sori than o-suriage koto blades, and an illustration that sori is not a hard and fast rule that we should follow blindly. Everything always has to be taken only as a hint, and then consulted against the big picture.

 

Just my own view on it for what it's worth. I am not particularly good or bad at kantei, and had no teaching, so take it for what you paid.

 

[Guido]

Both machines on this desk render them clearly and well, but if your monitor is way out of whack (they ship like that from the factory... and some are really bad, like my laptop was before I calibrated it), so some people may literally not be able to see things that others can.

Posting from a laptop at home: where can I get that calibration software? Never even heard about something like it, sounds intriguing!

I don't provide measurements usually other than a general length because when you provide all of the description and measurements it just becomes a matter of table lookups.

Not *all* of the description' date=' just the stuff we can't see in the picture; let me give an example: if you post a photo Kantei of Osafune Tomomitsu, you'll get many bids for Embun Kanemitsu. Not just because the workmanship is indeed very close, but not knowing the measurements we miss the important Kantei points that Tomomitsu's blades were much more slender and with a thick Kasane, as often seen at the end of the NambokuchÅ period.

Also you'd look at the cross section and look for a more clamshell niku.

Well, you're making my point!

Anyway' date=' after writing all of that up, maybe there is a lot more to go on than would seem at first glance [/quote']And then even some. Reinhard's question echoes my own thoughts: I would bet that it's "Den", in this case because it seems to be even of better quality and state of preservation than Kunitoshi's "regular" work, and has some features that are not commonly found.

 

One of the problems I have encountered when posting a blade for Kantei myself is that *I* already know the answer. I call it "reversed engineering syndrome". Since I know it's there, I see it, and might overlook that it isn't visible for others who start from scratch in their Kantei. The dilemma is that providing too much info / detailed Oshigata and measurements, it indeed reduces the Kantei to a checklist tick-off; not enough might lead people astray. Unfortunately I don't have a ready solution for that.

 

But having whined enough about the shortcomings and pitfalls of online-Kantei, I would like to thank you for the excellent write-up: very thorough and analytical! Even those who got it wrong or didn't participate gain a lot by reading the explanation, and hopefully are able to apply this newfound knowledge the next time they look at a similar blade. I therefore would like to ask you to continue your Kantei sessions (maybe with a few concessions along the lines I mentioned above ); there are not too many out there who have access to, and photos of, high quality blades - a real sight for eyes who become sore after looking at so many eBay "tire irons" posted on this forum.

 

And finally: there are a few posts the last couple of days by an obviously very disappointed and bitter forumite. Although I find much of what he writes pretty outlandish, he made one very good observation: those of us have quite some years of studying NihontÅ, and countless real-live Kantei sessions, under their belt are often the most reluctant to give a definite answer. Although one factor might be indeed the fear of loosing face (I certainly wouldn't deny that for myself), it's much more due to having indeed learned one lesson ad nauseam: there's always the little thing we overlooked, the little exception we didn't know about, and occasionally outright misinterpretation and over-analyzing.

 

And it might come as a shock to those who think that one only can qualify as an expert by knowing everything by heart to learn that even the NBTHK officers look up things in books all the time. As my civil law teacher always said: "Nobody knows all the answers, but those who are successful know exactly where to look for them."

 

Edit: while writing this post, I missed that Darcy hade made another post, addressing some of the points I had raised. However, I'm too lazy to re-write all my ramblings.

[Darcy]

Hi Darcy,

 

I understood this sword to be o-suriage(?). Is it attributed to Rai KUNITOSHI himself or to DEN Rai KUNITOSHI ? Some features are slightly irritating when comparing it to zai-mei blades of Rai KUNITOSHI.

 

reinhard

 

I thought this would also be a good time to clarify what Den means, since the above sounds like it embraces the incorrect understanding of Den... not sure if that was your intention, but since a lot of people have the wrong impression and the wrong impression keeps floating around and because some people have and will continue to use that to their advantage... here's the brief explanation of Den. This is based on Benson's article on it, which comes from his discussion with Tanobe sensei. I also wrote to Tanobe sensei following up on Benson's original.

 

Attribution without Den:

 

1. the sword contains all of the known, accepted, and agreed on features associated with the swordsmith

2. the sword does not contain any feature that is not contained in (1) above

3. the quality of the sword represents a skill level that is in the range associated with the swordsmith

4. Furthermore, and this is kind of new, the features and skill level above are compiled from signed examples that are not in dispute.

 

Attribution with Den

 

A. the sword may contain minor features not listed in (1) above.

B. the sword may be lacking minor features not listed in (1) above.

C. the sword may represent a skill level slightly above the range associated with the swordsmith.

D. the sword may represent a skill level slightly below the range associated with the swordsmith.

E. the attribution is made directly to the swordsmith, and is not held in doubt.

 

(4) being interpreted now means that a sword, for example, that passed under Dr. Honma in the 1960s as "Go Yoshihiro" or as "Go" is now considered as "Den Go" and it will only ever pass as Den Go if it gets elevated. The reason is that there are no signed examples on which to work, so we must rely on old documentation, and historically accepted descriptions of the body of the work of this swordsmith. Sadamune obviously falls into the same category, as would/do other smiths.

 

So any new discovery of Sadamune (like mine ) would only pass as Den Sadamune, and any existing straight-attributed Sadamune if being elevated to Juyo or Tokubetsu Juyo, would have Den added to it.

 

As well, it is possible and it has happened that swords with Den have had Den removed when being elevated from one level to another... and some swords have had Den added though signed examples exist, when being elevated... and some swords have had Den added only to have it removed on the next elevation.

 

Those examples intend to show that Den is something that exists in the minor details rather than the major details.

 

This is how things are currently interpreted, and my knowledge of a counterexample is down to only one, which is my Tokubetsu Juyo Yukimitsu. This sword when it passed Juyo was Den Yukimitsu *but* the NBTHK wrote it up that "the attribution needs to be studied" indicating that they were uncertain if Yukimitsu was the correct smith. Granted, I do not have encyclopedic knowledge of what they have or have not done, but I haven't seen or heard of them writing into a Juyo Token Nado Zufu that the attribution they are giving is open to interpretation. This was 1961 though, Juyo had been around a couple of years, and the current judgments are not done in this manner.

[Guido]

Very much worth reading is also the excellent, original article by Bob Benson in regard to "Den": http://www.bushidojapaneseswords.com/Den%20article.htm

[Jean]

Hi Darcy,

 

Both machines on this desk render them clearly and well, but if your monitor is way out of whack (they ship like that from the factory... and some are really bad, like my laptop was before I calibrated it), so some people may literally not be able to see things that others can.

 

I have tried it on 3 different laptops: IBM, Assus, HP and pictures are all very dark. I had to remove my spectacles and peep at pictures from less than 10 inch away.

 

I did not try "save as" and then open it under "Window Photo Editor" and click on "brightness". Is this the solution?

 

What I cannot understand is why in the precedent kantei I had a perfect picture and not in this one (very dark)

 

Yes, you are right from the above picture it looks much more like "cantering itame" than masame

 

Thanks again I have learn something

[Jean]

Sorry I forgot to answer Jacques who still believes that everything is in the book the following link written by a former NBTHK Chairman :

 

http://www.nihonto.us/shizu_saburo_kaneuji.htm

 

You will notice Jacques, that the shinogi ji is straight grain (Masame) and the conclusion of Dr Homma Junji that the blade would have been attributed to Kanenaga were it not for its hamon ... Sic Transit Gloria Mundi....

[Darcy]

Not *all* of the description, just the stuff we can't see in the picture; let me give an example: if you post a photo Kantei of Osafune Tomomitsu, you'll get many bids for Embun Kanemitsu. Not just because the workmanship is indeed very close, but not knowing the measurements we miss the important Kantei points that Tomomitsu's blades were much more slender and with a thick Kasane, as often seen at the end of the NambokuchÅ period.

Darcy wrote:

 

And of course the additional case that an official Kanemitsu brand katana may have been made by Tomomitsu and his team under the supervision of Kanemitsu... so is officially a Kanemitsu, not an attribution to the student, not made in Tomomitsu's hand.

 

We all know anyway that all of these swords are team efforts. It just matters in the end who is directing the team, and that's the signature that goes on the blade and the attribution for the paper.

 

Calibration software:

 

I am using a Spyder3 Elite. This is a device that hangs over your monitor and then runs your monitor through the paces, getting it to show pure colors and then demonstrate how it reacts to grey levels, etc. It also measures room ambient light, people don't necessarily think about it, but ambient light levels do have a major effect on color perception... thinking about it for a few seconds it becomes obvious because it's effecting your pupil.

 

You can probably buy a Spyder2 or Spyder1 on ebay for cheap. The differences are in speed I gather, I just bought the newest one because color matching is a major issue for me when making the books and my laptop was incredibly poorly configured when I got it.

 

The Spyder can also continue to monitor ambient light conditions and warn you when things need adjusting because the ambient light changed. It's a useful device.

 

If not using hardware, some calibration can be done with Adobe Gamma, which relies on your responses to its questions in order to calibrate your display. It is not nearly as accurate, but it is better than nothing on many displays.

 

Oops, just spilled my cognac. First it was phosphoric acid on marble, now alcohol on lacquer. Not my day.

[Darcy]

Jean, if all three machines are rendering dark then all three machines need to have their brightness turned up :-).

 

Can't say much more than that, since I am working with calibrated hardware and the image has a color profile assigned to it.

[w.y.chan]

Hi Darcy,

I thought it might be a Rai school but changed my mind and gave no real attempt.

I dont know if you do it often but sometimes to see the texture of the sword better on photo it might be useful to photograph them in a more natural light or at an angle similar to what you use to do on your website gallery.

[Guest Lee]

Darcy,

 

Can you show the mei of the sword ?

 

Lee

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

Sorry I forgot to answer Jacques who still believes that everything is in the book the following link written by a former NBTHK Chairman :

 

http://www.nihonto.us/shizu_saburo_kaneuji.htm

 

You will notice Jacques, that the shinogi ji is straight grain (Masame) and the conclusion of Dr Homma Junji that the blade would have been attributed to Kanenaga were it not for its hamon ... Sic Transit Gloria Mundi....

 

I love this kind of remark, particularly when it comes from you, you are the first to claim "oh yes, but it is an exception" (remember kazu-uchi-mono thread). So, all that is valuable for all others is not for you?

 

Have you also thought that the text you quote can be wrong. It is written "the kitae is ko-itame... so and so...,the ji-nie is outstanding. The shinogi-ji is straight grained". It can be a bad translation, in fact that could mean "there is straight grains in the shinogi-ji";

 

Ho... i forgot, Kaneuji does not have a shinogi-ji in masame hada (maybe an exception?), his most common kitae is Itame mixed with a hint of Masame.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Calibration software:

 

I am using a Spyder3 Elite. This is a device that hangs over your monitor and then runs your monitor through the paces, getting it to show pure colors and then demonstrate how it reacts to grey levels, etc. It also measures room ambient light, people don't necessarily think about it, but ambient light levels do have a major effect on color perception... thinking about it for a few seconds it becomes obvious because it's effecting your pupil.

 

You can probably buy a Spyder2 or Spyder1 on ebay for cheap. The differences are in speed I gather, I just bought the newest one because color matching is a major issue for me when making the books and my laptop was incredibly poorly configured when I got it.

 

The Spyder can also continue to monitor ambient light conditions and warn you when things need adjusting because the ambient light changed. It's a useful device.

 

If not using hardware, some calibration can be done with Adobe Gamma, which relies on your responses to its questions in order to calibrate your display. It is not nearly as accurate, but it is better than nothing on many displays.

 

 

Darcy, this is a most interesting topic to me. If there is nothing against the matter a few lines written by you about the

tools/tricks of monitor calibration for Swords appreciation would be a *great* sticky, Brian allowing.

 

Oops, just spilled my cognac. First it was phosphoric acid on marble, now alcohol on lacquer. Not my day.

 

Here in Italy is already Mojito time, too few Ruhm to ruin anything... :D

[Guest reinhard]

Back to kantei: I really appreciate the accuracy and great efforts of Darcy presenting us kantei like these, but Guido has a point too. Taking this particular example: A major feature and key pointer of Yamashiro Rai school of the Kamakura period is clearly visible nie-utsuri. It is a must be. Looking at the blade in real kantei, it would be obvious and exclude many other possibilities. In a kantei on the basis of oshigata and description, it would have been mentioned. Looking at the pictures here I see something that might be nie-utsuri, though it could also be a shirake-like utsuri which might lead to top-class Higo Enju (in connection with the other features of the blade).

Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt the attribution nor want to spoil anyone's fun. This is just a good example to explain why I don't participate in competitions without getting informations I consider to be essential.

 

reinhard

[Keith Larman]

Well, fwiw, I use a Pantone Huey on my monitors. Inexpensive, not as good as the Spyder, but still very effective for improving the overall quality of the display. Odd, I never thought I'd meet someone who could outgeek me in the sword world, but Darcy has done it. I'll need to buy him a Jolt Cola at the next Token Kai...

[John A Stuart]

Hi Keith, I have only been computer semi-literate for about 4 years and am outgeeked by just about everybody. It is only because these damn machines are essential now in my industry that I even began using them 4 or 5 years ago. Good, though, otherwise I would have missed being in the on-line community. As to photo kantei, the NCJSA in their journal, To-Ron have these kantei and you can not get zoom or any other effect with the pics. Even more difficult to judge. John

[Brian]

Guys..play nice..don't make me delete more posts

C'mon now..we are getting there, let's make disagreements polite and light hearted? I know you can do it.

 

Back to the topic, which I am sure Darcy won't mind if it diverts off to colour calibration and such...

Those of you who have photoshop installed might (should?) have something in your pc control panel called Adobe gamma.

As Darcy mentioned, it is not as good, but helps a lot. Check..maybe you have it. Might even be available for download? Makes a huge difference.

As for me..I'm colour blind anyways...so I am pretty lost :D :lol:

 

Brian

[Darcy]

About the photo kantei, almost every time I post one, there are complaints about how it is done, and that it is impossible to get with the given information. Usually right before or right after someone has posted an atari answer, but the irony is kind of lost because I am the only one with the information in hand to know that...

 

I could give a description, but I personally think that this is no good for two reasons. The first is that when they rattle off a list of 15 features, one goes to Nagayama, looks up the 15 answers, and Nagayama tells you what the sword is, then you report your findings. What is learned in the meantime is not a whole lot.

 

When I started out with swords, Bob Benson gave me this huge box of old Japanese catalogs and magazines, mostly sales stuff... and I went through it all, page by page. I would cover up the nakago when I picked it up peripherally and cover up the attribution. Then I would just look at the oshigata or the photo and I would do my kantei. I did the same thing with the 58 volumes of the english token bijutsu and did most of the Japanese ones I could get my hands on until my free time went away. I could see no nie utsuri or chikei or jihada or itame or mokume or anything on the oshigatas. On the photos, well generally they were around the quality of what I produce. Just looking at drawings of hamon and shapes of blade and it is surprising how much you can get just by that.

 

This photo kantei is a simulation of what I was doing to help myself, as it was the only exposure to swords that I could get. I had no option to go look at blades, and I had no teacher. I just had to look and then see what the answer was. What the photos lacks in expression of the hamon vs. an oshigata, it gains information in jihada. And the oshigata, vice versa. It is a helpful exercise I think in my own personal experience, it's giving you half the story.

 

It is kantei with one hand tied behind your back... but if you have to practice fighting with one hand tied behind your back you're probably going to turn into a pretty mean and dirty fighter.

 

John Yumoto commented on this, because he often had to kantei blades that were out of polish. Couldn't see much of anything. The Japanese would say it was impossible, swords must be in polish, but he developed skill at using what he saw to get to the answer. He got very good at it.

 

Like the saying, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating," the fact that atari is almost always achieved in these tests illustrates that there is enough there to get fairly close and some kind of skill is being utilized, and utilizing any skill improves it.

 

It's not the skill of opening Nagayama and flipping to the section where he tells you who the smith is... or a memorized version of that. And nobody is being expected to get the answer right all the time given that you can't look at the sword. But it's useful, at least to look at the picture and quietly go through the steps yourself on your own without posting and try to come to a conclusion of what it is.

 

That's in my opinion, everyone is entitled to their own. It's why I do it, and I generally try to use works by top smiths when I encounter them if at all possible.

 

The second reason why there is no description is that anything I do on my own is not going to be to the Japanese standard. I am no kantei master myself and am not able to see everything that is in the blade and isolate all the salient points, making sure the checklist is complete and so forth. The flip side of this is that I tend to think that there is a tiny bit of fudging with this kind of thing as well, as in the past I've had a zufu translated say for an Ichimonji that talks about vivid utsuri and I when handling the blade in no way shape or form can recognize any utsuri on it at all. But the zufu says it and it's an Ichimonji which is abundantly clear from the rest of the blade... but I'm either blind or magic utsuri. Could be either. And then I pick up the next Ichimonji to photograph and there is no way it is possible to not see this utsuri or photograph it. When you translate the zufu, just says vivid utsuri like the previous one :-).

 

Anyway that said I finally got a scan of the oshigata. There is no Den on the sword, it is a direct attribution to Rai Kunitoshi, so there was not even a sliver of deviation from the template according to the NBTHK.

 

About color calibration... I will try to write up something when I get back (headed on a trip and I have been awake for about 36 hours now... not enough time to do everything I need to do). Even with a calibrated monitor you need to be aware of room lighting conditions and if they vary with the time of day, your perception of the colors will drift. It's a good thing I am usually working around 3am and 4am :-).

 

[Brian]

Well I for one am very appreciative of the informal kantei sessions, and have learned a lot from them, including from the extensive results. I get many good comments about the exercise too, and I look forward to each and every one.

The counter points have been made and explained to death. Everyone is aware that they aren't a formal kantei, and don't replace formal study. They are a fun exercise for everyone, and if you get it wrong, there is a great write up on what to look out for.

If anyone wants a detailed one like those mentioned by a few, we would all be very grateful if they would provide one occasionally for the enjoyment of all. The Token Forum has one currently, although I fear many novices are put off by formal and strict kantei, and are scared by the whole detailed process. There is a place for both though, I don't know why we often have the "all or nothing attitude" and am amazed that people are sometimes so vocal about things that would constitute less stress to simply ignore. It's a definite worldwide forum phenomenon that I see daily everywhere.

Thanks Darcy for a fun and educational exercise, and I hope I don't have to state again that these don't replace proper and formal kantei. I'm happy that people feel comfortable asking questions and having a guess, rather than hang back waiting for an answer.

Keep them coming.

 

Brian