Philip Patrick is an exiled Scot, who lectures at a Tokyo university and contributes to the Japan Times
The Japanese government has launched an initiative to encourage young people to drink more alcohol. Yes, really. The national tax agency’s ‘Sake Viva’ campaign is an appeal for ideas to get youngsters boozing after taxes on alcohol products, which accounted for 5 per cent of total revenue back in the hard-drinking 1980s, fell to just
Japan is reversing its avowedly anti-nuclear stance, restarting idled plants and looking to develop a new generation of reactors, announced Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday. This major policy shift from the world’s third biggest economic power underlines both the seriousness of the global energy crisis and points to the most likely way ahead. This announcement would
‘Language please, there are ladies present’, that was the kind of thing you would occasionally hear when some possibly overly refreshed male would forget himself and lapse into vulgarity in the presence of what was then referred to as the ‘fairer sex’. But if you thought such days were long gone, and such interjections now
Well, thank goodness for that. Just as it seemed the England’s women’s football team might be about to extend the nation’s 56 years in search of a continental football title, a glorious release courtesy of an injury time winner from Chloe Kelly broke the spell. Saving us all from yet more psychological trauma like that inflicted by Gareth
Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died after he was shot twice while campaigning on the streets of the city of Nara, ahead of Sunday’s upper house elections. The incident took place at 11:30 this morning. A witness told NHK (Japan’s national broadcaster) that: ‘He (Abe) was giving a speech and a man came from
Be honest, how excited are you about the women’s European football championship? The BBC – which will broadcast every game of the tournament that starts on Wednesday – clearly expects you to be very excited indeed. But is the BBC in danger of overhyping women’s football, and doing it and the players a disservice in
David Beckham has come under fire for failing to speak out about human rights abuses in Qatar. Amnesty International said his recent walkabout interview with Gary Neville in Doha was a missed opportunity. ‘It’s a shame the film makes no mention at all of Qatar’s long history of labour abuses, its shocking criminalisation of homosexuality
‘The Hungar Shames’ screamed the Sun after England suffered a mortifying 0-4 defeat to the not so mighty Magyars last night. The game was England’s worst home defeat since 1928. England now face the humiliating prospect of relegation from Tier B of the Nations League where they may join the likes of Armenia, Montenegro, and Albania.
If there is one thing that could salvage this year’s Wimbledon it would be a decent showing by the tournament’s undoubted star attraction: Emma Raducanu. Engulfed in a controversy of its own making since it banned Russians and Belarussians players in response to the war in Ukraine, and facing the loss of rankings points as
What a mess. With just five weeks to go before the start of the tournament, Wimbledon organisers are having to contemplate a potential fiasco. What in previous years was arguably the world’s greatest tennis tournament is at risk of becoming a fractious, politicised and potentially heavily boycotted iteration of itself. Following a decision by the
Everton secured their Premier League safety last night, coming back from two goals down to bag a 3-2 victory against Crystal Palace. It was all too much for some of their fans who, having endured seven nail-shreddingly tense minutes of extra time, swarmed onto the pitch at the final whistle. There was at least one
Should Ukraine be given a free pass into this year’s football World Cup? Boris Johnson has given his support to the idea, but there’s one downside: their entry into the tournament could come at the expense of Scotland or Wales. This hardly seems fair: Scotland will tonight feature in their first World Cup draw in 25
Contemplating leaders and their heroes can be a revealing business. Churchill had busts of Nelson and Napoleon at Chartwell (and a portrait of John Churchill by his bedside). Ronald Reagan had a bronze head of an anonymous cowboy in the Oval Office; Boris Johnson has a bust of Pericles (who took advice only from his
21 min listen
On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Freddy Gray on his time spent on the Poland–Ukraine border. (00:52) Next, Lionel Shriver on the return of actual badness. (06:28) And finally, Philip Patrick on the strange east Asian practice of hiring a ‘White Monkey’. (15:13) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today
About ten years ago I was interviewed in Tokyo for a job as a fake Catholic priest, performing wedding ceremonies for Japanese couples who wanted the aesthetics of a Christian service without all the hassle of actually being Christian. In a room cluttered with tacky plastic religious paraphernalia I watched a training video of the
‘There are more important things in life than football,’ said the Polish football federation as they announced their intention to boycott a crunch World Cup qualifier against Russia next month. Sweden and the Czech Republic, who meet on the same night for the right to meet the winner of that now severely at-risk tie, have also indicated their
‘Hate is not welcome in Scotland’, apparently, at least according to a public information film released in 2018 by the Scottish government. ‘We believe in acceptance, and it’s time you accept that’ continue the bright-eyed young people featured in the ad. Anyone who believes in this uplifting message might be puzzled if they pop into
A colleague has posted on the ‘Return to Japan’ Facebook page that his hotel quarantine at Tokyo’s Narita airport is set to be extended by ‘at least a week’. This is after testing positive with symptomless Covid on the point of his supposed release. He’s already spent six days locked up in a tiny room with
The two leading candidates for South Korea’s presidential election in March, Lee Jae-myung of the incumbent Democratic party and Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative People Power party, have both made men’s rights central to their campaigns. They hope to appeal to the growing constituency of outraged men’s groups who vent their frustration at feminist overreach
John Updike described America as a ‘vast conspiracy to make you happy’. Japan, a wonderful place to live in many ways, at times seems like the opposite; if not a vast conspiracy to make you unhappy, at least anxious, uncomfortable, and exhausted. This is especially true for those legions of salarymen and women sighing inwardly
