Philip Patrick

Philip Patrick

Philip Patrick is an exiled Scot, who lectures at a Tokyo university and contributes to the Japan Times

Saturday

Philip Patrick

Japan doesn’t want to see Starmer

If Keir Starmer’s trip to China seemed unfathomable, then his follow-on visit to Tokyo today is even more mysterious. ‘Why on earth is he here?’ the Japanese are asking (those that have noticed he is here that is). There doesn’t seem to be any pressing business for the Prime Minister to discuss with his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi right now. If it is just a courtesy call, then it’s rather a discourteous one since the timing, for her, is terrible. Wags here are calling the visit a 'boondoggle', claiming Starmer just wants to enjoy the cheap shopping Takaichi faces a make or break snap-election on 8 February. She is seeking to win an outright majority in the lower house and thus a mandate for her ambitious policy platform.

Tuesday

Philip Patrick

Could the Japanese economy crash out?

Is the Japanese economy about to crash? This once unthinkable prospect is now very much thinkable as concerns grow, and the cost of borrowing rises, in response to the bold but, to many, bewildering economic plans of prime minister Sanae Takaichi. It is a question of huge import, for if the Japanese economy collapses the consequences around the globe could be grave. The inevitable, slightly lazy comparison is with Liz Truss.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

The real trouble with Naomi Osaka

Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka is at the centre of controversy again, losing friends and alienating people as she has done throughout her chequered career. The four-time major champion and current world number 16 has been accused of poor etiquette in a match against the Romanian Sorana Cîrstea at the Australian Open. Osaka was heard to exclaim ‘Come on!’ repeatedly as a sort of self-motivating exhortation in Thursday’s match. Nothing wrong with that, but one of her ‘come on!’s occurred between her opponent’s first and second serves and provoked Cîrstea to complain to the umpire.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Japan’s Thatcher is making a huge election gamble

Japan will go to the polls in February for a general election after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called a snap poll today. Takaichi is looking to make the most of her extraordinarily high approval ratings – in what has proved quite a lengthy honeymoon period – to secure a more comfortable mandate for her ambitious policy platform. It is a bold move by Japan’s first female prime minister and not without risk. Her Liberal Democratic party (LDP), the closest thing Japan has to the UK Conservatives and long seen as the natural party of government, has a slim majority in the lower house thanks to the support of three independent lawmakers but lacks a majority in the upper chamber.

Monday

Philip Patrick

Hollywood is all but silent on Iran

It was the Golden Globes last night in Tinseltown and as per usual Hollywood’s finest strutted and peacocked on the red carpet to the click and flash of the massed paparazzi cameras. Images of their 1000-watt smiles and 10,000-dollar couture outfits were beamed around the world to a million Instagram and X feeds. Yet, something was missing. These days a celebrity glamfest is not complete without a healthy dose of woke posturing on the issue du jour, whether it be underrepresentation of black people (‘OscarsSoWhite’ or Black Lives Matter), women’s empowerment, climate change, or most recently of course, the plight of the Palestinians. This time, not so much.

Friday

Philip Patrick

Do football managers still matter?

It is testament to the decline of Manchester United that the sacking of their manager, Rubin Amorim, on Monday has been treated as a second-order story. True, rather dramatic events in South America have put such things into their perhaps proper perspective, but you do feel that even if it were an especially slow news day, this once momentous event at English football’s second most successful – and some would still say greatest – club wouldn’t have elicited much more than a shrug. Amorim has gone out with a bit of a whimper, though the unkind might say he never really arrived. His departure, it appears, was precipitated by a confrontation with director of football Jason Wilcox over a clash of responsibilities.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

The strange world of ‘2D exclusive’ Japanese women

For those trying to understand Japan’s plummeting birthrate – which some fear could eventually lead to Japanese people ceasing to exist – evidence of where the problem might lie emerged this week. Old tweets from Japan’s new minister of state for economic security, Kimi Onoda, have surfaced in which the 43 year-old describes herself as ‘2D exclusive’. For the unenlightened, this means this very eligible young woman only forms romantic attachments with animated characters.  Onoda is far from alone is being smitten with 2D characters and untempted by the real thing In the tweets Onoda explained that human romance is ‘uncomfortable’ and that her affection for ‘2D men’ leaves her no time anyway.

Thursday

Philip Patrick

Will FIFA cancel its LGBTQ Pride match for Iran and Egypt?

From our US edition

FIFA looks set to face its first major scandal of the 2026 World Cup – if you don’t count the exorbitant cost of the tickets, that is. The Egyptian FA has made a formal request for the cancellation of an LGBTQ+ celebration planned to take place at their Group G game against Iran on June 26 in Seattle. The game roughly coincides with the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The Seattle Pride match committee are planning to combine celebrations of the anniversary with the game.  A Pride match or Pride night is a tradition in American sports going back to around the year 2000 and is now embraced by most professional leagues. These events usually involve a particular game being dedicated to certain communities.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

How an Iran-Egypt Pride match threw the World Cup into disarray

Fifa looks set to face its first major scandal of the 2026 World Cup – if you don’t count the exorbitant cost of the tickets, that is. The Egyptian FA has made a formal request for the cancellation of an LGBTQ+ celebration planned to take place at their Group G game against Iran on 26 June in Seattle. The game roughly coincides with the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The Seattle Pride match committee are planning to combine celebrations of the anniversary with the game.   The game between Iran and Egypt will be the first Pride match in World Cup history A Pride match or Pride night is a tradition in American sports going back to around the year 2000 and is now embraced by most US sports.

Friday

Philip Patrick

Fifa’s great World Cup rip-off has gone too far

Today's World Cup draw in Washington, presided over by Fifa president Gianni Infantino with best buddie president Donald Trump at his side, is intended to whet appetites, set pulses racing and, most importantly, get fingers twitching on booking sites for tickets, flights, and hotels for next summer’s North American extravaganza. The World Cup 2026 is poised to be not just the biggest ever, but the biggest rip-off ever For those giddily contemplating the trip to North America next summer – not least we Scottish fans who have been denied a place at the party for so long – a cold, hard reality is about to bite. For the World Cup 2026 is poised to be not just the biggest ever, but the biggest rip-off ever.

Saturday

Philip Patrick

‘Monster parents’ are terrorising Japan

If you want to make a Japanese high school teacher break out in a cold sweat and suffer heart palpitations, just whisper the word ‘monpa’ in their ear. For ‘monpa’ or ‘monster parents’, the bane of a Japanese educator’s life, are serial complainers notorious for their persistence, aggression, unreasonableness and irrationality. They have become such a problem that the city government has decided to take cation. There is nothing uniquely Japanese about overprotective, unrealistically ambitious or just plain pushy parents (‘helicopter parents’ are the US version) but Japanese monpa are in a league of their own.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Scotland’s win showed the beauty of international football

Scotland have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. I can hardly believe that I have just written that sentence, so fantastical did this eventuality appear at times, and how specialised in failure Scotland’s once proud national team had become. But it is true. I’ve checked the score, and pinched myself several times.  We beat Denmark 4-2 last night (the classic World Cup scoreline) in what may well be the greatest Scotland international match ever played. As someone who was there in France 10,000 days ago the last time we qualified, it was a euphoric occasion and one that underscored that the true heart of football beats far more passionately now for the international game.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

Is the British Council worth saving?

The British Council, the cultural arm of the UK government, is in deep trouble. The 91-year-old organisation is struggling to repay a £200 million-pound loan from the Covid era and there is anxious talk of up to 40 centre closures and a possible 2,000 job losses. Assets are being sold off to try and keep the show on the road. There is a problem that the Council does not really know what it is for – or perhaps it knows, but does not relish, its mission ‘We really need help on that loan,' says Scott Macdonald, the Council's beleaguered chief executive. 'The government has got to turn it into something viable for us and at reasonable termsWe are selling off everything.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Is Japan’s new PM the Thatcher to Trump’s Reagan?

‘My wonderful ally and friend’ is how Japan’s brand new, and first female, prime minister Sanae Takaichi described President Trump in her recent tweet. As has been commented in Japan, this is a bit strong given that the two have spent a total of one day together (Trump is visiting as part of a tour of South Asian). The accompanying photo shows the two in couple-y proximity inside a US army helicopter at Yokosuka naval base. Trump looks relaxed and happy. Takaichi? Positively smitten. Could we be witnessing the emergence of a new geopolitical power couple in the mould of Thatcher and Reagan? Takaichi is known to have been inspired by the former Tory prime minister and has even taken to imitating the Iron Lady’s dress (Thatcherite blue with pearls).

Saturday

Philip Patrick

How sumo wrestling bounced back

Sumo is the featured attraction at the Royal Albert Hall this weekend in a rare foray for the ancient sport outside of its spiritual home of Japan. The five-day tournament started on Wednesday and features 40 rikishi (wrestlers) (about six-tonnes’ worth) squaring off in a specially constructed dohyo (ring). Reinforced chairs and upgraded toilets have been installed for the exclusive use of the 28-stone ‘naked ambassadors’ (as they are being called here in Japan). Like test cricket, sumo wrestling is set apart and sustained by its antiquity It has been a huge success so far. Tickets sold out long ago but can be picked up for hundreds of pounds on the secondary market. Ring-side spectators have been warned about the danger of being squashed by a falling wrestler.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

Japan has a bear problem

In a scenario out of a horror film, or Werner Herzog documentary perhaps, Japan is experiencing a spate of bear attacks, including a series of fatalities. Over the last few years, the number of encounters, attacks and deaths have all surged. This year alone, since April, 200 people have been attacked and six killed. The ongoing grisliness is threatening to seriously impact tourism in certain areas. Most attacks are in the northern island of Hokkaido, known as ‘Japan’s last frontier’ Some of the stories are the stuff of nightmares, such as when an 81-year-old woman in Iwate was mauled to death inside her own home in July – or the 26-year-old hiker found savaged on a mountain trail in Hokkaido in August.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

Why Japan doesn’t care about having its first female leader

Japan is to have a female prime minister. Well, probably. Sanae Takaichi, the 64-year-old conservative veteran, has at the third attempt won the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – which brings with it the bonus of being prime minister. Or at least it usually does. The LDP are currently in a coalition government, so Takaichi’s appointment will need to wait a couple of weeks to be confirmed at an extraordinary session in the diet (the national legislature). You might think the Japanese, feminists especially, would make something of having their first female prime minister, but the news has elicited not much more than a shrug here. There has been little fanfare and still less rejoicing.

Friday

Philip Patrick

Japan’s Asahi cyber attack is a national embarrassment

Could Japan be about to run out of beer? Or at least of one of its favourite brands Asahi, whose ‘Super Dry’ is the number one best seller in this nation of hop heads? This is the alarming and looming prospect in the country after a cyber attack on Asahi forced the company to close its production facilities. There are rumours of only a few days’ supply left in the convenience stores and izakayas (Japanese style pubs). If true, and if Asahi can’t solve the problem quickly, panic buying is a distinct possibility in a country with a per capita consumption of 34.5 litres a year. Then, with no indication of when production will restart, Japan really will be super dry. This isn’t the first such scandal to hit Japan. There has been a plague of such events in recent years.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

A fitting encore for Spinal Tap

The long-awaited sequel to the documentary (or ‘rockumentary’) Spinal Tap, which told the story of a failing British rock band’s disastrous American tour, opened this month to decidedly mixed reviews. Robbie Collin in the Daily Telegraph advised us to dial down our expectations to -11 (ho ho) for The End Continues, which sees the band reform for a final, contractually obliged concert in Las Vegas. Collin mused that for many aficionados the first half at least would put them in mind of a description of one of Tap’s early albums, Shark Sandwich, which ran to just two words: ‘shit sandwich’. Mark Kermode seemed pained at the comparison with the original and deemed the new film a footnote of interest to die-hard fans only.

Monday

Philip Patrick

Who will succeed Shigeru Ishiba?

Here we go again. In what appears now to be an annual event, the Japanese prime minister has resigned. In a press conference on Sunday evening, Shigeru Ishiba, who had only been in the job since last October, explained that he was leaving because his continuation in post would prove divisive for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It is time, he said, for the ‘next generation’ to take over.  Ishiba had lost his party’s majority in both lower and upper house elections (he headed a minority coalition government) and is now irredeemably tainted by failure. He has no faction or support group to stand up for him and couldn’t have credibly presented himself as the man to either unite and rebuild his declining party or make any headway in solving Japan’s myriad, complex problems.