Poor Creatures. What Did We Do To

If You Go To Tokyo, I Think It Becomes Very Obvious That There's This Almost Seamless Mixture Of Popular Culture And Japanese Traditional Culture.

It Was Like When You Make A Move In Chess And Just As You Take Your Finger Off The Piece, You See The Mistake You've Made, And There's This Panic Because You Don't Know Yet The Scale Of Disaster You've Left Yourself Open To.

I Quizzed Him A Lot On This Point And I Suspect The Truth Was That It Was Like A Lot Of Things At That Age: You Don't Have Any Clear Reason, You Just Do It. You Do It Because You Think It Might Get A Laugh, Or Because You Want To See If It'll Cause A Stir. And When You're Asked To Explain Afterwards, It Doesn't Seem To Make Any Sense.

I Half Closed My Eyes And Imagined This Was The Spot Where Everything I'd Ever Lost Since My Childhood Had Washed Up, And I Was Now Standing Here In Front Of It, And If I Waited Long Enough, A Tiny Figure Would Appear On The Horizon Across The Field And Gradually Get Larger Until I'd See It Was Tommy, And He'd Wave, And Maybe Even Call.

The Problem, As I See It, Is That You've Been Told And Not Told. You've Been Told, But None Of You Really Understand, And I Dare Say, Some People Are Quite Happy To Leave It That Way.