Hair-care. This past decade tonsorial attention to my thinning pate has been in the hands and scissors of yet another husbandand-wife pair. And no more than a stone's throw from Mukōgaokayūen station. They run the ground-floor barbers of a small corner house, the door emblazoned with the English word ‘Enter’. You know when they are in business (no Mondays) as they have one of those old-fashioned revolving red, white and blue barber's poles. They speak no English and my own Japanese can in no way stretch even close to ‘please trim the eyebrows’ or ‘I’d rather not have any spray thank you’ – though I can say mijikai (‘short’). Hair style with a side parting, too, I have learned is known in Japanese as a 7:3. From the opening konnichiwa to the closing arigatō , and by gestures, smiles and pointing, we have managed to ease ourselves into a fond translinguistic client and professional routine. It is a full hour, whatever your own paucity of thatch, a ceremonial interlude of aprons and shampoo, razors and massage. Worthy of a small verse epic, a BBC or PBS documentary. Never mind Hair, the 1960s hippie-musical. What about Hair, the Japanese operetta, the Japanese tanka? It bears observation that, round the corner, a rival establishment is called simply BAR BER, the coincidental middle-spacing you have to feel just as it should be. Drinks and a trim?

In you go, mutual bows, coat on hanger, a barber-seat if free – otherwise a small corner seat with either TV to watch or radio talk-show to remind you that this truly is Nihon and not London or New York. On one occasion, and almost on cue, a local came in wearing a baseball cap inscribed with the words ‘Wall paper for the corner’. Your turn, next, and once seated in the operating-chair, it is all systems go, hands-on. Cut and trim, wash and dry, shave and after-shave. Yours, the whole shebang, for ¥4000. So into a nearby small pot go spectacles and off we launch.