I was warned, but didn’t need to be. ‘Don’t even think about taking out your phone when you’re outdoors in London’.  I was very aware of that warning on a recent visit- but even so, it’s easy to forget it.  Hundreds of phones are snatched every day.  The exact numbers aren’t known, as few of the thefts are reported to the police.  What’s the point, when the police don’t give a damn and the chances of them recovering your phone, let alone catching the culprits are tiny.  The thefts are usually carried out in the open air by thieves wearing balaclavas on scooters and they are gone in the flash of an eye.  But many thefts are carried out by pickpockets on the street or in shops and cafes.  This plague ruins many a holiday and deters people from visiting or living in London, me included.

The contrast with Japan couldn’t be more stark.  There, people feel so certain that their phone will never be stolen that they will leave it on a table to reserve a seat in a café and then go to the counter to order, confident that their place and the phone will be there when they return.  The photo above was taken in a Starbucks in Fukuoka, where a woman marched in, put her phone on the table and then disappeared to get her order.  The next day I saw a woman leave her handbag on a table and then go round the corner, out of site, to join the queue for a coffee.  These people aren’t stupid or reckless- they know with certainty that their property is not at any risk of being stolen.
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In London the number of phone thefts has quadrupled in the last four years and the culprits are organised gangs.  In a recent case, involving 40,000 stolen phones, where the police did make arrests, the thieves were from Bulgaria, the organisers were from Afghanistan and the phones were being shipped to China. This kind of scenario could never occur in Japan, where they keep very strict control of their borders and they have maintained their society as a homogeneous, harmonious whole.  The consequences of Britain failing to do so is only too apparent.

Is there anything more annoying in England than arriving home to find a note from the postman which begins ‘Sorry you were out”?  After which you have to travel up to 15 miles to the main Post Office, find a parking space, queue and then eventually receive, often on payment of a fee or fine, the letter which someone else has paid to be delivered to your house?  In Japan they do things differently. Last Sunday I arrived at my house in Itoshima to find a note from the postman with the familiar preamble ‘Sorry you were out”.  The note asked me to connect to a QR code, which I duly did, and was connected to their website. This was a little after lunchtime. The website asked me to let them know when it would be convenient for me to receive the letter. One of the options which they gave between 2pm and 4pm on that day (Sunday). I clicked that option and sure enough, 2 hours later the postman trundled up the hill on his motorbike and handed me the letter in return for a signature.  In England the postal service is run for the convenience of the staff and hence the service to the customer is rubbish.  In Japan the service is run for the benefit of the customer, and hence the service is really rather good.

Jung Chang possesses the rarest of combinations, both moral and physical courage.  As her magnum opus Wild Swans reveals, her parents were both fanatical communists at the start of Mao Tse-tung’s rule.  Her father behaved with incredible cruelty when he forced his new teenage bride to walk hundreds of miles over mountain passes, carrying a pack-pack, whilst he made the journey by car. His reasoning was that she would not be accepted as a member of the Communist party unless she suffered. And suffer she did-  her feet were covered in blisters, she collapsed from exhaustion, had a miscarriage and ended up in hospital in a coma. All this was endured because they worshipped their leader, Mao. She revealed in ‘Mao-The Unknown Story’ just how misplaced that worship was. No marching for him- when he led his troops, he was carried in a litter. The act of hypocrisy which she resented the most was the fact that after he had ordered the destruction of all gardens and deemed it a bourgeois sin to grow flowers he kept the most lavish, floribundant gardens at all his residences. But hypocrisy was the least of his faults- she discovered that he was cruel and malevolent on a scale unmatched by any other human being, including Stalin or Hitler, or even Stalin and Hitler combined.  He not only allowed the ‘Great Famine’ to happen, but  he actually planned it, knowing that tens of millions would die (the figure admitted by a  leading communist party historian is 37.558 million). Chung estimated that he had caused the deaths of well over 70 million of his own people in peacetime, as well as inflicting terrible suffering during the cultural revolution.

In ‘Fly, Wild Swan’ she tells the story of how the research for her book on Mao was carried out and how lucky she was to be able to do the research and find out the truth during a brief period of openness in China, and how the cult of Maoism is thriving in spite of what was revealed.  Now, the Chinese population is once again being indoctrinated into the cult of Maoism.  And there are plenty of useful idiots in the West supporting it. Chang quotes Ken Livingstone, when he was London mayor, as saying ‘One thing that Chairman Mao did was to end the appalling foot-binding of women.  That alone justifies the Mao Zedong era’.  In fact foot-binding had been banned by the Empress Dowager Cixi in 1902, but it beggars belief that anyone should think that one beneficent act would out-weigh mass murder. As Chang describes in her book, Communist China has done everything in its power to silence her and force her to renounce her meticulous, impeccable research on Mao. It is a tribute to her wonderful courage that they have not been able to succeed.

One of the Chinese government’s most egregious acts  towards Chang was to prevent her visiting her dying mother in China.  It is chilling to remember that only recently in this country our own Prime Minister, who considered himself the most liberal and compassionate of men, imposed a blanket ban on any person visiting their dying relative, on grounds which we now know to have been wholly specious. This was positively Chinese in its cruelty and wickedness and shows how perilously close we are to the tyranny of China.

There is an amusing contrast between Thomas Piketty and Wang Jianling.  Piketty is a famous French economist and highly respected member of the Establishment, who is dedicated to the destruction of the capitalist system.  Wang is a member of the communist party in China who has done more than anyone else to create wealth and capital through free enterprise in China.  When I met him during my time in Oxford he was the richest man in Asia.  The occasion of our meeting was a lecture given by him at the Said Business School  to promote his book, The Wanda Way.  The lecture hall was packed with Chinese students, who listened with rapt attention to his story of how he rose from being a soldier in the Red Army to creating a property empire, based on malls and cinema chains.  Question time revealed the eagerness of the audience to learn the secrets of becoming rich.  As I was, literally, the only non-Asian in the audience I was interviewed by the attendant press and TV and told them how impressed I was by what I had seen and heard.  There was no doubting the keenness of the young Chinese to learn the lessons of Free Enterprise and profit by them.

The contrast with a lecture given by Thomas Piketty could not have been more striking. His talk, to an audience of more than 500, was vastly oversubscribed.  Piketty’s main thesis is that capitalist society is becoming more and more unequal and that the remedy is more government intervention and higher taxes. The audience loved him and it was obvious from the questions which were asked that they subscribed to his thesis. When I collared him at the reception afterwards he doubled down on his call for higher taxes, telling me that he thought that a top rate of income tax of 75% would be sustainable. I wonder if I was the only dissenting voice that evening?  It certainly felt like it.  The fact that his crazy  and destructive theories (which now include a ban on private jets) are treated with respect rather than derision will go some way to explain why today Europe is faring so badly , in contrast to the continued growth of the economy in China, fettered though it is now, by the increasing authoritarianism of President Xi.

It’s a depressing thought indeed that Oxford students live in a bubble of unreality, unaware that with the loss of their economic freedoms go the loss of other freedoms as well, such as freedom of speech, as well as a remorseless decline in their prosperity. ​It seemed to me that the Chinese students were hungry for success whereas the Oxford students were complacent and, for the most part, heading for failure.

When I was ten my family moved to a house on the side of a hill in the Yorkshire Pennines, which had a small kitchen garden, much like ours at Yewbarrow House. My father spent all his spare time there, growing fruit and vegetables and tending to the chickens, but none of his five children, especially me, showed the slightest interest in gardening, or in helping him.  It wasn’t until I had children of my own that the gardening gene finally kicked in.   My own children have been dragooned from a young age to collect soft fruit in our kitchen garden but until now that has been the extent of their involvement.  Until now….when, gloriously, my daughter Georgina has launched a project, together with her boyfriend Alex, for a YouTube channel devoted to the garden.  The project is called The Garden in Grange and will consist of a series of short videos, with lots of mini reels in between, chronicling their introduction to gardening.  The first video was released to the unsuspecting public a few days ago and the response has been spectacular.  They have already attracted more than a thousand subscribers to their channel and the video has had thousands of views.  A brilliant start. Result- one very proud Dad, who is eagerly awaiting the next instalments.

Joseph Paxton began writing his definitive guide to the Dahlia* at a time when it was still popularly known at the Georgina (see posting-Dahlia or Georgina).  He surmised that the name Georgina might have been given in honour of Lady Holland, who had been acclaimed as the first person to introduce the Dahlia into the country.  There doesn’t seem to be any basis for his supposition, as her names were Elizabeth Vassall, although her best friend was the similarly named Georgiana, the (notorious) Duchess of Devonshire, and she did name one of her daughters Georgiana.  Lady Holland had seen the plants in the botanical garden in Madrid in 1804 and sent them to Holland House, her estate in London.  From there, they found their way to Kew Gardens, where, after they had flowered in 1805, William Hooker made illustrations of them (see above).  The flowers are simple, singles, as were all Dahlias at that time.  The yellow one, called Bidentifolia is described as having a mild scent, reminiscent of saffron- an unusual feature in a Dahlia, although our very own Margaret Denby Dahlia, created more than two centuries later, is also mildly scented. In 1824 Lord Holland wrote a verse for his wife:

The Dahlia you brought to our Isle
Your praises forever shall speak
‘Mid gardens as sweet as your smile
And colour as bright as your cheek

Lady Holland did much to popularise the dahlia, but Lord Holland was mistaken in believing that she was the first.  That honour rests with another formidable horticulturalist- the Marchioness of Bute.  The Marchioness happened to be in Madrid at the moment, in 1798, when the plant was brought from Mexico to Spain and through her friendship with the Director of the botanical garden there, arranged for some tubers to be sent to Kew Gardens.  Unfortunately, the people at Kew made a hash of things and within a couple of years the plants were no more.

An account of these two redoubtable Dahlia enthusiasts would not be complete without a mention of the keenest Dahlia lover of them all and the most powerful woman in the world at the time- The Empress Josephine.  The Empress obtained her Dahlias from the same source as our Englishwomen- the Botanical Garden in Madrid and set about hybridising them so that soon she had more than 100 varieties, including the first doubles.  It is said that she loved them so much that she wanted to keep them exclusive to her own garden and that when a Polish count bribed her Lady in Waiting and a gardener to steal 100 plants she was so angry that she ordered all her plants to be destroyed.  This story must be apocryphal as she continued to grow Dahlias in her Malmaison gardens.   Between them, these formidable three ladies ensured that before long the Dahlia was growing in every front garden.

*A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of The Dahlia (1838)

​When I came to gardening as a complete novice I also came to gardening free from any prejudices and preconceptions.  For instance I looked at a Dahlia and thought “How beautiful’, whereas if I had been properly brought up I would have grimaced and said “How vulgar”.  I had no idea that Dahlias were considered to be gross, gaudy, garish and beyond the pale.  This last phrase is apt because in a well brought up garden pale colours such as blue, mauve, lilac and white were acceptable, but orange and red, or, heaven forbid, orange and red together, were too, too, de trop.
 
So it was that, in my complete innocence and oblivious of the sniggers of the cognoscenti, I put together a collection of brightly coloured Dahlias, blithely placing red against orange and yellow with purple.  I was lucky in two respects. First that Christopher Lloyd, who wrote a weekly column for Country Life, expressed his admiration for Dahlias and other brightly coloured tropicals and began to puncture the prejudice against them.  Secondly that the British public, perhaps following his lead, or starting a trend on their own, started to buy them and love them.  Gradually Dahlias became flowers to admire, rather than to be sneered at and this trend coincided with the growth of my passion for them in all shapes, sizes and colours.    
 
Dahlias even began to be grown in the most sophisticated of gardens, although these precious creatures kept their prejudice alive by only growing the dark-leafed ‘Bishop’ varieties.  I still love them in any shape or size, or leaf colour- the gaudier the better.  But I have kept a bed of the white variety Bishop of Dover, quite separate from the others, so that the garden snobs can enjoy and admire them, unpolluted by their gaudy cousins.

Does torture by bamboo, where a man is tied to the ground and bamboo grows into him, really work? You’d have thought that the total exclusion of light would stop the plant growing, and my guess is that this form of torture is more the stuff of fiction than history.  But there are other forms of torture by bamboo, as everyone who has planted a clump, only to see it take over their garden, will know.  The second form is the torture of trying to remove it.  Bamboo is tenacious stuff, and you have to be very strong indeed to dig it out.
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Our land at Itoshima was well and truly tortured by bamboo when we took it over.  The bamboo was so dense that nothing else would grow. The first three months were spent digging it out, mainly by Matt’s stalwart bunch of Workaway volunteers.  Then the bamboo came in useful. Chris, with his usual creative flair, used it to make a decorative fence round the vegetable garden. These four photos show how bamboo ceased to be an intruder and became our friend.

Well, the ‘ish’ idea has been introduced to Fukuoka with a restaurant called Ivorish. It really sums up everything that is wonderful about the city. Ivorish, which is in the centre of Tenjin, the classiest part of the city, where the rents are extortionate, specialises in French Toast, of all things. Their sign, written in English in the window exclaims: Welcome to Ivorish. We cherish the word which is expressed through our heart and love. We hope you enjoy our premium French Toast. What makes it so special is combination of our original bread for French Toast and fresh and well selected ingredients. Creamy whipped cream and ice cream from Aso Oguni match perfectly with our French Toast. Why don’t you try them and you won’t regret it!!
As the queue outside shows, it’s massively popular. So very Japanese-ish.

When we stuck the advert in, in the summer, we had no idea what to expect, but what we got was easy-going, hard-working, cheerful and friendly travellers, none of whom left early and several of whom stayed longer than they expected to. At one time we had eleven in a house which can comfortably sleep seven, but the word was, ‘the more the merrier’. And what they achieved was remarkable. An overgrown jungle was cleared and made ready for planting. Acres of bamboo were removed. Under the leadership of Matt, who came from England to take charge, the garden is now ready for the second phase, which will be planting and construction, under a new leader, Chris.

Izzie, USA; Sasha, USA; Whitney, USA; Aswin, Holland; Matt Supervisor, Poland; Julie, USA; Nora, USA; Joana, UK; Chris, UK; Kevin, USA; Laura, Canada

‘Mount Minohara’, as we had learnt to call it, was so perfect that I had to find something nearby, and last autumn I met an elderly couple who had built a new house 18 years ago, within sight of our mountain, in the village of Shima Sakurai, but who now wanted to return to the city. They were surrounded by forest and agricultural land, some of it in the building zone. They agreed to sell to me, and put me in touch with five of their farming neighbours, with the result that I ended up buying 9 separate plots, totalling 10,000 square metres, all adjoining, from 6 sets of people. This was the birth of Slow Life Japan, whose story is being chronicled here.

I attended a Billy Graham rally once, and although I’ve been an atheist all my life, it was all I could do to stop myself joining the crowds who surged forward at the end to sign up to join his sect. It’s the same with Jamie.  He’s mesmerizing, but it’s worthwhile looking at a few facts before signing up to yet another new tax.  First, sugar consumption has been falling steadily- by 20% since the 1970s- while obesity has been rising. The average number of calories consumed has also fallen, showing that it is inactivity, rather than eating, which has pushed up rates of obesity. Secondly, obese people cost the NHS less than the healthy, because they tend to die younger, and so are less likely to reach the expensive years of extreme old age.
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So, the basic premise of Jamie’s campaign is wrong, but it’s wrong for other reasons as well. It’s no business of the government to tell people what they should eat or drink- not least because they’ve been so wrong in their advice in the past. But most importantly, a sugar tax would hit the most vulnerable in society- it’s a very regressive way of collecting revenue, which will make the very poor even poorer- and the very fact that this will bring a smile to George Osborne’s face is reason enough to oppose it.

I outlined this proposal to a group of schoolchildren who were visiting my garden and they were excited by the idea, but one girl put up her hand and asked “But how would the train get up the hill?” It’s a little alarming that the combined intelligence of the town council is lower than that of a ten year old girl. There’s another problem – as Hampsfell Road is a dead end, how would the train turn round? I think I have the solution – there’s a scruffy area of scrubland at the top of the hill which would make an ideal turning area.
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*The photo shows a town train in Torquay which will come up for sale at the end of the year for the bargain price of £104,000. No doubt the Town Council will be organising a whip-round.

Eminem didn’t play games with his fans, but faithfully reproduced his hits to rapturous acclaim, even though his sound system was as atrocious as Dylan’s. The fans have a strange dance which involves extending their right arm and jabbing their fingers so that at times the stadium resembled a Nuremberg rally with Tourette’s.
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Eminem, like Dylan, is a poet who constructs long narrative songs with a message. And also like Dylan he revels in challenging authority. The most popular T-shirts at Wembley carried the slogan “I don’t give a fuck”. As the F-word has lost all power to shock, the message probably carried less impact than Cary Grant saying, two generation ago, “Frankly, my dear I don’t give a damn”, but the fans don’t seem to be aware of that. Even though the power to shock is waning, I’m all for kicking against the pricks, especially when it’s a young person doing the kicking, even my own offspring. So I was proud of my two youngest daughters, who arrived at the stadium five hours early, to get the best position just in front of the VIP barrier. Eminem to them, or at least to my youngest, is just as important as Dylan was to me at their age.