I’m halfway through a stay in Japan, the land of the free public toilet. City squares, riverside walks, bus interchanges in the middle of nowhere – chances are there’s one waiting. The grubbiest are old but clean enough. The cleanest are like operating theatres. I think of days in British cities where you have to
Twiddling my thumbs at the Rotterdam depot. Waiting on 72 pallets of Chinese tumble dryer. Five games of online chess, four YouTubes of sweary parrots, three Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares, two Idiots In Cars and a partridge in a pear tree later, it’s 12 noon. Another Pot Noodle for lunch. Spicy seafood, the label alleges.
More than 200 non-US residents stood in the queue ahead of me. A grand total of four Homeland Security officers were on duty in the glass booths. I texted my ride to expect me in Arrivals in an hour, at best, and tried to compose the opener for my Spectator diary. I didn’t get far:
One victim of police brutality is police decency. Our son has a tutor, J., who works with autistic kids in our corner of West Cork. After lockdown began, she was no longer able to work with her students, one of whom had a birthday coming up in March. The boy lives in Bandon, 15 miles
