Defending the throne
ONE of my soft southern chums is worried that I might fall prey to brutish gangs of marauding Midlands zombies, desperate to track down those of us who have stockpiled multiple ‘jumbo’ packs of bog rolls. (Why this obsession with loo-roll hoarding as the virus panic accelerates?) Back in my Army days they issued us with small sheets of scratchy, crinkly paper – we called them airmail letters because they were of a similar construction – in our ration packs. They did the biz and they certainly didn’t make us inclined to linger over that biz. Maybe we’ll revert to them when all the Andrex has disappeared; the last remaining rolls on the planet being auctioned off by Sotheby’s and Christie’s to the super-rich… Anyway, “Worry not,” I replied to my chum. “I’ve been following (some of) my own advice in these columns and I am ready with a staged response to said zombie invasion.”
Stage One: hammering on front 1600 Japan entered a long period of peace and many swords – whilst traditionally made – became as much decorative as warlike. However, pre-1600 the Japanese were busy slicing and dicing each other as if auditioning for a Hollywood Ninja film and the blades on these old-style swords (called Koto swords) reflect that. I would not want to face me waving that wakizashi.
