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It was one of those events for which I suspect all of us can remember what we were doing or where we were when we heard the news – or, for those in Japan, when you felt the tremors. I had a small reminder of it over Christmas when, while clearing out some old files, an envelope fell out containing potassium iodide pills.

The "Basic Policy" for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is as clear as it is uplifting. “When people look back on the Tokyo 2020 Games in 50 or 100 years’ time”, the policy says, “the Games should be seen to have been a catalyst for change in culture, society and values leading to the realisation of a more sustainable, spiritually richer, happier society”.

It is mid-January and the temple bells have long since fallen silent, but it still feels appropriate to say Shinnen Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu to you all, for 2020 had so many downs alongside the ups that we all need congratulating for having arrived at the new year, although that too has started with some downs of its own.

It is mid-January and the temple bells have long since fallen silent, but it still feels appropriate to say Shinnen Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu to you all, for 2020 had so many downs alongside the ups that we all need congratulating for having arrived at the new year, although that too has started with some downs of its own.

For once, we can certainly say that we didn’t go to the Annual Dinner for the food. Nor did we go to the Christmas Party for the drink, even though the Japan Society members who attended were taught how to make a nifty looking cocktail involving sake and cold tea.

As the year moves to a close we are all in a poor position to make the usual plans for Bonenkai and Christmas parties, but one tradition endures: the choosing, usually by publishers eager for attention, of “words of the year”.

The British novelist Martin Amis once published a book of his essays entitled The War Against Cliche, arguing that all great novels are battles against clichés not just of writing but also of the mind and the heart.

There is much in common between Britain and Japan, but one thing that certainly differentiates us is our relationship to Mother Nature. We British are fortunate to have weather that even at its wildest is none too extreme, a stable geology and fauna that presents few dangers to life, limb or even livestock.

Until somebody pointed it out to me – perhaps wanting to send me a message? – I had no idea that Friday 13 November was World Kindness Day, or at least that that is how some countries have labelled it since 1998

So how was it for you? No prizes for guessing to what I am referring. Obviously, it was pretty good in the end for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, less so for Donald Trump and Mike Pence, though better than expected for the Republican Party as a whole.