I can’t prove it, but I suspect that in all the nations where the English language is collapsing, it collapses quickest in those nations where they eat the most meat. During the second world war, the US forces in the Pacific area issued their troops with a booklet indicating how much their allies ate. The booklet said that the Australians ate even more meat per week than the Americans.

Since then, the Americans have presumably caught up. One year when my wife and I were skiing in Aspen, Colorado, we were startled by the size of the steaks in a restaurant. Admittedly the restaurant specialised in steaks, but it was still daunting to be served with something of greater area than the plate. The steak was called something like a T-bone strip ribeye bazooma grande and both ends of it did a separate job of soaking the tablecloth with blood and gravy. Luckily, the tablecloth was made of paper.

Meanwhile, far away, Australia’s grammar continues to deteriorate. By now it is a vestige, a mere gesture. I read the following news item in the online edition of an Australian newspaper: “A man accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a child who failed to appear in court may be driving a stolen car, Western Australia police have said.” Even when it matters most, they mess it up.

Japan lost the war but realised that for a return to international prominence it would need to master the English language. From my studies of Japanese sci-fi comic books and animated movies, I would say that the process is now complete. There is a disturbing element, however: the Japanese people in the sci-fi adventures don’t look very Japanese. Except for the mandatory jolly fat space cadet who makes the wisecracks, the boys all look like Galahad, thereby matching the girls, who all look like Leelee Sobieski.

The submission to western stereotypes that began with the Meiji restoration is now beyond complete. But it might as well be, because the submission to the techno version of the English language is beyond complete also. In the animated space epic called Harlock Space Pilot, the eponymous Harlock must either fulfil or thwart, I forget which, a mission to place oscillators at galactic coordinates. Watch out for the photon converger!

By the time these hi-tech vocables have been translated into Japanese, you’re back in the Country Kitchen, that famous Tokyo restaurant where the cooks shout out the menu while they sit on the stove that’s cooking it. Nevertheless, I would love to see Tokyo again, although I was always a fish out of water there, waiting to be cooked in a very light, fluffy batter.