Okura Hotel,
Tokyo, Japan
How do you buy a small Japanese bank, yes, yes, you buy a big one and wait, except that this is Japan so the waiting comes first and can go on for ever, which is why I hole up in the Okura with nothing to do but watch my check mount up until it goes right off the dial.
I am set up for this by my poor friend from the Fugu Fish Bank of Hokkaido when we are in Liverpool Street Station, putting on the moshi moshi sushi, which goes down very nicely, at that, and seems to cheer him up, he lives in a perpetual state of fear that his bank finds out he goes native in London and recalls him to head office, I know the feeling myself.
It seems how back home in Sapporo, times are hard for his bank, some of its assets are underperforming, in fact they stop performing seven years ago and leave the theatre and the management begins to wonder if they plan on coming back, and at much the same time all the capital gets to be invested in customers' stocks, which counts as being supportive but is not exactly what the BIS intends.