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In a week when pleasure at the prospect of returning to something closer to normal life has been balanced by concern about crowded beaches and a stubborn British resistance to learning from Japan by wearing masks, I have found myself thinking about comedians, political talk shows and men with moustaches.

We invite everyone to make a tanzaku decoration and share their tanabata wish with us. We have created a gallery to display our tanabata wishes this year and would love to see your wishes too.

Watch the video of the eleventh in our Webinar Series in which our chairman, Bill Emmott, discussed the future of international travel with David Atkinson, Timothy Jenkins and Martin Barrow.

The news, from this week’s webinar, that in 1964 the country received only 353,000 visitors was striking enough, especially given that that was the year when the Olympic Games were last held in Tokyo.

Watch the video of the tenth in our Webinar Series in which our chairman, Bill Emmott, was joined in discussion by Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman Z/Yen, and Hiroshi Nakaso, Chairman FinCity Tokyo, as we to the futures of our two national and financial capitals.

If recent events have taught us anything, it is that in these British Isles we are rather nicer to our famous past writers than we are to the historical figures whose statues have been ending up toppled or vandalised.

Watch the video of the ninth in our Webinar Series in which our chairman, Bill Emmott, was joined in discussion by Jun Arima and Nick Butler, as we focused on energy and the possible long-term consequences of the pandemic.

In cricket, that English national sport which arrived in Meiji Japan a good decade before baseball but sadly was superseded, there is a saying called “the commentator’s curse”.

Watch the video of the eighth in our Webinar Series in which our chairman, Bill Emmott, was joined in discussion by Professor Lynda Gratton to discuss the impact of the pandemic on the workplace in both our countries.

There can be no doubt that the pandemic and associated lockdown has at times been a test for our imaginations, although the idea of taking a nearly 60-mile drive to test your eyesight did rather take the imaginative biscuit this week.