I like to ride my bicycle...

Queen are a popular band in Japan. My first Japanese friend, Hiroki-san, loves Queen and thinks Freddie Mercury has a very powerful presence, all of which is true. But I think this is not the real reason they like Queen. I think the real reason they like Queen is the song after which this post is named, which is probably about shagging a camel or something but which on the surface appears to be a hymn of praise for that dinkiest, cutest, quaintest of things, the Japanese bicycle. Nobody here rides a mountain bike, or even anything which in Australia would pass for a bicycle. Instead they have a piece of metal on which wheels are attached, and an english slogan emblazoned. For your edification I here present a picture of my bicycle (which I won in a lottery). From this distance you cannot see it, but the lower of the two crossbars has emblazoned on it the English slogan "Yes we can!" This bike is so cute, so adorable, that every time I approach it at its parking spot I have to say to myself "Yes we can!!" The sight of a stream of people pouring into uni on these bikes, all sitting very properly because one cannot lean on the handle bars, wiggling precariously about the road because of the tiny wheels, is really rather adorable and terribly, terribly civilised. I have been given cause to think that in the old black-and-white pictures from world war 2 in Europe even the most terrible scenes of devastation could be rendered almost prosaic by that most 1940s of images in the foreground: a pretty lady, hat and gloves on, riding a bicycle just like mine. Every day in Japan has just this atmosphere of quaint, polite 40s society because of these bicycles.

Just to confirm that the technology has not changed since that time, if you look very closely at my bike, you will see just the tip of a dynamo light sticking out under the basket on the far side of the front wheel. That`s right ... a dynamo!!! No need for batteries here, I power the light as I ride! Could it be any cuter?