I am sitting in a pub with two other foreign husbands of Japanese women. We are about the same age and build, with the same twitchy faces of men who have lived too long as outsiders in a nation full of insiders.
We look alike, dress alike and spill beer alike. A casual observer might think we were brothers or even (cue sinister clash of cymbals) . . . clones.
"My wife says she is against crones," Friend A wheezes. He has been wetting his whistle the most and now finds Japanese slipped consonants hilarious. "She thinks they should be outlawed."