From the excellent 23rd edition of the Monocle Weekly:

You might have caught the headlines earlier in the week that had McDonalds announcing their plans of thumping Starbucks in the coffee retail wars in Europe by bringing its cookie cutter concept and two huge cappuccinos to high streets from Manchester to Munich. Indeed if ever it was a moment of a bit of culture and trade protectionism it’s now, or is it? Earlier this week another upstart arrived on European shores in the forms of South African born Vida e caffè. Originally launched in Cape Town Vida e caffè plays up a bit of a portuguese story and does so with a sunny southern hemisphere disposition. With…reasonably big ambitions for Europe is the concept just another Starbucks in giraffes clothing?.

As Tyler digs into our favorite nation – Japan (if you didn’t know this your home work starts with buying issues 9 through 11 of you know what) – in this week’s Fast Lane column, he finds five great ways of bringing a bit more of Japan Inc. to the rest of the developing world, i.e. North America. The high notes for us this week was point three and five.

3. Clever collaborations
Japanese consumers love a clever tie-up between established brands and smart creative talent. Good examples are retailer Beams doing a customised Subaru in hot orange and chocolate brown, or bagmaker Porter doing a “man bag” exclusively for ANA.

5. Bathroom culture
The Washlet (the automated, all- spraying, all-blow-drying, all-sound cancelling, all-deodorising toilet) is finally making inroads into new markets, but the world needs to embrace this concept faster. If it’s standard practice to wash your hands after going to bathroom, shouldn’t it also be part of the routine to wash the parts of your body that performed the function? Japan’s become so addicted that they’ll even feature on the two national carriers’ 787s when they eventually take to the skies.

Sweden: Hur är läget?
USA: How are you doing?
Monocle Weekly: – Where are you fresh from?

I think it’s a wonderful time (to be more enterprising). Rents are cheap. If you’ve always wanted to run a bakery for dogs, people are still spending a lot of money on their pets. This is a great moment to go and do what you’ve always wanted to do.

Tyler Brûlé, The Australian, 2009

I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman reader, sometimes people just want to see a picture of a warship or a handsome-looking helicopter.

– Tyler Brûlé, Guardian, 2007

Interviewer: – Will you be profitable in five years with Monocle?
Tyler Brûlé: – No, I already bought an island, and I did that with old media [money].

From DLD, 2009.

For the record, did I fly on Concorde many times? Absolutely.

– Tyler Brûlé, Guardian, 2007