It is a scene I can only imagine occurring in Japan. We are sitting in the private room of a high-class Tokyo restaurant. A woman in a kimono, her face a perfectly composed smile, is placing with the utmost delicacy an array of exquisite ceramics before us, each chosen to match the culinary miracles being presented. The content of our conversation does nothing to ruffle her perfect demeanour or the sense that she finds only grace and beauty in our every utterance.

This is what we are talking about: drugs, extortion, prostitution, guns, fighting and killing. Did I forget gambling? I glance up at the woman’s face as she soundlessly places a lacquer box on the table. It is as if the conversation she hears concerns only the finer points of ikebana flower arrangement.