“Been a very mild winter in Tokyo,” its residents will tell you. “First winter on record with no snow!” This will prompt some folks into Global Warming talk, but it should in fact raise far more immediate concerns.

In the event of a nuclear war, so the myth goes, only the cockroaches would survive. What do you think they’ll make of a mild Tokyo winter?

Some ten years ago, I was walking down a street in suburban south London when something large and black whizzed past my ear. I wasn’t aware of it until it was long gone, but then I spied a very large stag beetle on the pavement. And then another. And then dozens. They were everywhere. They were even on the evening news. According to an alleged expert, not many stag beetles in Britain see a second spring. And on that warm spring day, they all came out to play.

And I wonder if Tokyoites might see the same result of the warm winter, in the shape of a bumper generation of ‘mature’ gokiburi…

I hope not, for your sake, because if you’re anything like me, the very sight of one of these bustling little critters turns your stomach. I’d never seen ‘large’ cockroaches until I came to Japan. I certainly had no idea they could fly. (Feeling sick yet? I am.)

Should the super-insect invasion come to be, you’ll need weapons. Fortunately, Mari (of Watashi to Tokyo fame) has good news for you, and has assembled quite an arsenal. (My personal favourite is the freeze spray. Although my preferred method of attack is to lob a terracotta flowerpot over the offending roach and spray my aerosol of mass destruction into the handy hole - leave for 10 mins and remove. You barely even have to look at it.)