If he only had a brain

Sorry for the long silence. I have been on temporary leave from The Times for a few weeks, working on a project of my own. I thought that I'd be able to keep posting here too, but it hasn't worked out so well. But Asia Exile is sleeping, not dead, and shall return in mid-August, newly invigorated and filled with a keen hunger.

Until then my doughty colleague, Leo Lewis, will be filing in my place. Below I attach an instant analysis of Sunday's Upper House election results from yesterday's paper. Am I too harsh on Shinzo Abe?

Leo posted a recent blog on the curious election poster of Abe which was widely disseminated during the election campaign (I saw it - above - in Kyoto a few weeks ago). However, in an unchracteristic lapse of judgement, Leo mistakenly compares the image of Shin-chan to that of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The poster is, in fact, the dead spit of another icon of cinematic popular culture -

Who but Scarecrow, from The Wizard of Oz?