Urban Dirt - Times Online - WBLG

You live by the sordid, you die by the sordid...

Right. Deep breath. Apologies to Urban Dirt readers whom this post might fatally discombobulate, but I bring vile tidings from the languid backwaters of Tokyo's Roppongi district. It seems, amid these darkened and lawless times, that there are desperadoes operating in the usually idyllic square mile of mirth. Astounding, I know, but true.

Last Friday, in an open letter which threatens to splinter the once solid-looking foundations of Japanese civil society, the American Embassy in Tokyo finally blew the lid off a terrifying new scam. This epistle is little short of journalistic dynamite. For its five paragraphs of tersely-worded bureaucratic cant offer an astonishing glimpse of nascent perils and pitfalls that not one of us could ever have guessed at in our wildest dreams.

Certain bars and clubs, it seems, are run by people who do not necessarily have their customers' best interests at heart. By the letter's final, heart-stopping stanza you may never feel safe in a Russian-managed, Nigerian-touted lap dancing bar full of Colombian strippers and thick-necked Iranian bouncers ever again. Happy ending, Sir? Not any more...

RoboSlob! Crusader of the staircase....

Whrrrr. Bzzzz. Tsss. Stand aside mortals and quiver in pathetic terror! Your puny flesh limbs are no match for the ineffable power of my mighty bionic trousers! (Well, at least until the batteries run out.)

I've been in Japan for some time now, and I've seen my fair share of brilliant inventions: a system for downloading masses of digital data through the fingertips, 3D television coffee tables, and even a titanium swizzle-stick that makes wine taste 10 years older than it really is.

All of these marvels, though, have exuded that same disappointing sense of futile genius: they are astounding, but evoke premonitions of huge commercial non-events. Honda's bionic trousers - of which The Times was given an exclusive and unexpected demonstration - do nothing of the sort. They are, very simply, astonishing. (Apologies for the rather blurry pictures which do not do these things justice) The engineers may say that the "walking-assist" legs need more work before leaving the lab, but it is hard not to believe they are already perfectly fit for the real world.

I know, I know. Gushing in print over new technology is a sure way to invite ridicule. And economic downturns inevitably raise the stakes in that game: it feels especially foolish to predict great things for something new and untested when even old favourites like cars, televisions and clothes are selling terribly. But with times getting even more horrid, we should actively suppress that instinct and delight in any innovation that survives it. Wearing the bionic trousers, strolling around the building feeling lighter than air in their supportive clutches, I imagined for a moment that I was one of the observers at Kill Devil Hills in 1903 when the Wright brothers were in town. This properly felt, for once, like the future.