In Japan, people buy kerosene from small trucks that cruise through the neighborhood, hawking their goods and the price, from a loudspeaker. My kids loved the kerosene truck as it played a special song about the north wind; they can still sing it. There was also a man who sold bamboo and steel washing poles. He ripped me off, but I’ve still got my washing poles; no way was I going to get rid of them after shelling out all that money.

They sell charcoal-roasted sweet potatoes in Japan too, and the sing-song cry used to advertise them sounds eerily like the Muslim call to prayer.