The other evening I squeezed into a train homeward-bound from Tokyo. Pressed against the door like a butterfly pinned to the leaf of a specimen book I could only watch the nightscape scrolling past the window. Not until I overheard a guy tell his girl, 'We're on the women-only car' did I sense something strange. I looked around. Sure enough he and I were the only men, my having followed him like a lemming. My being the last on board, few riders...

Shintaro Ishihara, who recently won a third term as Tokyo Governor, is not one to hold his tongue. In his years as governor he has spooked foreigners with a warning to beware rioting 'third country nationals' (code for Koreans) in the aftermath of a natural disaster in Tokyo; raised Francophone hackles with the comment French is not...

Now let’s look at the types of “benefits” that you would want to negotiate as a senior manager, say director level, CxO, or President and above. You are likely to want benefits that go well outside the usual employee’s experience, based usually on the fact that you also have significantly more responsibilities and in some cases, as the company’s official face, you have to project an image for the company.

The biggest question most candidates have about a new job, after finding out what they’ll actually be doing, is what their salary and the associated terms and conditions will be. This is nothing we don’t already know, but what most people do have trouble with is how to...