So an American fund manager, a British darts champion and a Japanese grandmother go into a Tokyo bar.
There’s no punchline, the bar is fictional and the characters never actually meet — but the people are real enough. Each of them just sits there for ages chatting slightly tediously about gold, embodying a growing obsession with the metal.
One of them likes UK gold sovereigns; one prefers the maple leaf, a Canadian gold coin known for its purity; one is saving up the $140,000-odd required for a 100oz slab of bullion. One has bought a home safe, another has rented a deposit box in a bank and the third has looked into buying space in a Swiss vault. All three check their phones for live gold prices the way others check for Pokémon.