Among many other ingenious instruments of torture, the Tower of London in medieval times had something called the “Little Ease.” Built in the 14^thCentury, it was 3ft-11in to a side and 2 ft across. Any adult occupant could neither stand nor sit, nor yet lie down. It was impossible to find any physical position of rest, and the prisoner was soon in agony. You can still see it today, but I’d recommend against booking it even if all London’s Airbnbs are full.

如果th的概念e Little Ease sounds familiar, then you have probably taken a long flight in Economy class. I first experienced it in 1982, on the ten-hour flight from Sydney to Tokyo for the launch of the Honda CX500 Turbo. It may be hard to imagine, but Economy seats were even more cramped and less accommodating than they are today. We arrived at Narita in the early morning and staggered from the Qantas 747, blinking owlishly at the watery dawn light, to discover by way of intense joint pain that our muscles still worked.

Hotel rooms would not be ready for hours, we were told, and we would be taking a tour of Tokyo tourist attractions to occupy the time. This was a common time filler for travelers from Australia at the time, but it would be fair to say that “oh, goody” was not among the reactions it evoked from the bleary-eyed Honda dealers and reptiles of the motorcycle press.

A day trip to the fairly new Twin-Ring Motegi racetrack on the other hand was a popular excursion. When we discovered where we were going, we immediately lobbied for a chance to ride the track. The response was, “we will see,” which I later found out means “no way, Jose”. By the time we were shown into the small auditorium of the Honda motorcycle training school at Motegi, this had become “it is possible”, which means “totally fuhgeddaboudit”. But things were about to go our way – or so it seemed.

After introductions, someone from the school fired up a slide projector and a reel-to-reel tape recorder with an English commentary. Nobody among the Japanese folk, it seemed, spoke any noticeable amount of English so they did not initially notice that the slides had been put into the projector backwards. Some initial sniggering from the journalists quickly turned into gales of laughter as the mismatched commentary made the slides more and more hilarious.

This was finally sorted when one of our Australian minders worked out what was happening and stopped the show. Now the pressure was on our hosts to save face. They did this by announcing that access to the track would, after all, be possible. Then they loaded us aboard a bus and drove us around. Score one each, journalists/Japanese. Fellow journo Wil Hagon netted the winning goal when he played the “How To Speak Japanese” comedy tape on the bus sound system to more total confusion among the Japanese. You know the one: you must be cold, confused and constipated…

The actual launch of the Turbo on the high-speed banked oval at Tochigi was a complete success, on the other hand. At least for the press, slinging the bikes around the oval horizontally on the banking. The Honda engineers were kept busy rolling bikes into a shed for quick tune-ups and perhaps repairs before returning them to be thrashed.

Another highlight of our stay was dinner for us journalists one night in a restaurant atop one of the Shinjuku high rise hotels. When the lift arrived to take us up there, one of the British journos pointed out that the gap between the lift and the shaft wall was much greater than he was used to.

“Ah yes,” said the distinguished-looking grey haired Japanese gentleman sharing the lift with us. “In an earthquake, the shaft may twist and the extra space prevents the lift from jamming. In fact, you are fortunate. An earthquake has been predicted for later tonight, and you will be able to judge the effectiveness for yourselves.” Fortunate indeed, I managed to catch the slight smile he could not hide.

This dinner was also the first time I encountered the Late Night Switch ploy. During pre-dinner drinks and the dinner itself, the Japanese contingent consisted mainly of lower-ranking marketing execs who made small talk. At around midnight, they disappeared and were replaced by development engineers and product planners, who drank sparingly and attempted to milk the brains of the presumably inebriated journalists, looking for nuggets of truth. They may even have got some. I got some too. When I mentioned that I quite liked the then-new FT500 the engineer I was talking to said, “Ah. Yes. It is designed to appeal to older men. Er, wait…”

But I did make one fascinating acquaintance, Soichiro Irimajiri. In the early 1970s, he led the team that developed the M1 prototype of the Gold Wing, then powered by a 1,470cc flat-six. During our chat I asked him why the engine had been cropped from six cylinders to four before going into production. “Ah,” he smiled, “too much power!” Keep in mind that even with four cylinders, the Gold Wing was reputed to be the most powerful production motorcycle in the world. “Irimajiri-San,” I asked, “would it be possible for me to see the Project 371 (the prototype’s code number)?” He looked nonplussed. “I do not know if we still have it,” he said.

It was back into the Little Ease the next day for the flight home. A hangover, you may be surprised to know, makes it easier to sleep in a cramped seat…