In Japan we’d be heading for the ‘Era of Harmonious Sovereignty’

My favourite word this week is gengo, which rolls agreeably off the tongue and sounds like a cross between a cute Spanish lizard and a novelty bar game you might play in a Clapham Common gastropub while drunk on a Sunday afternoon.

In fact, gengo refers to the Japanese imperial era name, which changes periodically, either at a time of national renewal or the changing of the emperor. The gengo for the current age is Heisei (“achieving peace”). But after Emperor Akihito abdicates this month, there’ll be a new one to mark the accession of his son Naruhito.

Yesterday Japan’s government revealed that the 248th gengo, in a tradition stretching for about 1,400 years, will be Reiwa, a word drawn from an ancient poem about plum blossoms. Loosely, it means “blessed harmony”, with a faint bass note of conservative authoritarianism. The Reiwa era begins on May 1: mark your calendars.

In Britain, where our era-naming is firmly historical, we are almost hilariously unadventurous with what passes for gengo. It’s monarchy or war, basically. Hence the Tudor period elides with the Elizabethan-Jacobean-Civil War era, which leads on to the Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian ages and then — what? Pre-war/post-war. And I suppose we are now Elizabethans, and will soon become Carolingians.

Is it time to break the system, mimic the Japanese and brand up our historical eras in advance? There would be something cheering and poetic, I suppose, about the thought of the UK barrelling out of the European Union and proclaiming that we had officially entered the Sunlit Uplands age, or the Era of Harmonious Sovereignty, or — my personal choice — the age of Standing on Our Own With Nothing But Our Hat to Piss in and Wondering How It All Went Wrong.

If I start an online petition, will you promise to vote with me?

A film that will take you to new heights

I know everyone has been going doolally over the new Line of Duty — mind you don’t fall down a plot hole, Sarge! But please keep an eye out for another, very different BBC film, made by former RAF helicopter pilot Mikey Kay about his elder brother Spencer: 40 years old, extremely autistic and supremely strong. My Autistic Big Brother And Me is a story about these brothers, their sister Charlotte and their long battle to keep Spencer free to express and enjoy himself climbing the mountains of their native Snowdonia. It’s a powerful, thoughtful film — and it’s on iPlayer for the next month.

The joy of Beth’s sorrowful sounds

Funny where the musical heroes of one’s youth end up. I spent more hours than I would care to count as a teenager in the Nineties listening to Portishead, pioneers of the Bristolian musical sub-genre known as trip-hop. Portishead didn’t release much, which was a shame, because the soft, siren voice of singer Beth Gibbons was so compelling.

Yet she’s back, and has released a recording of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No 3, otherwise known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. It’s a haunting orchestral experience, which works despite the fact that Gibbons sings a part written for a range she doesn’t naturally possess in a language (Polish) that she doesn’t speak.

Since it was written in the Seventies, Górecki’s symphony has never really convinced classical critics, but it has been often used as a cinematic soundtrack.

Now here’s Gibbons’ version to keep its strange success alive. It’s not something my trip-hopping teenage self would have appreciated, but as a grown-up it’s quite lovely.

Hats off to our last bonnet parade

A little milestone goes by this week as our youngest daughter takes part in what will be her last school Easter bonnet parade. So begins the final week of raiding what remains of the daffodils at the end of the garden, futzing with those little wiry hen-chicks with the bobbly eyes that come in 10-packs from the craft shop, and assembling it all on a straw hat for the sake of two laps around the playground while all the parents crane and sly-jostle to film another iPhone video that they will never watch. It feels like we’ve been doing it for ever, and suddenly the time is nearly gone.