Moore's hasty retreat creates a comedy classic in Japan

There comes a time in all our lives when being socially inappropriate suddenly becomes acceptable – it’s just that it comes to us at different ages.

I once had a relative who spent a lifetime behaving as he was expected to in polite society, until he went into a nursing home, where he spent his final years rushing round as fast as his walking frame would carry him and, according to official reports, “telling innumerable jokes about women’s private parts”.

In his middle age, he would have been locked up, but in his dotage he was excused with a sigh of resignation and a sense of wonderment that he could still remember the names of all the bits he was talking about.