Litttle did I know, blogging a few days ago on the potential significance of a change of government in Japan, that the new Prime Minister would be bringing with him a wife who was once abducted by aliens.

Not only that, but it seems she knew Tom Cruise in a previous life (she says he was Japanese at the time) and she hopes to make a film with him in the future.

Let us be honest – we are used to Japanese Prime Ministers being invisible, let alone their spouses, yet in Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of incoming PM Yukio, we have someone who, were she British, would fill more column inches than Cherie, Sarah, Carla and Michelle combined.

So what else to tell you? She is described as a ‘lifestyle guru.’ So was Carole Caplin. But Mrs Hatoyama is the consort not the friend. ‘Lifestyle guru’ brings to mind the time Tory MP Nick Soames called me to say if he was called at Prime Minister’s Questions he intended to ask TB ‘what is a lifestyle guru and do I need one?’ Sadly, he wasn’t called.

Mrs Hatoyama has written cookery books, been a dancer and an actresss, is a divorcee, loves wearing her own clothes, including a dress she made from coffee sacks. But it is the abduction by aliens – they took her to Venus in a UFO, she has written in a book – that takes her into a league of her own. She was married to someone else then, and he told her it was a dream. She suggests her current husband – the PM – would have taken her journey at face value.  

In any event, Mr Hatoyama’s first international summit promises to be quite a gas. I hope Sarah will twitter regularly. I hope Carla will sing.

As for Cherie, I was always a bit wary of Carole and all that New Age stuff. She always said I over-reacted. How the Japanese government spin doctors handle Mrs Hatoyama – bear in mind one of his central pledges is to curb the power of bureaucrats – could make for an interesting sideshow.

** I am grateful to The Independent, which I picked up in the Eurostar terminal, for the above information. The other stand-out article was about John Prescott, and his planned tour of schools to highlight the need for greater action on climate change. The man is indefatigable.