DaimlerChrysler invested $2 billion into Mitsubishi in order to move into Japan’s market. Since then, Mitsubishi has been US sales fall and is embroiled in a faulty-parts controversy in Japan. DaimlerChrysler recently sold the last of its 34% share for around $500 million dollars.

Given that Japan’s economy is starting to heat up, is this a good idea?

It appears that I am ahead of my time. I had an electric water boiler in Japan. I loved it so much–life (and tea) is so much easier when you always have hot water at the ready–that I bought one as soon as I got home to the US.

I was slightly reticent. The stainless steel Cuisinart only boiled water and stopped; my Japanese one kept water hot all the time. I since decided that this is preferable: I only use electricity when I want hot water. It is also cordless which is super!

You should buy one too. On the stove kettles are passe.

Eighty-six percent of people in Britain aged 18 to 30 think the French deserve “a popular negative stereotype,” suggests an opinion poll conducted for an Anglo-French art show in London.

That compares to 27 percent of like-aged people in France who felt the British held a negative stereotype of their nation, according to the survey.