<aside> 🕰️ Archived newsletter
This is a past issue of the newsletter, and therefore may have references and commentary that are no longer accurate. This website is iterative and evolves week on week, so just keep that in mind. The latest newsletter is at the top of the homepage, here. Happy reading!
</aside>
<aside> ⚠️ Probably fair to give you a heads-up that this is a long one this week.
But I promise you it's for a very good reason: the story I'm about to present you with is long and insane, and as such the length is warranted to get into some of the details.
If you're not sure you want to read this, just have a quick read of the start of the newsletter to see if I can sufficiently intrigue you (bet you I can 🤑).
If you don't have time on your hands (say a good 20-40 minutes) maybe come back. ...although, wouldn't you rather read it now? Maybe even just a little bit of it?
</aside>
Why are there no bins in Tokyo? 🤔
It was mid-2016, on a trip to Japan and in the streets of Tokyo, that this question first sprang into my mind. Little did I know that this seemingly-innocuous thought was mere moments away from being transmogrified into the most intense "down the rabbit hole" experience I've ever been sucked into. For hours afterwards, I was in double/triple-take mode — with rapt attention — as I dug more into the details of the unbelievable story behind the answer to this question.
So:
I'm taking you down this rabbit hole.
Strap yourselves in for a seriously larger-than-life, stranger-than-fiction, true-story you either haven't heard of, or might only know the vague details of from headlines from decades past.
This is a story of supervillains, assassinations, chemical weaponry and terrorism that seriously reads like a James Bond film. Allow me to whet your appetite. This story has:
Oh my god - this list.