Making the Cut

The best part of a holiday is getting home

I have long been obsessed with knives…

This is a brave admission, or a stupid one given the plague that knife crime is in London, where I grew up and now live.

And an odd way to open a post, given that a recent post on Substack caused such a furore; it became one of the biggest news stories of the summer. A highly complicated true story with a tragic ending, with blame and recriminations ongoing and showing no signs of abating.

Not that I have ever used a knife with malintent, and the only blades I own are kitchen knives, but that wasn’t always the case.

Somewhere in Luxembourg, there might be a tree whose bark bears an engraving of ‘DH’ or perhaps even a ‘Dom’. School trips to play football in Europe are some of my happiest memories. I was only ever a fringe player. Playing against a German side that was much bigger and better than us, our PE teacher, Father Young, decided at half-time that I should sit out the second half, and I couldn’t argue. If anything, it was a relief.

‘Well played, Dom.’ He said kindly, and I smiled ruefully because in 40 minutes of football (soccer) I hadn’t managed to touch the ball at all. Not even a ricochet, nothing.

Anyway, on these tours each summer, we spent most of our pocket money buying knives, and thankfully we only used them on trees. These were knives that we couldn’t buy at home. Hunting knives, flick knives, serrated knives… we were all intoxicated by blades. I can’t really explain it, something deep down in our marrow. We were hunters rather than gatherers, and we all had fun leaving our marks in the woods and not on the football pitch.

Scroll forward a little over 40 years, and I find myself in Japan…

“When in Japan”

As the saying does not go…

But Japan is famous for knives. And other things too: sushi, extraordinary politeness and cleanliness, karaoke, Toyota, samurai, Nissan, Honda, modern electronics, surviving two nuclear bombs is noteworthy, kimonos, Toshiba, Shogun, karate, sake, Mount Fuji…

Okay, Japan is famous for loads of things. A first-world country, it has done so much for the world. The Sony Walkman rocked my world completely, even though they disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived. Knives, however, are more durable. I’m writing this post on a plane bound for London, and what I am most excited about is the beautiful knives in my hold luggage.

This is because they are gifts, and to explain this better, I call upon a genuine expression this time – it is better to give than to receive.

During our trip, somehow, Nikki and I found ourselves booked onto a knife sharpening workshop with a knife master. There is just something about being a ‘master’ in Japan. A Japanese knife master is evocative and conjures up so much more than, say, a school master in England.

Anyway, it turns out that knife sharpening is much easier than you’d imagine, with us both mastering it within half an hour, and it might explain why our ‘master’ was not a magical-looking old man, but a young guy with a shop and a fledgling business to promote.

And then the cat escaped from the bag…

In discussing which knife to buy and how many, we inadvertently let on that one knife was destined for ‘Tom’ and ‘Zendaya’. He had only rudimentary English, but his ears pricked up. He knew us as Mr and Mrs Holland, and his agile mind began to whir. Not that too much detection work was really needed. I mean, how many Zendayas do you know? A quick Google search and his world exploded…

OMG.

‘You’re Tom Holland’s parents?’

Our broad smiles confirmed and then followed a flurry of words I am familiar with… ‘biggest fan’, ‘love’, ‘best’, ‘are they married?...’

After some frenetic shouting in Japanese, other staff members appeared from nowhere, armed with phones and polite requests for photographs.

If this is the excitement that we provoke, I can only imagine what it must be like being the real Holland of interest.

One of the seductions of fame is creating such excitement and making people’s day. But this must also be exhausting.

We returned to his shop the next day, and our ‘master’ and his ever-growing team were ready and waiting with our four knives, complete with handles and all, newly engraved.

Four beautiful knives for gratis. There would be no charge for the Hollands; just our patronage was enough, which was very generous of him, but you will be pleased to read that we insisted on paying in full. This is the honourable thing to do, and it reminded me of something else Japan is well known for.

We agreed he could post his photos to Instagram, but I asked him not to mention that the knives were gifts for you-know-who, so as not to ruin the surprise. Not that Tom scrolls IG anymore, and he certainly does not read my witterings on this Substack.

It was lovely to see his exhilaration, and I understand why. On the recent press tour to Shanghai, the café that Tom and Zendaya stopped at now has lines of people waiting to be served. I hope this happens for this young knife entrepreneur. He couldn’t have been humbler or more gracious. I hope he finds this short piece of writing too and that it makes him smile.

Comedians live and die by laughs. The louder and more frequent the better. But a smile is the win for writing, I feel, and this is not a concession. There are too few smiles in what we read, certainly so if we confine our reading to news media where gloom and fear are the staple fare.

And finally, another admission and again, one fraught with danger.

Earlier I said that on the plane as I write, what I am most excited about are the presents in my luggage and the prospect of handing them out.

This is not true.

Yes, I am excited by this prospect. I am looking forward to seeing my boys again, but it is not what I am most excited about.

I am most excited about seeing our little dog, Rosie. I am completely obsessed with her, and we both missed her terribly. Dog owners reading this will get this entirely, and I hope it makes you smile.