At the entrance to the headquarters of concert-promoter Smash is an original poster for the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" single. When the group did a reunion tour of Japan several years ago, Smash President Masa Hidaka had them autograph it.
This may be the closet Hidaka had come to royalty before the British Ambassador to Japan, Sir Stephen Gomersall, paid a call to his office last December.
"I had no idea what he wanted," said Hidaka by phone, from his Tokyo office. "When he first sat down, he just talked normally about this and that, then suddenly he broke into this official speech from Her Majesty the Queen."