Music to the ears in land of the rising electricity bill

Once a week the sleek white high-rises of our modern council estate echo with the haunting melody of a bygone age. It is the call of the paraffin man, who plays a catchy, scratchy childhood song through a loudspeaker on his van to attract customers as he drives slowly around our broad manicured streets selling winter fuel.

When we moved into the area the van seemed an anachronism. In previous homes we had been regaled by musical hawkers selling everything from hot sweet potatoes to steaming bowls of ramen noodles and huge sacks of rice from local farms.

But that made sense in the remote run-down areas, where our first home had a cesspit rather than sewage pipes and the second a western-style toilet which had been installed at a time when they were such a novelty that instructions were posted on the wall telling users which way to sit.

Our Tokyo "bedtown", however, has every modern convenience: a gleaming shopping mall, buried power cables and houses fitted with hi-tech toilets which wash and blow-dry the nether regions at the push of a button.

Built 15 years ago during the most expansive phase of the bubble economy, the flat is fitted with wonderful but practically useless gadgets, such as an emergency call button in the bathroom and a bulky built-in fax machine which whirrs into action once or twice a year to remind us of community events.

The area is a model of suburban sanitised comfort. So why, we sniffed, was the paraffin man still doing the rounds with such an old-fashioned, pungent and potentially dangerous product? The answer has revealed itself in the staggeringly high electricity bills and irritatingly frequent circuit breaks.

Tokyo may be the global capital of electrical wizardry, but it - and the entire Japanese archipelago - is a backwater when it comes to natural energy resources.

Since the closure of the last few small coalmines a few years ago Japan is almost totally reliant on imports of oil, gas and uranium, most of it used by Tokyo Electric Power Co, the world's biggest private utility.

As the blaze of neon-lit streets in the capital testifies, there is no rationing of power in the corporate sector, but supply is effectively restricted in many residential areas.

The maximum current our three-bedroom flat is allowed is 30 amps, which is not nearly enough. So we end up playing a losing game with the circuit breaker, which plunges us into darkness every few days when we get close to capacity and forget to switch off one appliance before turning on another.

To be able to buy the world's most advanced gizmos and to not have the power to use them is infuriating. But it also an education in a very different and ingenious culture of electricity use.

While our family burns up power by warming entire rooms, our smarter neighbours use their electricity more selectively with heated carpets, heated blankets, heated toilet seats and, that coziest of all Japanese furniture appliances - the kotatsu, a quilt-covered dining table under which a heater keeps your legs warm - perfect for the traditional New Year custom of snuggling in in front of the TV and eating mikan oranges.

But although our canny neighbours suffer fewer blackouts, the high cost of electricity still sends some of them scurrying to the paraffin man for a cheap alternative. With the circuit breaks and the bills increasing this unusually cold Tokyo winter, I may soon have to join them in listening out for his heart-warming melody.