According to the lyrics of a famous song written in 1932 by Noel Coward, it must either be a mad dog or an Englishman going out for a stroll in the baking midday sun. In the present case, it is most certainly an Englishman who interrupts his portrait interview to be on time for a lunchtime picnic appointment with his wife—despite the fact that it is bucketing down on this grey day in early January.

Paul Thomas certainly carries all the attributes of an English gentleman and an honorable scientist who started his professional career at Manchester University with first class honours in physics and a PhD in theoretical physics. From England's northwest, Paul moved to post-doctoral fellowships at the University of California Irvine and the University of Cambridge, where he continued his work in high-energy physics and field theory ... only to find out that "exceptional groups" were not really his cup of tea.

In 1978, Paul opened a new chapter of his life—his "stellarator days" as he calls them—by moving to Culham to work on the CLEO stellarator, which at the time was known as "the sleepy valley." But that was about to change. Paul, together with other new arrivals Peter Lomes and Peter Johnson, "... livened the place up, and managed to get some good results too!" During this time Paul made the acquaintance of two people that he would run into again in the course of his career: John How, who was working on Wendelstein in Germany, and Osamu Motojima, now the ITER Director-General, who was working on the Heliatron device at Kyoto University.

Paul's career in stellarators was terminated by Roy Bickerton, then Associate-Director of the Joint European Torus, who pulled him over to join the team at the JET, which at the time had been under construction for six months. "Together with Chris Schuler, I planted the seed of the plasma operations group." Due to a shortage of staff with real plasma operations experience, Paul was sent off to Princeton in November 1980, where he spent a year on the Poloidal Divertor Experiment (PDX) followed by a stopover at General Atomics in San Diego. He returned to the UK to find the JET team "in the final throws of panic about construction and First Plasma." Not long afterwards, another long-term colleague and collaborator joined the Plasma Operations Group—Arturo Tanga.

Over the following years, Paul together with Arturo and Peter Lomas developed the path for the first H-modes on JET and many of the achievements that have made JET a world leader to this day. He is particularly proud of his lead role in the experimental demonstration of alpha-heating of DT plasmas. In the summer of 2000, widowed and with two grown sons, Paul remarried and moved to France. At the CEA in Cadarache he worked on the development of the ergodic divertor concept towards a solution for controlling edge localized modes (ELMs), studied ion heating by alpha particles and led a diagnostic group.

His involvement with the ITER Project began with a position as Chairman of the Physics Objectives and Design Requirements working group of the ITER Design Review performed in 2007, and as Secretary of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the ITER management.

Early in 2008, he moved to Barcelona to take on the job of Head of the Heating & Current Drive, Diagnostics, CODAC and Plasma Engineering Division at Fusion for Energy, the European Domestic Agency for ITER. It was a period he describes as "a roller-coaster ride"—a "trying time professionally but also a tremendous learning experience."

In autumn of 2010, Paul crowned his professional career by joining the ITER team as Head of the Heating & Current Drive Division. This post had become vacant after the tragic car accident in which Arturo Tanga lost his life in December 2009. "ITER is the culmination of 50 years of work in controlled fusion research," Paul says. "The preparation for ITER was, to a very real degree, central to my 20 years at JET and naturally I look forward to direct participation in the project."

And now please excuse him ... he has an appointment with his wife ...

As part of a three-year program of leak localization research and development, a contract between the English company Oxford Technologies and the ITER Organization to develop a concept design for a fast deployment device (FDD) for leak localization on ITER was kicked off this week.

Under the scope of the contract, Oxford Technologies will develop the concept design of the FDD which is a quickly-deployable, remotely-operated dexterous device capable of carrying a light payload of sensors dedicated to the localization of leaks in the main ITER vacuum vessel and/or cryostat.

It is envisaged that the FDD will form part of the overall leak localization system which comprises several complementary sub-systems developed to localize the range of potential leaks on ITER.

Members of Parliament all over the world have created "Friendship Groups" that play an important role in shaping bilateral relations between nations.

The French National Assembly is home to 173 such groups. One of the most important, established in 1959, is the Groupe d'amitié France-Japon.

The Group's 96 members develop actions that promote understanding and cooperation. They are not diplomats, but politicians who have developed a special interest in Japan's politics, culture and economy.

In parallel, there exists a "Friendship Group Japan-France" within the National Diet of Japan that is founded on the same principles and pursues similar objectives.

Members of both groups led by their respective Heads—former Minister of State for Defense Yoshinori Ohno and MP Didier Quentin, Mayor of the Atlantic Coast city of Royan—were welcomed at ITER on Monday 17 January.

The delegation's five-day tour of France included only three stops: the delegation toured the cognac distilleries in Mr. Quentin's electoral constituency (Japan is the largest importer of French cognac); they paid a visit to the oyster parks on the Atlantic coast (French oysters descend from imported Japanese stock...); and they spent a half-day at ITER.

The ITER Project is well-known to former minister Ohno who, as Senior Vice Minister of Science and Technology, was part of the international negotiations in the early 2000s.

"I do hope people here are proud of working for ITER," Mr. Ohno confided after visiting the platform. "People should be aware that ITER is a unique project. This is the future of energy! ITER is of  utmost importance, not only from a scientific point of view but also as a means of securing peace among nations. As a Japanese politician, I want to lend it my full support."

Mr. Quentin, who had visited Rokkasho, home to the ITER Broader Approach activities, along with French Prime Minister Fillon in 2008, regretted that "... most people haven't yet taken the full measure of ITER's importance for the future. I will have many things to tell my MP colleagues when I'm back in Paris."

The village of Sainte-Tulle (pop. 3,500), whose name is derived from Tullia, the saintly daughter of the hermit who lived in the cliff overlooking Cadarache, is located some six kilometres to the southwest of Manosque.

The village is home to no historical landmark, illustrious birthplace or ancient monument. Tourists driving on route D4096 from Manosque to Aix-en-Provence barely notice its existence.

There is, however, something special about Sainte-Tulle: a very active and creative public library and media centre, and a dense network of clubs and associations.

Last year, the local bonsai and judo clubs came up with an interesting suggestion: why not organize something that would contribute to an understanding of present-day Japan, get rid of the usual clichés and promote a broader interest in the country's culture?

"Building on this idea," says Eliana Bia, the Head of Sainte-Tulle's public library, "we developed the 'Year of Japan,' which opened in November and will continue until the end of June."

The local and regional public has already been exposed to a large spectrum of cultural expressions from Japanese civilization: haiku and calligraphy workshops, conferences, exhibits, a "tea ceremony" at the local Municipal Theatre, and a "Week of Japanese cinema."

The coming year has still more in store, with a public reading of contemporary Japanese literature in February, a Japanese-themed carnival in March, an ikebana (flower arrangement) workshop in April and a final tea ceremony in May.

"The public is flocking to our events. The theatre was filled to capacity for the Japanese Consul's conference and for the tea ceremony in November," says Bia. "The proximity of ITER and the International School in Manosque, whose Japanese teachers are associated with the event, has stirred an interest in all things Japanese. What we offer is an opportunity to glimpse the reality beyond its popular and often inaccurate representations ..."