One of my favourite magazines is The Spectator. It's a current affairs magazine on the right of the political spectrum. Despite that, I just love the writing. The Spectator is a British eccentric. It combines incisive political commentary with beautiful discursive writing of the sort that you don't often see these days. Witty, caustic, irreverent, the Spectator is a delight. Where else do you get such self-evident truths as those in this recent letter to The Spectator:

English delicacy

Sir: In his splendid, appetite-inducing piece on food (And another thing, 9 February), Paul Johnson forgets one great English delicacy — the truly magnificent chip butty. As a young, penniless reporter I virtually lived on these tasty wonders.

For the very best results use extremely soft, white bread. Then butter liberally (unsalted French butter is the best). Line up six chewy chips and then douse with either HP Brown Sauce or, better still, Daddies Sauce. The secret is to let the butter and sauce soak into the bread.

This should be accompanied by very strong, workmen’s-style tea (none of that sissy Earl Grey). Ah — food and drink for the gods.

Paul Callan
London SW10
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I'm still on a low-carb diet, but come April 1st, this is a strong candidate for the lunch!

I'm really pleased to see that the eigoTown-produced podcast "Eigo de Career Up" has risen to the top spot in the iTunes Japan chart. We produced this for Benesse and the University of Tokyo. Visit the official Web page here.

For years I've wondered who the person on the 1,000 yen note is. My curiosity doesn't last long though -- perhaps 3 seconds each time, as think "who IS this guy?". I then completely forget about the whole thing...

In today's Daily Yomiuri, there was a feature on a sculpture made of shredded 1,000 yen notes. The sculpture was of Hideyo Noguchi, a famous bacteriologist who died in 1928. It is this Noguchi who appears on the 1,000 yen note. Ah ha!

Happy.

A big "Hello!" to people coming to eigoTown after watching us on "Eigo de Shaberanaito". eigoTown.com is designed to be the site that you come to if you're interested in English in any way.

Do you want to study abroad? Visit our Ryugaku section? Want to find a job where you can use your English? Visit our Job section.

Do you need to practice your listening in fun way? Visit our Quiz section.

Do you want to find out how other Japanese people have fulfilled their dreams using English? Visit our Interview section in Culture Cafe.

Do you want to improve your TOEIC score by studying 5 minutes each day? Then visit our eigoCollege section.

There's so much in eigoTown.com for you to enjoy that you might get a bit lost, so don't forget that you can always search the site for what you're looking for here.

I hope you enjoy visiting eigoTown.com and I hope you'll tell your friends about our site. And if you have any suggestions or questions, don't hesitate to get in touch and leave a comment!

Best,

Russell Willis
President, eigoTown.com Limited

OK, not really super...OK, OK, not stardom either... BUT, I'm about to be on TV next week, featured in NHK's Eigo de Shabaranaito program. It was fun having Pakkun, Aoi-san and Yashima-san over to our office here. I think Aoi-san spoke the best English... couldn't really understand Patrick's strange US accent... ;-)

We showed them the eigoTown.com web site, our SenseiBank service and I interviewed Aoi for a job at eigoTown.com using our Interview Sensei service. He scraped through the interview and I hope he buys a new suit for when he starts working for us at the beginning of February. :-)

More evidence that fate doesn't like me: the shooting took place after I had just finished a crash weight gain program... and they say the camera adds 10 pounds too... (that's 4 kilos for the metrical amongst us). It's lucky they used a wide-angle lens...

The show is broadcast next Monday night (January 28th) at 11pm. So, DO watch, DON'T laugh at me (I'm sensitive!) and check out Pakkun's blog to see what he has to say about it... (Whenever he gets round to updating it!)

P.S. The preview page for the show is here.

I'm a miserable old bastard who loves to find fault with anything and everything... But just for a change, I think I'm going to PRAISE things that make me happy... (at least on this blog!)

First up: A zero calorie apple diet jelly drink from Asahi... Now that I'm "pure" again (no alcohol, cigarettes, sugar or refined carbs until the end of March), I'm a big fan of zero calorie drinks. And this is without doubt the tastiest! It really tastes just like it's made with real apple. Try it and see if you disagree. Better yet, have someone do a blind taste test and tell them that it is made with real apple and see if they believe you.

So congratulations to the guys and girls at Asahi! Happiness is a diet apple jelly drink!

A few Xmas related notes. First, our Xmas listening quiz is now up. No registration required. Second, Santa, Mrs Santa and Miss Santa are getting ready to meet kids at Hollywood Plaza on December 22nd during our special Kids Xmas Event -- and we've reduced the price to only 3,000 yen! This will be a great experience for any kid! Third, if you're looking or some great presents either for yourself because you've been so good this year and have been study English so hard, or for friends who need to study, then don't forget to drop by our eigoStore siteand check out the special Xmas bargains!