The cherry blossoms along my stretch of Meiji Dori were in full bloom today -- wonderful. Cherry trees (and blossoms) aren't unusual in England, in fact we had cherry trees in our garden when I was a kid. What is unusual is to have cherry trees planted in such a way as to create a deliberately beautiful effect. Near Ebisu, one of the best spots to see cherry blossoms is in Naka Meguro, along the river. I have discovered a top secret table tennis bar -- that's right, bar -- in Naka Meguro so I should be able to get a game in next week and check out the blossoms. Always good to kill two birds with one stone.

Last day of purity...

Well, two more days of purity to go. At 9.00 in the morning on April 1st, my 90 days of purity -- no drinking, no smoking, no junk food -- will be finished. I've definitely lost weight -- but how much? Remember, on January 1st this year, I was an elevator-engulfing 123 kilos (and sadly it wasn't "all muscle"). What will I weigh on April 1st after this marathon detoxification?

Well, I'll let you know on Saturday. Most of the rest of that day will be spent in the refined company of pizzas, lager and cigarette smoke...

I went to Akihabara for the first time in years on Saturday. It's changed so much! I stood outside Yodabashi Camera's new building and I had completely lost my sense of direction. I had to go and ask one of the security guys "Where's the old Akihabara?" He pointed me in the right direction and I got my bearings again.

Didn't like Akihabara. Despite the sleek new office buildings and the redevelopment, it is still too crowded and noisy -- and the service is still poor. I resolved never to go there again -- I'll buy everything I would normally buy from Akihabara (computers, hard drives, software etc.) online from now on... Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing?

One item that might be difficult to buy online would be the "maids" that were hanging around the station handing out leaflets for their shops. Not interested in "maids". Not at my age. Honest!

I went to see Livedoor's embattled president, Kozo Hiramatsu, this morning. He was giving a speech a the FCCJ. He was a sincere speaker, and gave the speech and the Q&A in English. The first thing that struck me about his speech was his description of how the parents of Livedoor employees had gone from being proud of their children to being almost ashamed of them. Then he talked of children of Livedoor employees hanging their heads in shame at school. This was a real cause of concern for him and the senior management at Livedoor -- and it looked from where I was sitting that he might have had a tear in his eye.

Hiramatsu sits next to Dan Sloane of the FCCJ.

The most interesting story came in the Q&A section, when he was asked to describe the circumstances in which he became president of Livedoor. Apparently, two days after the initial raid of the Livedoor offices, a red-eyed Horie (who most likely had had no sleep in the previous two days, as he was required to witness the raid of his offices) said that, if anything was to happen, he wanted Hiramatsu to become president. Horie told Hiramatsu that the charges of illegal activity weren't true and asked Hiramatsu to believe him.

A journalist in the audience asked: "Do you believe him?" and Hiramatsu replied with words to the effect that he believed that Horie believed that he had not done anything illegal.

Hiramatsu made it clear that Horie would not rejoin Livedoor whether he was found guilty or innocent -- as long as Hiramatsu was president, in any case.

It was interesting to see a man so much in the public eye. He seems like a good man. I came away impressed by him. His job is definitely not a job I would look forward to!

I left the FCCJ and went to the Apple Store in Ginza to buy some software. eigoTown will be having an event at the Apple Store in April -- more details later.

A Happy St. Patrick's Day! eigoTown has a special article about it and we'll be celebrating Paddy's day tomorrow at the eigoTown party. Hope you can make it.

Sorry for not posting much recently. We've been extremely busy working on a whole range of new stuff for the site, including the new TIME Magazine Podcast for Japan. We'll be launching the podcast proper in the second week of April and from then on each week the presenters (of which I'm one) will discuss interesting stories from TIME magazine. We have some great guest presenters lined up too, including Peter Barakan, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast with iTunes -- and subscribe to the magazine too!

Anyway, more from me tomorrow. Don't forget we have the eigoTown St. Patrick's Day Party this Saturday, and the Teaching Kids 1-Day Course on Sunday.

extremely - 極度に、ものすごく range - 範囲 launch - 始める、開始する proper - 完全に subscribe - 購読する

This week's TIME magazine has a feature article on the new film by the Wachowski brothers (the makers of The Matrix). The film is about an anarchist -- a terrorist -- and is set in Britain. It deals with issues of fascism, freedom and fundamentalism -- and speaks to the times that we live in. The film is based on the British comic strip by Alan Moore and David Lloyd called V for Vendetta. I was lucky enough to know these guys when they were creating the comic strip.

For some reason, back in 1984, at the age of 16, I found myself editing and publishing one of the most well-respected "fanzines" about comics in Britain, called INFINITY. Contributors included some of the (now) most famous people in the world of comics: Alan Moore, David Lloyd, Eddie Campbell, Posy Simmonds, Bryan Talbot, Hunt Emerson and more. In the magazine we wrote about little-known comics and creators that would go on to become famous. V for Vendetta was one of my favorites. In the issue shown above, there was part one of a two-part interview I conducted with the artist behind V for Vendetta, David Lloyd. In it we talked about future storylines of V and even a V film -- although this film was being made by a student on a budget of a few hundred dollars or so. Now Warner Bros is releasing a 50 million dollar Hollywood feature film. And perhaps the most amazing thing is... they say it might actually be good!

anarchist - 無政府主義者、アナーキスト terrorist - テロリスト fascism - ファシズム fundamentalism - 根本主義、原理主義、ファンダメンタリズム comic strip - コミックストリップ、コマ割漫画 fanzines - 同人誌、ファン雑誌 contributors - 寄稿者、貢献者

Belated congratulations to Nick Park on the success of Wallace and Gromit at the Oscars. I've been a fan of Wallace and Gromit for a long time -- I even have a Gromit keyring! In 1998 I was happy to publish a special issue of "Gateway UK", a magazine we created for the British Embassy to promote Britain featuring Wallace and Gromit.

Cracking!

Belated - 少し遅れの keyring - 鍵輪、キーリング

So, after much consideration, I think I need to consider more. About studying Japanese. Not only do I need to break things up into small achievable chunks but also need to measure my progress in some way. And I know nothing about Japanese exams. What I shall do is spend the rest of March researching the ideal plan for learning Japanese, then set out a goal for the 90 days from April 1st and find a way to assess whether I have achieved that goal.

Still keeping my fingers crossed for Wallace and Gromit in the Oscars...

consideration - 熟考 measure - 測る progress - 進歩 assess - 評価する keeping my fingers crossed for〜 - 〜のために幸運を願い続ける

Yesterday: meeting with accountant to discuss the delights of our balance sheet. Meeting with member of staff to discuss various issues. Meeting with advisor to discuss investment strategy. Meeting with multimedia department for special secret project -- and an hour or so of voice recording thrown in. Meeting with our IT provider to discuss the IT implications of various projects that we have. Meeting with sales staff to discuss our Ryugaku Plaza section.

Our eigoTown podcast zoomed up the iTunes chart (and is now at 6 !). Weight was down to 108.

And then the real business of the day started.

Our IT provider's table tennis champion --who comes from New Zealand-- challenged me to a match. "What a brave young chap!" I thought. The poor fellow was already feeling down due to his country's dismal performance in the eigoTown accent poll, and now here he was setting himself up for more misery.

I made it as quick and as painless as I could, thrashing him 3 games to nothing within minutes. Then I looked into his hollow, resentful and defeated eyes and realized that the eigoTown Web server was very likely in danger... and quickly let him win the next 3... ;-)

Great match! (And I re-learnt the kanji for "takkyu"!)

bold - 大胆な、ずぶとい accountant - 会計士 delight - 良い点、喜ぶべき点 balance sheet - バランス・シート investment strategy - 投資戦略 implication of〜- 〜関連のこと zoom - 急上昇する brave - 勇敢な chap - やつ、男 fellow - 野郎、男 due to〜 - 〜のせいで、〜のために dismal - 惨めな、 thrash - うち負かす hollow - うつろな resentful - 憤慨している defeated - 玉砕した、打ち負かされた

I said that I would write a little bit about my new attempt to learn Japanese, so here goes. Right now, I'm trying to define some clear goals for my Japanese learning. What do I want to achieve? And by when? "Learning Japanese", like learning English, is a big, scary, undertaking. How should I divide this goal up in to small chunks that are more approachable and easier to achieve?

Right now, I'm looking at kanji. Hmmm... difficult. Is there a list of the most frequently used kanji, I wonder? If so, I would like to start off my Japanese adventure by targeting the most commonly-used 500 kanji and making sure I understand them inside out in 3 months. Sounds like an achievable goal. As well as learning to recognize the kanji, I'll learn the vocabulary associated with them. OK. sounds like that should be part of the plan!

Now when I have some time, I'll go down to the bookstore and check out the books for learning kanji.

attempt - 試み define - 定義する achieve - 達成する undertaking - 取り組み、事業 divide〜up in to …- 〜を…に分ける approachable - 　近づきやすい、接近しやすい frequently - 頻繁に commonly-used - 一般的に使われている achievable - 達成しうる recognize - 認識する associated with 〜 - 〜と関連する、〜と関わりのある