What do you get when you combine the Wales-born, dyed-in-the-wool outdoorsman C.W. Nicol with the five squeaky-clean members of Japanese boy band Arashi? Good television, that's what.

Considering the kinds of topics Nicol covers in his monthly "Old Nic's Notebook" column for The Japan Times — chasing poachers in Ethiopia, skinning deer, culling wild boar — you'd think that the closest he'd ever get to pop-star eye-candy would be to have them for lunch. Not so. Since summer, Nicol has appeared regularly on "Arashi ni Shiyagare," the wildly popular variety show that the Johnny & Associates-managed singers host every Saturday evening. So well does he get on with the boys, in fact, that he'll feature in their New Year's Day special — a program that was shot at a Nippon Television Network studio earlier this month, with this reporter in attendance.

Nicol's role in the show is as one of several "fathers" who offer counsel to the band members in response to personal issues that are troubling them — they're having trouble sleeping, they tend not to like expensive cuisine and so on. As producer Hirofumi Tanaka explained, "the idea is to broaden the boys' horizons by giving them access to people who can offer them advice for life."