Bye Bye Blogger!

This is my final post on Blogger! My new blog can be found here:

www.jaynenelson.wordpress.com

Hopefully you'll join me over there. You're very welcome!

Change is in the air...

I've almost finished transferring the entire contents of this blog over to Wordpress, so expect a new URL soon.

Blogger has been a fine home since 2005 but I'm frustrated by its lack of template options and Wordpress is far better. Plus, I can have my name in the URL, which seems more professional. At some point I'll also use Wordpress (or possibly another site) to house my columns and more of my work.

Yes, I've joined the 21st century. About time, really.

Meanwhile, I'm mourning the loss of Camden's pub The Hawley Arms, which went up in smoke last night along with a huge chunk of Camden market. I had a lovely meal there a while back with Biddy and her fiance and it was a really nice place, celebrity punters notwithstanding, and it's also sad to see an old-style business ruined. My heart goes out to all the traders who've lost their shops, too. That was an epic blaze. Thankfully nobody seems to have been hurt, which is a bit of a miracle.

Today I'm off to Crystal Palace to look at the dinosaurs, during which time I'll try very hard not to think of a) all the work I should be doing today instead, b) the fact that the Writers' Strike is nearly over and c) the fact I'll be in Vancouver in three weeks' time. All these things could be linked. I have to wait and see.

And how are you guys? The good thing about Wordpress is that you can leave comments even if you don't have a Blogger account. Woohoo!

*iz brainded*

It's been such a busy week I don't think I can write another word. My brain? It hurts.

I'm currently watching an old episode of Batman on BBC4 and I can just about summon up the energy to yell, "Zok!" "Whamm!" "Thunk!" (etc) during the fight scenes, which I always do when I watch Batman, though tonight I'm a bit flat.

Like I said... my brain - it hurts.

In lieu of words, have some lolcats. And lolrats, too, while I'm at it.

Nelson's Column... er... Blog

I've been very remiss recently in doing two things: thanking all the people who sent me goodwill wishes via SFX after my surgery - much appreciated! - and also welcoming those who have recently 'friended' me on Facebook. There were more of you than I was expecting, but hey, the more, the merrier!

I should be working right now on a feature for SFX, a review for DVD Review and a whole heap of stuff for someone else, but instead I'm messing about on the net and pondering how much I can do tomorrow without killing myself in the process. Much as I adore writing for a living - and I really do, it's wonderful, I wouldn't change a damn thing - sometimes you do get that "Sunday night" feeling like you had as a kid when you've messed about all weekend and have to do all your homework at 8pm before going to bed. I could argue that I work better under pressure, but I'd be lying. Still, I always finish everything in the end, so I guess it does work in a way.

And speaking of finishing things: a few weeks ago I handed in my latest column to SFX, only to be told that they're not covering Sweeney Todd so the entire subject matter was moot. I dutifully scribbled another, but it seems a shame to waste the one I'd originally written, so I thought I'd post it here.

I don't know if any of you have seen Sweeney Todd yet, but I think it's fair to say that I adored it. And contrary to what you may think, I don't actually fancy Johnny Depp very much. He's handsome, oh yes (hell, I'm not DEAD), but I admire him more as an actor. (No, seriously. Whaddya mean, you don't believe me? Gits.)

Anyway, here it is. Bear in mind it was written to be read inside an issue of SFX. And that I really, really loved Sweeney Todd...




Johnny Be Good

We all know that Johnny Depp is cool. He’s the moody, smouldering, soulful, crown prince of cool. Johnny Depp is so unquestionably, effortlessly and quintessentially cool that the Oscar Academy (who normally wouldn’t know ‘cool’ if a gigantic ice cube walked into their Beverly Hills mansion, sat on their sofa and melted all over their slippers) even swallowed their hatred of comedy performances to nominate him for an Academy Award for bringing Captain Jack Sparrow to rum-soaked life. Environmental boffins are even considering using his cool as a last-ditch plan to save the polar bears when our ice caps melt.

However, the greatest thing about Mr Depp and his phenomenal coolness is this: he uses it on behalf of SFX.

I’m not saying that Johnny knows us, obviously, although he does have a house a few hundred metres up the road from SFX Towers (and a mere two minutes from where I used to live back when Bath was my home. We’d have shared the same corner store if I’d stayed there, although I’m sure our Johnny’s far too swish to shop at a Co-Op). What I’m saying is that Johnny has, in his long and glorious career, picked a startling amount of roles in movies that fall comfortably under SFX’s umbrella. From his breakout stint in A Nightmare on Elm Street to his ocean (and world)-conquering antics in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, The Deppster has been instrumental in bringing fantasy to the masses.

For this, SFX should hail him as their all-time actorly hero. If Depp had ever deigned to appear in Buffy, The X-Files or Doctor Who (though there’s still time!), there would be no argument that he was the greatest actor of our genre. Even without the TV appearances, Depp is still more than worthy of a place in SFX’s hall of fame as an ambassador for fantasy.

Sweeney Todd is another example of how Depp can make our genre mainstream while simultaneously giving a performance so ‘out there’ he spends most of the story circling around Mars. It’s an all-singing - not to mention all-bleeding - musical mausoleum of fabulousness from Tim Burton, Depp’s dark-gothic cinematic soulmate. Growling his way through the movie like David Bowie’s mascara-wearing evil twin, Depp delivers a performance so manic that Sweeney Todd winds up resembling an anti-Oliver, with a psychotic, mass-murdering Fagin at its heart. At time of writing there’s no way of knowing if the film will be a hit, but who wouldn’t want to see a kohl-eyed Depp slicing throats while singing at the top of his lungs about ‘Pretty Women’? Let’s hope the Academy don’t have heart attacks from shock as they ponder whether to fling an Oscar nomination at him this year. [NB: They did. Result!]

Todd is only the latest in a long line of roles in SFXy movies Depp has drenched in his allure. Jack Sparrow’s piratical poncing is now Hollywood legend, but what about his ditzy Ichabod Crane in Burton’s underrated Sleepy Hollow? Stiff-upper-lipped, pleasingly neurotic and masterfully underplayed, Crane is the midway point between Edward Scissorhands’ silent vulnerability and Sweeney Todd’s venomous brooding. Similarly, Depp’s Inspector Abberline, who appeared in the disappointing From Hell, is another twitchy, moody performance of great likeability (let’s not mention the accent, m’kay?), yet another stopping-off point on his road to Todd’s polished Victorian menace.

But Depp can ham it up, too, as he proved with his occasionally terrifying performance in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the drug-addled mayhem of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He exudes quiet charm in Finding Neverland and lazy turmoil in Stephen King’s Secret Window (possibly the only film Depp’s made in which he looks bored). We can only imagine what he’d have been like in Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote; perhaps, one day, we’ll get to find out, and until then we have the documentary Lost in La Mancha to peruse instead.

Strangely, my favourite Depp performance is the one he gives in Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate. It’s not a great film, its creepy ongoing mystery let down by an ending that seems horribly last-minute, but Depp’s thoroughly compelling as an expert in old books who gets caught up in a hunt for a Satanic text. Nobody can turn pages quite like him. Somehow, Depp makes reading a book seem erotic; no wonder he’s so sexy with his full-on Jack Sparrow sword’n’swagger.

With all this behind him, we can only hope that Depp never switches his allegiances to gentle rom-coms or cheap action flicks. He’s a Hollywood heartthrob hero who revels in playing characters who aren’t by-the-book. In doing so, he brings the bizarre into homes which wouldn’t normally give a film like Sweeney Todd a second look. SFX should be proud to name him their hero... and very happy to be his neighbour.



***

Rotten Swizz!

Who is Your Ideal TV Boyfriend?

Created by BuddyTV

What, so Dean Winchester wasn't available?

Still... Peter will do. *grin*

It's Physics, Okay?

Everything's gone a little bit hectic recently and I'm currently so busy I've got to that terrible stage where I feel guilty taking time out to do anything except sit at my computer and type.

However, today I still managed to go for a lovely walk to Richmond Park (where I promptly got horribly lost and had to ask two policemen for directions, to my eternal embarrassment) and I've just put aside the time to watch the first three episodes of The Sarah Connor Chronicles in a row.

To my surprise, it's far better than it has any right to be. Lena Headey is great as Sarah Connor, angsting, brooding and pouting for all she's worth; Thomas Dekker is striking just the right note as John Connor (as long as you forget he was already played by Ed Furlong and Nick Stahl) and Summer Glau as Cameron is a flippin' delight. Although I have to say that I don't care if she's a Terminator, she's still FAR TOO TINY to kick quite that much ass. Terminators may be strong, but they cannae break the laws of physics and pound to the ground objects far bigger than themselves with equal strength.

I have a feeling this is going to bug me like crazy for the series' entire run...

And in totally unrelated news, I got a new scanner! Which means I could finally scan in this photo of me pretending to read the news at NBC Studios, New York:



There aren't many photos in existence of me wearing glasses because I usually wear contacts, but I think they lend me an air of 'news anchor gravitas' here. I look very much at home. I'm pining for the autocue already...

RIP, Heath...

Heath Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain was one of the finest I've ever seen. I couldn't wait to see him in The Dark Knight. How could he be dead at 28? Poor, poor guy.

Cloverfield

I went to a screening of JJ Abram's much-hyped, long-awaited, top sekrit monster movie tonight.

What a spectacular film: a good, old-fashioned disaster flick which was everything 1998's Godzilla should have been with a dash of 1955's It Came From Beneath The Sea thrown in. Alright, so the plot was wafer-thin and you could see the ending coming a mile off, but hell, as far as "evil thing flattens New York" films go, it was a winner.



Shame about the hand-held camerawork, though. I started feeling sick pretty quickly and by the midway point I had to close my eyes and ponder whether my handbag would make a good receptacle for my vomit. Luckily I started feeling better after ten minutes (missing a rather gory death on the screen, apparently), and managed to make it through to the end of the film - before having to rush outside to gulp down lungfuls of fresh air.

Next to Arthur And The Invisibles (which was just terrible) and True Romance (which was great, but I started succumbing to a terrible flu bug halfway through it), this was the most miserable cinema experience of my life.

And yet I still enjoyed Cloverfield despite the nausea, so take that as a recommendation. Four outta five stars from me!

Bring your own sick bag.

The old Spike swagger

Just watched the first episode of Torchwood's second series. Cracking!

I don't think I've ever had as many text messages during the course of one TV programme in my life. All of them were about how sexy James Marsters was (excluding the text I had from illustrator Andy Watt asking, "Is that the guy from Buffy?"). Whoever decided to cast him deserves a medal!

I'm still giggling over the BBC announcer declaring that the show was "better" during the introduction. They were obviously very aware that it was a tad up-and-down first time round and wanted to allay any fears, but it did sound a little like an apology...

Why Barack Obama Should Be The Next President Of The United States

I'm the first to admit that I don't know much about American politics, but I do know a lot about American television. Through American television, by osmosis, I know a lot about America. And, as the following brilliant article by Peter Aspden for the Financial Times website points out...

Article on The Wire

... Barack Obama knows a lot about America, too:

"Late last year, in a poll in the US's TV Guide, The Wire was revealed to be one of Barack Obama's favourite shows. (Some context: Hillary Clinton responded with, among others, American Idol, while Mitt Romney chose Lost.)"

If Barack Obama watches The Wire, you can rest assured that he knows his country. The Wire shows America at its rawest, exposing not only its dirty underbelly but its filthy head, shoulders and scabby knees too. It's easy to call The Sopranos The Greatest Television Show Ever Made because, by Hell, it is. But so is The Wire. There's a certain fantastical edge to The Sopranos, a slickness, a poise, that means it's not 100% believable, good as it is, but The Wire is so believable that you can almost smell the stink of crack dens, drug money and corruption (which, looking at the evidence, whiffs of cigars and briefcase leather).

Season five - its last - began airing on HBO this week in the US, and the show has lost none of its power. As Aspden points out, this isn't a series you can pick up on late in the day: you need to watch it from the start. But, if you need proof that The Wire is the show for you, check out this episode's pre-credits teaser, which has a bunch of Baltimore homicide detectives tricking a suspect into thinking he's taking a lie detector test by taping his hand to a photocopier.

I'm not saying Barack Obama needs to learn tricks like this, but if he's watching, it means he understands what drove them to do it. And that's reason enough for him to become the most powerful man on Earth.

Maybe then he can do something about it.

New York Minutes

Happy 2008! Here's hoping you all had happy holidays! I've had a crazy few weeks, so apologies for the long silence. I did the New York thing, had visitors staying over New Year and even got to tell one of the Lone Gunmen from The X-Files that his fly was undone. Now I'm back at my desk, trying to catch up with my work, and it all seems like a glorious dream...

If you're bored and want to see my New York photos (which are rather good, even if I do say so myself, particularly when you bear in mind that they were taken on my cameraphone), feel free to look me up on Facebook - I'm the Jayne Nelson with the TV as her profile picture. Go ahead and friend me! If you don't want to, I've sprinkled a few of them among this entry.

While I won't go into too much detail, I'll still summarise my trip here, mainly because I don't keep a diary and this will help me remember what I did in years to come. Feel free to read it. Or feel free to go to icanhascheezburger.com instead. I won't blame you.


Sunday 23rd December

Arrived in New York in the evening utterly exhausted. Managed a stroll around Times Square (I may have squeaked a little) before falling into bed.





Monday 24th December

Decided to walk everywhere as it was a wonderfully sunny day. Wandered up to Central Park, saw the Dakota Building and Strawberry Fields, the church the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man destroyed in Ghostbusters (Venkman: "Nobody treads on a church in my town!") and Dana Barrett's home (otherwise known as Spook Central).



Next was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I had my picture taken with a study for Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon On La Grand Jatte" (one of my favourite paintings ever).




A stroll down Fifth Avenue to the Chrysler Building followed (now one of my favourite buildings ever), before I took the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty (she's totally wee and didn't come out well in my pics) and then sailed right back again once the sun had set (so I saw Manhattan by sunset and by night).





Finally, I walked through Times Square on the way to my hotel and grinned like a loon the whole way.


Christmas Day

Had my photo taken in true Hiro Nakamura style in Times Square on Christmas morning ("I did it! Ya ta!") by two bemused British tourists. They were busy waving to their relatives, who were watching them live on the Times Square webcam back home. They got a text asking "Who's that with you?" as they took my photo. I told them to text back that I was Kylie.




After that, I took the subway to Brooklyn so I could see the Brooklyn Bridge by daylight, then back into Manhattan, where I got off at City Hall, seeing the Woolworth Building and Ground Zero (creepy as hell).

After a short rest, I started queuing for the Empire State Building (always book in advance like I did, or you'll queue for three hours or more - I ended up queuing for 90 minutes and that was bad enough). I got to the top as the sun set, which was beautiful, and then watched the lights of New York come on one by one - even more beautiful. I stayed up there for hours, before finding a nice cup of coffee in a magazine store around the corner, where I had a long chat with an Egyptian archaeologist who just happened to be working there (don't ask). When he enquired what I did for a living I took an SFX off the shelf next to him and showed him my column picture. I love it when you can do things like that...

It was getting late by then, so I went back to my hotel and went to bed because goddamn, my feet were hurting.






Boxing Day

Pancakes for breakfast! And another stroll through Central Park, this time stopping off at the Museum of Natural History (bigger than London's, but not quite as impressive) and the Boathouse in Central Park for a lovely meal. Then I wandered down to Central Park Zoo, where I bonded with some colobus monkeys, and took a cab back to my hotel in Times Square. By this time it was evening and starting to sleet, so my investigations of Rockefeller Plaza weren't quite as fun as I'd hoped (and it was hellishly busy), but it still looked pretty.




Then, on the advice of SFX's Nick Setchfield (thanks, Nick!) I went to Radio City Music Hall to see their Christmas Spectacular, which was, rather unsurprisingly, very Christmassy and very spectacular. The Rockettes were a force to be reckoned with, although I was so scared one of them was going to fall over and break an ankle I almost didn't enjoy the show.




Thursday 27th December

I was up in time for an 8.45am tour of the NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which had me sitting in the Saturday Night Live and Late Night With Conan O'Brien studios, although I'll remember the tour more for the fact that the TV screens were all displaying the news that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated. (It was being reported from the very building I was standing in, too.) After that, I had a lovely stroll down to Grand Central Station and discovered they were playing waltzes across the concourse and it really was like that scene in The Fisher King.




Next, after a gorgeous meal in a cafe in Pershing Square, I walked down to the Flatiron Building and then past the Empire State Building for a final time, although it was rather prettily lost in mist and rain.




Finally I almost missed my plane due to traffic - even though I left Manhattan THREE AND A HALF HOURS EARLY - but I did manage to save the ass of an Israeli businessman in the same boat, which is another story entirely.

I slept for an entire day when I got home, mainly to rest my poor feet, which still aren't used to this walking lark. But I didn't care, because three months ago I couldn't even stand up thanks to my sciatica. With that in mind, this trip was the best holiday ever ever EVER.

And that's my trip to New York in a very large nutshell.



As for New Year's Eve - the fireworks by the London Eye were amazing, but with 700,000 people in London that night, the trip home wasn't. I live half an hour away and it took four hours. Holy mackerel!

Oh yes, the Lone Gunman. Dean Haglund (Langly) performed a series of one-man improvs at Trafalgar Studios last week and I went along with a friend to see what he was getting up to. Think Whose Line Is It Anyway? meets The X-Files and you're there! What a nice chap. And oh, so funny. He's touring in the spring, folks, so make sure you catch him!

I think this post is long enough. Bye.

Happy New Year!

I'm back from New York! A dicky broadband connection meant I couldn't update my blog from the hotel, and now I won't have a chance until the end of the week as I have New Year's visitors. So until then, here's a picture of me in Central Park on Christmas Eve. Boy, do I look happy!




Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas - and may you all have a fabulous New Year!

Chilly Squirrels

I'm flying off to New York today, fog permitting (I don't live far from Heathrow and it's a proper pea-souper out there). I'll be taking Shep with me and my hotel has wifi, so with luck I'll be able to update this blog while I'm there. Just in case I can't, I'll say a hearty "Merry Christmas" right now!

It's cold in New York at the moment, but it's also cold here in London. Check out the frozen lake in Regent's Park:



I felt sorry for the park's squirrels, so I took them some nuts last week. Apparently everybody else and their uncle gives them nuts, too, so they get quite cocky. And there's a lot of them...



... although they don't always get on, as this video proves:



Next park I'll walk through? Central Park. Wonder if the New York squirrels act any differently?

"It's horrible and I didn't understand it and it made me feel old."

Hello again! Yes, I'm back after my Week Of Fun (TM) with Biddy, which sounds vaguely dirty except it most certainly wasn't, if you excuse some perfectly understandable drooling over the male cast of Supernatural. (Incidentally, the show's Christmas episode? Terrific!)

Usually whenever Biddy and I get together we eat mountains of junk food and melt into our respective sofas as we watch hour upon hour of TV shows and movies. Oddly enough, this time round we only did that once. The rest of the time we actually went out and did stuff, which was pretty cool, although hard on the feet. The highlight was our trip to the O2 to see the King Tutankhamun exhibition, which was mind-bogglingly amazing and ignited a hitherto-unrecognised need inside me to visit the tomb itself, not to mention the rest of the collection in Cairo. I feel like I nibbled the edge of a chocolate biscuit, only to have someone whip it out of my hand and run off with it before I could take a proper bite.

The only downside to the exhibition was the hideously tacky gift shop you had to walk into as you left behind the majesties and wonders of Egypt 3,300 years before we were born. Who the HELL would buy a King Tut tissue holder? Or a bobble-head doll? Or a Top Trumps game? Maybe in a toy shop, but not 30 seconds after viewing his real-life treasures! Talk about hitting the 21st century with a bang...

Less aggravating was the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Here's my favourite pic:



... closely followed by this one:



... and then this one (entitled "Midnight Eruption", which really does sound dirty):



Oh, and we saw Crowded House twice. Their Wembley Arena gig was fabulous, although we did get caught up in a scuffle as we danced in front of the stage and the security guards tried to make us sit down again. Eventually the band got involved (I had no idea Nick Seymour knew such naughty words - he really wasn't pleased with the guards) but it ended well. And they played "Black And White Boy", which I've never heard live, so that's just about made my year. Well, that and being able to walk again after my surgery, obviously.

Here are Neil Finn, Nick Seymour and new Crowded House drummer Matt Sherrod getting in the Christmas spirit at the Royal Albert Hall:



And here's Mark Hart - he's a bit shy:



This week I'm spending two days on Metal Hammer magazine and three days on Official Xbox 360 Magazine, and then I'm off to New York on Sunday. It's snowing like buggery out there at the moment. While I'm thrilled at the prospect of a white Christmas, I'm a little worried it might affect my flights... although an extra night in New York wouldn't go amiss if, say, it decided to snow on the 27th...

And lastly, you may be wondering about the header at the top of this entry. That's what Biddy said after discovering a strange plastic toy something-or-other (a plane? A weird machine? A monkey?) inside her Kinder egg.

You know you're leaving behind your childhood when a Kinder egg makes you feel inadequate.

"Did I just say that out loud?"

I'm watching Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix with Biddy.


Fred Weasley: "You know, George, I've always felt our futures lay outside the world of academic achievement."

Biddy: "Porn stars?"





Bleedin' hell, I've missed her.

The Return Of A Crowded House (and Crowded House: the band)

My friend Biddy is coming to stay with me on Friday, so I might not be able to blog for a week or so. We haven't seen each other for over a year and intend to make the most of our time together. This is our itinerary as it stands so far:

1) See Crowded House in concert at Wembley Arena.
2) See Crowded House in concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
3) Watch every episode of Supernatural's third season again.
4) Visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition at the Natural History Museum.
5) Visit the Tutankhamun exhibition.
6) Shop.
7) Eat lots of junk food.
8) On one of the two days during which I have to work, we'll meet up for lunch and then she will go on to London Zoo while I go back to work (I'm not looking forward to that very much).
9) Watch some more Supernatural.
10) Open a ridiculous amount of Christmas presents and laugh at how dumb they are.

All in all, it should be a good week!

And... It's photo time! (I love my cameraphone. Can you tell? Just wait until I hit New York, folks!)



This is Doris Salcedo's art installation at Tate Modern, 'Shibboleth', which is essentially a honking big crack running the entire length of the Turbine Hall. Apparently it represents "power's divisive operations as encoded in the brutal narratives of colonialism, their unhappy aftermaths in postcolonial nations, and in the stand-off between rich and poor, northern and southern hemispheres."

Which is a rather poncy way of saying "I made a honking big crack and called it art."

The funny thing is, people keep falling down it. There are signs everywhere and it's not exactly wide (see photo below, with my foot for scale), and yet several people have shoved their ankles into it and hurt themselves.

Now, call me cruel, but you have to be A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID to trip over the very thing you've come to the gallery to see, don't you?




This is the big spidery sculpture thing outside the Tate that looks bloody terrifying, although these kids didn't seem to be bothered...




Note St Paul's Cathedral in the background - which, I've just discovered, costs a whopping £9.50 to enter. It's expensive to talk to God nowadays. I'm SO in the wrong business.


And finally, Covent Garden in Christmas mode. By gum, that's purty!

See you in a week or so. Be good! Although don't, because that's boring.



(By the way, you can click on these pics and make them bigger if you want. Just thought I'd mention it. Did I say I love my cameraphone? Oh, I did? Sorry...)

Start spreading the news/ I'm leavin' today...

... Although I'm actually leaving on 23 December, but the principle's the same. Yes - to celebrate my return to the outside world I've booked four nights in wonderful New York over Christmas! I've never been, I've always wanted to see the city and I had just enough left on my credit card to pay for the trip. (I'm trying not to think about how that money should probably have gone to the taxman next year. Oh well.)

I emailed the Empire State Building yesterday to ascertain their plans for Christmas Day and discovered that they're open until 2am. So, I'm going to watch the sunset from the once-tallest-building-in-the-world, probably singing "Ding dong merrily on high" and irritating everybody around me. Now THERE'S a plan!

(Additional cool factor: there's an email in my inbox right now which says "Sender: The Empire State Building". I had an image of the skyscraper trying to get its ginormous concrete fingers to fit on a keyboard...)

Next up: Vancouver in March, to stay with my lovely friend Justine. I'm probably booking the ticket next week. Money? Be damned. I have a lifetime to pay it off. After having such a rotten year healthwise, I've realised that life is too bloody short to worry about a few hundred quid. If my back gives out again and surgery can't help, I'll regret never strolling through Central Park. Some things just have to be done, dangnabbit!

I'm a teeny tiny bit excited now.

On Monday I had a fabulous time in Camden with artist Judith Clute, who is now one of my most favouritest people after a four-hour gossip and a tour of her extraordinary house. Books, books, paintings and more books... it was incredible. Barely a flash of bare wall in the building! What a marvellous woman she is - and so inspiring. She also knows Harlan Ellison, who you may spot further down on this blog in an earlier entry, and regaled me with tales of his very own spectacular house. Suddenly my flat, decorated as it is with floor-to-ceiling pictures and stuffed with so many plants it resembles the forests of Borneo, seems very drab indeed.

I need to buy me some bookshelves.

Take It To The Bridge

My kittens went to their new home on Friday night and were promptly renamed Vince and Howard after the stars of The Mighty Boosh, so their new owners are people of discerning taste in both pets and TV shows. I have to say, it's really odd having no felines about the place any more. I miss the purring but blimey, I don't miss the sneezing! Cats with cat flu? Messy. My sofa covers were in the washing machine before the little tykes were even in the car...

I'm not getting any more foster cats until the New Year, so I'm trying to get used to life as a singleton again. I've spent most of the weekend cleaning and I fear I overdid it a little; every part of me aches as much as my flat shines. Still, it was worth it. I even managed to wrap 95% of my Christmas presents (I'm unable to wrap the remaining 5%, mainly because I don't have them yet) as well as sort out my photo collection, which has been taking up five large albums and a two huge boxes for several years. Now it takes up one small plastic container and a lot of wall space in my kitchen. Earlier I walked in there naked (I'd just had a shower - I wasn't being kinky or anything, honest) and realised all my friends and family were staring at me, so I ran away to get a towel pretty sharpish. Um, which you probably didn't need to know. Sorry...

Over the last few days I've managed to fit in a lot of films, mostly documentaries. The Bridge was a thoughtful, sombre and occasionally terrifying study of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the most popular suicide spot in the world. I thought it would consist of interviews with relatives and the odd person who'd failed in their attempt to end their life, and mostly it did - including one guy who said he knew "the minute his hands left the handrail" that he wanted to live. He survived his fall off the bridge thanks to luck, the way he hit the water and a friendly seal who swam over to investigate before hanging around to keep him afloat. The fortunate chap observed that the seal was proof of the existence of God, and it's hard disagree with him there.

Disturbingly, however, there was footage in The Bridge of people jumping: lost souls committing their final act, often prefaced by their families and acquaintances discussing events leading up to their deaths. The final victim's leap, slowly built up to during the course of the film, was so spectacular - and chilling - it may very well stay with me forever.

Not a film to watch if you're feeling down, but amazing. And oh, so sad.

I also watched the Metallica documentary Some Kind Of Monster, which was a bit of a gamble on my part because before spinning it in my DVD player I couldn't have named a single song by the band or any one of its members. That didn't matter, though, because it was a fascinating study of a group of men self-destructing while recording an album which, thankfully, had a happy ending. I'm not one for watching a film straight through; I usually turn it off a few times to make coffee or pop to the loo. Some Kind Of Monster had the honour of being watched straight through with no breaks at all - a rare beast. Great stuff, although I'm still not sure about the music. All their songs sound the same! And LOUD!

(Ducks as all the metal-heads reading this pelt me with eggs. Or whatever the hell metal-heads throw. Anyone know?)

Right, enough of the rambling film criticism... Top Gear is about to start. Sunday nights are priceless at the moment: Jeremy Clarkson and the gang making me howl with laughter at 8pm followed by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman making me wish I was in their gang in Long Way Down at 9pm. Go BBC!

Tomorrow I'm heading off to have a coffee with a lovely artist I met at Neil Gaiman's party the other week, before going clothes shopping in Camden. Have I mentioned recently how wonderful it is to walk again? No? Well, it bloody well is. So there.

Photo Play

Wow, I have a lot of photos to post today! (Apologies if the formatting looks funny on your screen - I can't seem to get it to work...)

First off, I am SFX's "Flame-Haired Vixen Of Science Fiction" once more:









And, as you can see from this shot of me investigating a sculpture in Regents Park, I'm also upright and walking again:



I'm walking so much, in fact, that I have blisters on my poor unused feet. After such a horrible, painful year, just looking up and seeing a sky instead of a ceiling is bliss personified. Here's what I found by the London Eye a few days ago:



Seeing such a whopping Anubis prompted me to buy tickets for the Tutankhamun exhibition, so I guess he did his job. Got me hankering after a few Stargate SG-1 episodes, too...












Unfortunately, my return to the outside world means I can't foster any felines for a while, seeing as I'm rarely home to look after them. Joss and Wash - the ginger kittens I took in two months ago - are finally well enough to go to a new home tomorrow, although quite how I'm going to say goodbye to this cuteness is beyond me:



(Of course, ten seconds after I took this pic, they were beating each other up. They can only be cute in short bursts.) The boys have grown like mad since I got them, and here's the proof. Remember how Joss used to watch Michael Palin's Around The World In Eighty Days?



He still likes travel shows. This is him watching Ewan McGregor in Long Way Down the other night. My, how he's grown!



And that's quite enough of the pictures, thank you!

So... thanks to all the SFX readers who've wished me well after the operation. Rest assured I should be writing my next column right now instead of messing about on my blog, so, um, I guess things are back to normal!

The Kids Are Alright

I went to a screening of Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium today.

Sunday morning screenings are generally reserved for family films, and the PR companies usually make events out of them to entice children along with their parents. Kids often have their faces painted, wear costumes, receive free toys and sweets and have a whale of a time.* This morning's film was no exception: the cinema was filled with sprogs clutching balloon animals and paper aeroplanes. There were jugglers, goodie bags on every seat and even a man on a unicycle wheeling around in front of the screen.

Fun to watch, but as the film began I realised, with a sinking heart, that every child in the building had been WOUND UP TO HIGH HEAVEN and there was NO WAY they'd be able to sit still to watch the movie. It was going to be HELL. I've lived through it before; Sunday morning screenings are, quite often, miserable experiences.

But you know what? I was wrong! The whole cinema sat transfixed - including the baby sitting in front of me, who gurgled happily on his mom's lap and didn't screech at all (as babies are wont to do in cinemas). I was very impressed. I have no idea why they were so well-behaved, but if every Sunday morning screening was like this, I wouldn't object to getting out of bed at 7.30am ever again.

Film wasn't too painful, either. I wish my eyebrows looked as good as Natalie Portman's.






* When I wrote the words 'whale of a time', I happened to glance up at Sky News and saw they were running a story about how Japan are hunting humpback whales again. So I guess that's an expression that really shouldn't be used any more...

Don't Call Him A Science Fiction Writer, Or He'll Find You And Tear Out Your Liver*

Today I went back to work after nearly three months, and it was great! Right up until 3pm, at least, which was when I got all sleepy and found myself wanting to go home. There's no pleasing some people, eh?

Still, I enjoyed seeing everybody again, and they enjoyed commenting on my BRIGHT new hair colour. Once again I am SFX's "flame-haired vixen of science fiction"! And people stare at me when I'm on the Underground, too. BRIGHT. I'm tellin' ya. REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BRIGHT. Phew!

And now onto someone who's definitely not a flame-haired vixen, but certainly possesses an opinion on science fiction... I found the following 1980 interview with the author Harlan Ellison on YouTube today. He expresses some rather strong views on being called a science fiction writer.

Stick with the interview to the end - it's worth it:



Isn't he great? I stumbled across the footage by accident but it's rekindled my twentysomething love for Ellison's work.

I'm off to read "Repent, Harlequin!" Said The Ticktockman for the eleventy billionth time now.

Mrmee, mrmee, mrmee...




* This is what Ellison told Starlog many, many years ago, and it's stuck with me ever since (can't think why). The guy's just made of quotes!

Oh, My Aching Feet...

You know, two weeks ago I couldn't stand up for more than ten minutes.

Yesterday I was on my feet for TEN WHOLE HOURS.

I can't believe how much the surgery has affected my life. I actually have a life now!

I celebrated my return to the World of the Walking by spending last night in a frightfully posh hotel chatting to lots of frightfully interesting people, and it was all thanks to Neil Gaiman, who was kind enough to invite me to his birthday bash. I'd planned to have a day out in London with my friend Gillen - culminating in a cup of tea in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, my second favourite place in the capital after the Natural History Museum (how I've missed them both!) - but we saved our energies for the party instead.

The conversation (and champagne) flowed. I finally got to meet author Geoff Ryman (who was a scream); comedian Mitch Benn sang a very amusing song (before the hotel told him he was keeping their guests awake and stifled his guitar) and Neil spent the whole night smiling and introducing people and being quite possibly the best party host ever.

My favourite part of the night was chatting to actress Joanna Scanlon in the ladies' loo and discussing her role as one of the witches in Stardust. I thought, seeing as many of her scenes were performed with Michelle Pfeiffer, that she'd talk about her, but instead she told me how working with a baboon was rather scary because baboons are nasty little buggers who think they're far superior to every human on the planet. As far as "ladies loos" conversations go, I don't think I've ever had a stranger one.

The taxi driver who drove me home from the hotel in the wee small hours was curious to know whose party I'd just attended. I pointed at a poster of Stardust on the side of a passing bus and said, "The guy who wrote that film." And then pointed to a billboard on the opposite side of the road which displayed a huge Beowulf poster and said, "Oh, and that film, too."

Impressed, the driver then asked a lots of questions about how much you get paid for writing a movie - a subject I know nothing about - and seemed annoyed that I couldn't tell him, so I changed the subject by pointing at Buckingham Palace and asking him if he thought it smelt of old ladies and corgi dogs. For the next ten minutes he let me know, in no uncertain terms, that Her Majesty wouldn't stand for any smells in her home and that she'd use air fresheners. I was very happy when he dropped me off...

And blimey, my poor feet ached. I haven't stood for so long since January. Loved every goddamn minute though. Thanks, Neil!

Oops, I Did It Again...

Another new look! I'll actually get round to writing something interesting soon. Honest.

New Look!

I thought it was time for a change. It's a bit white, though, isn't it?

Which Book Are You?

I sat down to take this quiz and thought, "I want to be Catch-22." And I nearly died when this happened...

You're Catch-22!

by Joseph Heller

Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of people.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Walkies!

I had the staples in my back taken out today by a rather harrassed nurse, who informed me that I'd "feel a little pinch" and then proceeded to do something that felt as though she was poking me very hard in the spine with a toasting fork. Ouch!

And that's it - now that my staples are out, I'm almost 100% again! I'm a little bit wobbly but otherwise perfectly capable of walking without pain for the first time this year. I'm so happy I could pop! I keep thinking of excuses to go outside. In a minute I'm nipping down the road to Tesco's just to buy some pickled onions - anything to get out of the flat! It's bliss. It really is. I can't even express how wonderful it is to clean my teeth STANDING UP... to wash dishes STANDING UP... to see the outside world STANDING UP, without any pain at all. I've got my life back!

I went for a stroll a few days ago and had the misfortune to witness a motorbike accident next to my house. Thankfully nobody was hurt - although quite how the biker avoided breaking his neck, I have no idea - but I'm still feeling embarrassed by the fact I grabbed my phone to call an ambulance and stupidly dialled 911 instead of 999.

I really need to stop watching so much American television, don't I?