Jayne's World

Bye Bye Blogger!

2008-02-11T18:52:00.000Z

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...

2008-02-10T09:29:00.000Z

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

2008-01-30T19:50:00.001Z

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

2008-01-27T17:40:00.000Z

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!

2008-01-26T10:14:00.001Z

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?

2008-01-25T21:31:00.000Z

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...

2008-01-22T23:01:00.000Z

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

2008-01-17T23:15:00.000Z

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

2008-01-16T21:58:00.000Z

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

2008-01-12T11:53:00.000Z

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

2008-01-06T19:17:00.000Z

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!

2007-12-31T09:31:00.000Z

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

2007-12-23T08:32:00.000Z

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."

2007-12-16T13:00:00.001Z

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?"

2007-12-08T23:29:00.000Z

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)

2007-12-05T21:05:00.000Z

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...

2007-11-28T10:07:00.000Z

... 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

2007-11-25T19:20:00.001Z

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

2007-11-22T18:28:00.003Z

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

2007-11-18T19:09:00.000Z

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*

2007-11-14T22:13:00.000Z

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...

2007-11-11T19:32:00.000Z

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...

2007-11-08T12:19:00.000Z

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

New Look!

2007-11-07T17:15:00.001Z

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

Which Book Are You?

2007-11-07T09:10:00.000Z

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!

2007-11-05T17:05:00.000Z

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?

I'm Now In Debt To A Nice Man Named Nigel

2007-10-31T13:46:00.000Z

There are three things you should know about spinal surgery:

1) When you wake up, the first thing you will find yourself doing is wiggling your toes in a post-operative panic. I'm happy to say that mine wiggled quite nicely.

2) The stitches and staples and incision don't hurt at all afterwards, but the bruises from the sliced muscles at the base of your back really, really, REALLY do.

3) There is no feeling on Earth as wonderful as the feeling you get when a nice surgeon named Nigel tells you that "It all went very well."

And he's right: my sciatica seems to have gone. I can stand up without excruciating pain, although admittedly the joy is somewhat deadened by the pain from the operation itself. I'm still rather befuddled by it all and almost totally incapable of sitting for very long (hence this being a short post), so I think I'll celebrate in a week or so when I'm feeling better. In the meantime, I want to thank everybody for all the good wishes - they meant a lot! It won't be long before this blog is back to its usual (hopefully) interesting self.

Two more things: after the surgery, when I woke up in post-op shivering like a lunatic but luckily not feeling any after-effects from the anaesthetic at all (I'm tellin' ya, it's my superpower!), the nurse handed me a small vial and said, "Do you want this?"

The vial contained the pieces of the disc the surgeon had shaved away in order to free my trapped nerve. Gross as it was, I laughed so much another nurse came over to ask if I was alright. Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with the offending bits of disc: a ceremonial burning might suffice. Little bastards made my life hell for nearly a year, so it's about time they suffered too!

Oh, and look who came to visit me:

I was really humbled that Sam and Dean Winchester could take time out from their busy demon-hunting schedule to drop by Charing Cross Hospital, and would like to thank Vanessa and Gillen for showing them where my room was. Shame they didn't bring the car, though, but the suspension would most likely have murdered my back.

Day 59: About Bloody Time!

2007-10-22T18:50:00.000+01:00

My surgery is on Thursday!

I'm so excited I think the doctors may need to double my anaesthetic to keep me under. By the weekend - with luck - I might be able to stand up without being in pain!

(Well, other than the pain from the surgery, obviously.)

I'll blog again next week - and hopefully I'll be able to talk about normal things again! Fingers crossed...

Day 57: By Jove!

2007-10-20T12:39:00.000+01:00

JK Rowling has announced that Albus Dumbledore is gay.

I can't say it was too much of a shock, although I flatly refuse to believe Biddy's theory that's he's been having it away with Professor Flitwick for years.

Day 57: Pay Your Way

2007-10-20T10:37:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday I had my looooong-awaited appointment with a surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital to discuss my upcoming back surgery.

"Okay," said the doctor, shuffling some papers and staring at my MRI scans on his computer screen, "it looks as though I can get you on the waiting list after all. You'll get your operation in 18 weeks."

I made a little choking noise. "That's, uh, four and a half months."

"Yes."

"But I've already waited ELEVEN months."

"Ah. Yes. You should have been sent to me after three months. That's the NHS for you - they send you everywhere but we're you're meant to be. I'm really sorry. It makes me bloody angry."

"But... but..." I was imagining being stuck in my flat until February. Being unable to stand up long enough to cook, clean, shower... even brush my teeth. Losing work - because although I can do a lot from home, I really need to get into an office every now and then, and that's without all the screenings and interviews I'm missing. And hell - I'm watching the seasons change from my windows, unable to experience them. Another 18 weeks of this?

"Is it really £10,000 to have the operation done privately?" I asked, because that's what I'd discovered a few months ago; it's the reason I haven't had the procedure performed already.

"Oh no," said the surgeon. "It's only £3,500. I'm actually doing two operations this very afternoon."

Well, there goes that empty credit card.

So I'm getting the operation in a fortnight or so, which is a billion times better than February. I'll be on my feet a few hours after the procedure - known as a lumbar microdiscectomy - and back to work a couple of weeks later. It's major surgery but I only need one night in hospital, and the surgeon informs me it's a really standard operation he wouldn't be worried to have himself (unlike brain surgery, his other speciality - hence my being referred to him about my noggin a few months ago by mistake!).

I am going to be the happiest patient IN THE WORLD. I'm annoyed I have to pay, but very thankful I can. If I'd been self-employed but unable to work from home, my life would've been totally ruined by now... I bet the NHS ruins lives every day with its ridiculous waiting lists.

The amusing thing is that, according to my surgeon, apparently four and a half months isn't a long wait. HOLY CRAP!

Anyway, in a few weeks I'll be able to write about things on this blog that aren't complaints about my health or kittens. Hurrah! I can experience the world again!

Day 50: Zombie Chocolapyse

2007-10-14T22:32:00.000+01:00

Y'know, the one thing about being stuck indoors 24/7 is that you get a lot of visitors. However, when these visitors always turn up with bars of chocolate or tubs of ice cream or boxes of doughnuts, you find that you start putting on weight, particularly when exercise is supremely painful and therefore impossible, and you're so bored you eat all the junk food because it seems wrong to waste it and, what the hell, it takes bloody lovely.

So, uh, yes. I've put on three pounds. Which I guess isn't bad considering I haven't done anything in nearly two months, but still... bugger.

(I'm also getting a bit fed up of chocolate. Tomorrow's visitor has been instructed to bring me bananas and apples, goddammit! Who knew I'd ever start craving fruit?)

I don't know if it's all the chocolate, but last night I had a horrible nightmare about being eaten alive by zombies. Up until my 20s I had terrifying recurring nightmares about tidal waves - so bad, in fact, I couldn't even watch a movie which had big waves in it - but after the Asian tsunami I guess I became immune to the sight of huge walls of water because they were on the news all the time. So now I have recurring nightmares about zombies, which I prefer because, hey, zombies aren't real, but they're still scary and they've prevented me from watching films like Shaun Of The Dead, which sucks. Last night's dream was so nasty that I couldn't even eat my breakfast this morning. (Although, thanks to the weight I've put on, that's kind of a good thing.)

I'm hoping tonight I dream of fluffy kittens. This evening both cats curled up on my feet and watched Michael Palin's latest travel series with me; they're devout TV fans and really enjoy his work. Let's hope this spills into my sleep, shall we?

(For proof, here's a photo of Joss watching Michael Palin's Around The World In 80 Days, taken last week. I'm thinking of introducing him to Monty Python next.)

And yes, this isn't the world's most interesting post. I just wanted to use the phrase "zombie chocolapyse" in the title, really. Sorry.

Day 44: Friends Reunited

2007-10-08T00:09:00.000+01:00

Last night, my friend Stephen sent me a text message which announced that he was about to watch the first episode of season three of Supernatural and that it was like "hugging an old friend".

I thought that was a wonderful analogy (and, as it turns out, was precisely how it felt when I watched the episode, too), so I'm going to use it to describe the return of another show I love: Top Gear, which embarked on its new series earlier this evening.

As ever, it was anarchic and daft and just a little offensive, but the best bit came when Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May went to Stelvio in Italy and ended up on this road...

... which Clarkson described as "fifteen miles of ashphalt spaghetti dropped on an Alp."

I'm now so intimidated by this feat of verbal brilliance that I've decided to give up being a writer. Instead, I'm going to live in a cowshed in Tibet and stare at the mountains all day.

Goodbye.

(Incidentally, I have a long-lost brother - who I haven't seen since 1995 thanks to his globetrotting - and he really did live in a cowshed in Tibet for a while. For all I know, he's sitting in one right now. Must run in the family...)

Day 43: Red Deer And Sea Galleons

2007-10-06T19:50:00.000+01:00

It was my birthday on Monday. Never before has a 36-year-old woman received so many pieces of tat which should have been burned before they even left the shop. Needless to say, I loved every last gift!

In between the plastic Dalek and the Harry Potter annual, the packet of chocolate ghosts (with a note from Biddy telling me to spread them around my bedroom to see if the spook-chasing Winchesters would turn up to deal with them) and the Jonathan Ross calendar which has to be seen to be believed because it's so hilariously bad, I also got 300, The Life Of Mammals, Blue Hawaii and Due South's second season on DVD. Someone also burned me a copy of a rare Neil Finn song I'd been pining for in a move which, 90 plays later, has quite worn out my iPod.

Add to that an autographed copy of Darren Shan's new book (which had me howling like a banshee with laughter at what he'd scribbled in the front), the 300 graphic novel and the complete Sherlock Holmes saga in Penguin paperback, and I guess you could say it was quite a haul.

To top it off, two days later I actually got to leave the house, heading to Richmond Park for a picnic with author Steph Swainston, who'd kindly offered the use of her car. It was only the second time we'd hung out together - we first went for a drink after I reviewed her last book (she wasn't my pal when I read it, so don't think I was biased when I gave it five stars!) - but we had a great day of gossip and good food.

We also went for a drive to Hampton Court, though without the use of a wheelchair I couldn't do much when I got there, so we went back to Richmond Park and ogled King Henry VIII's deer in lieu of his house. They were just as pretty, if a little noisier.

After 40-odd days confined to my flat, it was bliss personified. To be able to focus on things FAR AWAY as opposed to the inside of my four walls - however nice my four walls are - did my eyes the world of good.

All in all, my birthday was rather lovely; thank you to everybody involved!

(Of course, last year I had a phone call from Jared Padalecki. I was kind of hoping Jensen Ackles would ring for a chat this time round, but he was obviously too busy hunting chocolate ghosts in someone else's bedroom. Pah.)

Oh, and I promised to keep you posted on the random nuggets of information I pick up from David Attenborough's Life On Earth series. And thus I can proudly inform you that in episode two David tells us that "flatworms are very flat" (well, duh). However, in episode three he announces that "ammonites sailed the prehistoric seas like galleons", which is a wondrous image indeed.

Who knew the old chap was a poet at heart?

Day 40: The Cat Bore Returns

2007-10-03T23:40:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the delay between blog entries - I'll post properly tomorrow. In the meantime, have some pictures of the two kittens I'm fostering this week:

That's Joss on top and Wash under him. (And there's a sentence I never thought I'd write...)

They're hugely cute, as kittens always are, but have cat flu so they've been sneezing all over the place and generally being all poorly-like. They sleep a lot, too:

...although they're happy to pose for photos:

And they enjoy being cute, as this video of Wash proves:

And watching TV, as this video of Joss proves (I was cross-legged on the sofa and he was between my knees, in case this looks a bit strange):

And they're also happy to leap on the laps of passing visitors (in this case, SFX's Dave Golder):

And that's probably enough about kittens for today.

Day 29: Bring On The Puns

2007-09-22T19:56:00.001+01:00

Anyone who was reading my blog back in April 2006 may remember an epic punning competition I had with my best friend, Biddy, about pigs (scroll down the page and you’ll find it).

I love punning; it brings me joy and I have never been beaten. (Don’t let Biddy tell you different, either.) My greatest punning contests seem to have been about farm animals – pigs, horses, cows – but yesterday I embarked on one with SFX’s Nick Setchfield on the subject of hanging, of all things.

The origin of this particular pun competition is a little complicated to explain, so I’ll just throw you in at the very first pun and leave it at that. Rather interestingly, you’ll also spot that we each gave up at one point but the lure of the terrible pun was just too strong to resist...

So, without any further ado, I present to you:

PUNFEST 2007!

Jayne: You'd better not - ahem - stick your neck out.
Nick: "And here is the noose..."
Jayne: Now you're just stringing it out.
Nick: Well, give me enough rope...
Jayne: Bored now. I give up.
Nick: Sorry, just my gallows humour.
Jayne: You're swinging in the breeze now, mate.
Nick: That's not even a phrase, but I appreciate the breakneck speed of your reply.
Jayne: Oh, I don't hang around.
Nick: OK, I surrender.
Jayne: Give up? You must be choking.
Nick: I hope you're not making idle throats.
Jayne: I'm just jerking around.
Nick: Well, don't leave me dangling...
Jayne: No, I'm not going to drop it.
Nick: I would. They're increasingly ropey.
Jayne: Oh boy. Your terrible puns are leaving me breathless.
Nick: I'd say we're neck and neck.
Jayne: Yeah. Our punning is dead good.
Nick: Hang on...
Jayne: Cheater! I already used the word 'hang' in an earlier pun. You're disqualified! I'm the winner! Probably a good job, too, because I was on my last gasp.
Nick: Hey, I thought "dead good" was pushing it somewhat... it's a draw! Or knot.
Jayne: Sheesh. Let it go. I got the drop on you hours ago.
Nick: I'm not falling for that one.
Jayne: Come on, give it up. I have you in a stranglehold!
Nick: Come on, give it up. I have you in a stranglehold!
Nick: Snap!!
Jayne: This has been going on too long now. My brain is starting to asphyxiate.
Nick: Well, I'm at full throttle.
Jayne: There's noose-stopping me, either.
Nick: It's all in the execution.
Jayne: Your puns are getting (scaff)old now.
Nick: A definite shortfall in quality with that one.
Jayne: Yes. I'm starting to feel as if we're stuck in a loop.
Nick: That's a (ga)rotten one.
Jayne: True. You had to (neck)brace yourself for it.
Nick: OK. This is the police. Put down your puns. PUT DOWN YOUR PUNS!
Jayne: So I'm officially the winner? I WIN AT PUNNING! WOOHOO!
Nick: No, you're not the winner. I just couldn't go on beating you.
Jayne: I was about to say you were a worthy opponent, but I take that back. Who had the last pun, eh? Eh? Eh? It was me! I won by a neck!
Nick: Hm. The panel has deliberated and found that "by a neck" is suspiciously similar to "we're neck and neck." So Setchfield wins by default.
Jayne: Funny how whenever I've punned with women, they've always graciously given in. Funny how the first time I pun with a man, he refuses to concede defeat, despite the fact he was the first participant to re-use a pun AND the one who gave up in the end.
Nick: Damn those jungle instincts! Get back in the cave and make me some tea!
Jayne: ug ug ug* (*get knotted)
Nick: You win. *weeps* You win.

I am the reigning Pun Champion!

I thank you.

Day 29: ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

2007-09-22T09:56:00.000+01:00

Day 27: The Attenborough Years

2007-09-20T20:11:00.000+01:00

In answer to a couple of comments on my last entry...

Yes, I saw the Jonathan Ross documentary on Steve Ditko and I loved it, especially the sight of Jonathan and Neil Gaiman giggling like schoolkids outside Ditko's office at the end. Hilarious! They're both so famous themselves and, especially in Neil's case, have a huge following, and seeing them reduced to fanboy squealing ("He gave us comics!") was a joy. What a great programme.

And I'm still reeling from the thought of Jeffrey Dean Morgan possibly wearing a leather codpiece in Watchmen. It's been months and I am, as yet, unable to believe it'll really happen. If they change his costume I'm going to be seriously miffed...

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck in the house, currently cat-less (though I'm sure it won't be long now) and inundated with work. Today I wrote 2,000 words and have another 3,000 to write by Monday. It's marvellous to be busy, because not only am I (just about!) making up for not being able to get into an office to work, but I'm able to take my mind off being housebound. That said, I keep gazing wistfully out of my window at the planes heading to and from Heathrow Airport, and if I'm lucky enough to get fixed by Christmas - which isn't looking likely, but who knows - I'm bloody spending it in New York. I've never been and oh my god wouldn't it be the best way to celebrate my new freedom?

In fact, I'm going to go to Times Square and yell "Hello New York!" like Hiro in Heroes.

Yup. It's a date. Watch this space...

I also treated myself to the ENTIRE David Attenborough back catalogue on DVD, although I probably shouldn't have, but the call of the wild was too strong. Now I have every major show he's ever done, from Life On Earth to Planet Earth, and I'm expecting to know a rather impressive amount of random crap about animals very soon. Once I've watched them all, you can ask me anything. Go on! I'll know the answer! I've already watched the first episode of Life On Earth and I now know that there are no fossils at the bottom of the Grand Canyon (where the rocks are two thousand million years old) but there are on the shores of Lake Superior, where the rocks are the same age but are flinty, not sandstoney, and therefore hold the fossils better - and that the fossils in question are responsible for providing our planet with oxygen.

Ta-daaaaa!

Wonder what I'll learn in episode two?

Day 23: Same Old, Same Old

2007-09-16T12:26:00.000+01:00

I haven't been posting much recently, for obvious reasons: I'm stuck in the house and there's bugger-all going on.

I could write about my work (proofing, fact-checking, reviewing) or my reading (Watchmen rocked my world) or my TV-viewing (I'm not sure I'm going to watch season three of Prison Break, because after finishing season two I was starting to feel quite ill from all the tension). But, frankly, none of that's very interesting.

I could also write about the cats I've been fostering. This is the lovely Tux...

... who found a new home last night, although he hid when his new family came to pick him up. Can you spot him?

I won't write about him, though, because I'm becoming a cat bore.

Which leaves... well, nothing really. I can't even talk about the weather because I've not been outside to experience it. I think I should give up on this post and come back when I've got something to discuss.

So I will.

Day Fifteen: In Which The Cat Returns (not Mal, alas) And The Prisoners Run

2007-09-08T14:08:00.001+01:00

Still no word on my surgery; my doctor is chasing up the appointment like... um... a doctor chasing up an appointment. Go doctor!

In the meantime I'm still stuck indoors. Thankfully I'm not quite stir crazy yet, even after over two weeks. I did manage to escape to the cinema a few days ago using copious amounts of buses and benches along the way: even so, I was in severe pain on the way home. However, it was worth it because I'd missed the press screening of The Bourne Ultimatum a while back and was thinking I'd have to see it on DVD (which isn't quite the same).

And you know what? I may never recover from the sight of JASON BOURNE standing in WH Smiths at Waterloo Station. Or seeing MATT DAMON standing by the platform I've used for three years to get to and from work. It's like something fictional has become real, entering our world. Loved it! (Although a word to the wise: never eat a monster bag of Skittles while watching a film shot entirely on hand-held camera. Half the reason I felt so bad on the journey home involved my swirly tummy...)

The kittens were rehomed a week ago and saying goodbye wasn't half as bad as I expected. The family they went to were so lovely I was actually quite thrilled for them, although their new names - Wafer and Rat - gave me pause for thought. I do miss having them scampering about, though, and begged the animal rescue peeps for another cat, which they duly provided. Bizarrely, I only had the RIDICULOUSLY FAT Sox (renamed Hippo by me, after my legs went dead as she sat on my lap) for one night before the owner called me in floods of tears, desperate to get her back, and saying that her son would just have to live with his cat-aggravated asthma.

Cat owners are strange.

Anyway, I should have a new kitty soon. This fostering lark is a revolving door of feline fun!

Due to my being-stuck-in-the-house-ness, I have no other exciting news, other than a list of all the things I've watched on DVD since my forced imprisonment. So, for your entertainment, here it is:

1) Copious episodes of a show called The Collector (see my next SFX column for details).
2) A film named The Proposition starring Ray Winstone and Guy Pearce (utterly transfixing).
3) Danny Boyle's Sunshine (utterly beautiful, if a little disappointing towards the end).
4) Dreamgirls (utterly forgettable, apart from Jennifer Hudson's Oscar-winning performance - although that Oscar really should have gone to Adriana Barraza for Babel).
5) The first episode of Dexter (which I fear I shall become utterly addicted to).
6) The entire first series of The IT Crowd (for the second time) and its six hours of commentaries.
7) Very nearly the entire second season of Prison Break, which has been giving me hugely vivid dreams of being on the run and having the police on my tail (or even hordes of zombies – yeeuch). I don’t mind the dreams, though, because Dominic Purcell spends a considerable amount of season two looking sweaty with his shirt undone. If only my subconscious would conjure him up to keep me warm at night. He’d fight the zombies for me...

As though all this wasn't enough, I still have a phenomenal amount of stuff left to get through, including the rental DVDs being sent to me by Amazon (today’s arrival: Slither) and my two R1 box sets of Heroes season one and Supernatural season two. And did I mention all the reading? Everything from Watchmen (because I last read it ten years ago) to Neverwhere to Michael Palin’s diaries. I’ve got work to do, too - quite a lot of it, in fact.

I don’t really have time to be bored.

Right, I have seven episodes of Prison Break left before the new season begins. Better get cracking...

Day Eight: Are They Having A Laugh?

2007-09-01T10:24:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm not sure what Charing Cross Hospital are trying to tell me... but rather than sending me an appointment for spinal surgery, today I received an appointment for brain surgery.

Unless they intend to reach my poorly disc by running a scalpel down the inside of my spine from my brain... I think they fucked up.

Made me laugh though. I'm sure my doctor will sort them out on Monday!

I'm now on my eighth day of being confined to my house and am happy to say that it's not half as bad as I was expecting. I thought I'd be bored, miserable and depressed. Instead I've been hugely busy working from home - it looks like that will keep up, too, which is wonderful - and I've had loads of visitors. And then there have been these guys to contend with:

I know they'll be rehomed at some point, but until then it's like having my own clown circus bouncing around the house. (Nice clowns, though, not freaky homicidal clowns like the one from Stephen King's It.)

Last night I watched Top Gun for the very first time (yeah, I know) with kittens snuggled under my chin, purring, and occasionally pouncing on the planes on the TV screen like they were birds. Adorable. Far more adorable than the film, though. I don't get it - how come it made Tom Cruise a sex symbol? He's about as sexy as the contents of the kittens' litter tray!

The best bit was when The Cruiser jumped out of his plane at the end and the 6ft 4in Tim Robbins loomed up behind him and made him look about three feet tall. Ha! It took my breath away, it did.

Kitten Kaboodle

2007-08-26T10:22:00.000+01:00

Okay, well, things aren't so good right now. Until I get my spinal surgery (and my doctor is currently hurrying that along, bless him), I'm completely housebound. I can just about make it downstairs to the front door - handy when Tesco deliver my food - but venturing outside is far too painful. I've had to give up going to work; it's a good job I can work from home, eh?

I should be feeling quite sorry for myself, particularly as my sciatica is now starting to hurt when I sit down (my worst nightmare). However, the arrival of two 12-week-old kittens will do wonders for your mood...

I'm fostering them until they're homed, which I don't think will be long because kittens are in demand and these ones are simply adorable. Nobody could resist them! They're so much fun I can hardly believe it: chasing their tails, pouncing, scampering, purring, leaping around, eating my plants (ahem) and generally making life a million times better. Kittens - the best medicine!

And, because I'm a big kid, I've named them Dean and Sam. Their new owners will no doubt choose their own names, but they're Dean and Sam to me.

Gotta go. They're destroying my quilt...

Heroes Season Two Promo

2007-08-22T20:43:00.000+01:00

It's a thing of beauty...

(Oh, and excuse me for stating the bleedin' obvious, but don't watch it if you haven't seen all of season one yet. It's not spoilery, but there are certain characters in it who might ruin things for you...)

Bloody Bleedin' Hell!

2007-08-20T00:13:00.000+01:00

I just watched the final episode of Prison Break's first season.

I had fingernails an hour ago.

I don't any more.

Girls Will Be Girls...

2007-08-17T20:04:00.000+01:00

Earlier today at work, I walked up to my friend Denise's desk and waved a teabag at her.

"Hey Denise," I said. "Can I give you this pear and apple teabag in exchange for one of your cranberry, strawberry and peach ones?"

"Sure," said Denise. "Here you go."

It wasn't until I got back to my desk that it occurred to me just how frightfully girly that was.

I feel... dirty, somehow. Soon I'll be talking about shoes and shopping and makeup.

Right. Time to watch Prison Break. Seeing an innocent inmate getting his toes lopped off should bring me back down to earth with a bump. Phew!

Jayne Gets A Break (Or Two) At Last!

2007-08-14T21:34:00.001+01:00

I had a hospital appointment yesterday and, after eight months of excruciating pain, phsyiotherapy, weight loss, acupuncture, pilates exercise and a steroid injection in my back under general anaesthetic, I FINALLY had the joy of hearing my surgeon say, "Well, you can't go on like this, can you?"

Which means I'm going to have surgery! Woohoo!

He didn't seem to think it would take too long to get a date for it, although the words "too long" with the NHS could be anything from a week to three months. No idea. Should know very soon. However, I don't care, because there's a CURE and I'm GETTING IT and at some point I will be able to WALK AGAIN!

So I'm a bit happy at the moment. Who knew the offer of serious spinal surgery would bring me sunshine?

Due to my overwhelming being stuck-in-the-houseness I've been watching lots of DVDs. This week I finally got round to watching season one of Prison Break and I'm so addicted every spare minute is being eaten up by Wentworth Miller, Dominic "I starred in John Doe, you know" Purcell and their cohorts. I'm loving it so much I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. Possibly not one like Michael's, though... it might be a bit extreme:

Plus I think my boobs might ruin the artistic effect. Oh well.

Potter Puppet Pals

2007-08-11T12:41:00.000+01:00

Somebody emailed me this link last night and I laughed so much my glasses steamed up. Apparently 10 million people have already viewed it, so apologies if you've seen it already!

Oh, and turn your sound up...

Potter Puppet Pals In 'The Mysterious Ticking Noise'!

Ghosts, Albinos And Buttcracks

2007-08-06T19:52:00.001+01:00

I watched Ghost Rider over the weekend and loved it.

I feel slightly guilty for loving it, though, kind of like I feel when I think about how much I love The Scorpion King or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or (whisper it) seaQuest DSV (God, I can't believe I just admitted that in public). They're celebrations of stupidity, the lot of 'em; big piles of cheesy guff that aren't trying to be anything other than daft entertainment. There's not a malicious, cynical bone in Ghost Rider's body. It's exactly what you expect it to be: a movie in which Nicolas Cage rides a big flaming motorcycle with his head on fire. The cheese in his case is well and truly melted.

I also watched The Da Vinci Code, which I thought I'd hate, because I loathed the book so much I left it on a train in disgust after reading two chapters. (The description of one character, Silas, as a "hulking albino" will haunt my dreams forever as a prime example of terrible writing. Terrible in that it was written in all seriousness, unlike my other favourite example of terrible writing, seaQuest's glorious: "You must leave here! You're in imminent peril!", uttered as Commander Ford tries to clear people off an island about to be attacked by a giant lizard. Class!)

Anyway, back to the point: flashbacks and overblown soundtrack aside, I actually quite enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. It was a bloody good story, which explains why the book was such a hit in the first place; if you can excuse the awful prose, Dan Brown really knows how to spin a yarn. I did think Tom Hanks was hugely miscast, though, and I couldn't understand a word Audrey Tautou said, and I'm still reeling from the sight of Paul Bettany's buttocks. I'm glad I hadn't seen that film before I interviewed him last year because I wouldn't have been able to look him in the eye.

And speaking of buttocks: I saw Ray Winstone's botty cheeks on Friday, not to mention Angelina Jolie's, in glorious 3-D. I'm still not sure if they were real buttocks or not but they were part of the 20-minute preview of Beowulf Warner Bros kindly displayed to a room full of journos looking silly in coloured specs. What a strange 20 minutes they were, too... I'm really not sure what I thought of what we saw, possibly because it was out of context, so I need to see the rest of the film to figure it out. It certainly looked amazing, there was some brilliant phallic imagery (always a Brucie bonus) and there's a scene between Winstone's Beowulf and Jolie's monster that will stay with me for a while. But I'm still on the fence with this one, I think. Bring on the rest of the movie so I can make my mind up!

Beowulf is released in November, so if you want to check out Ray or Angie's bottoms for yourself, you've got a bit of a wait. Sorry and all that.

Plane Insane

2007-08-04T17:11:00.000+01:00

The sound of the builders hammering out an old window sent me scurrying out of my flat today to find a peaceful spot down by the Thames to read a book.

As you can see...

... Richmond Lock is beautiful, and it's a lovely day (not too hot, with a nice breeze), and before long I'd found a shady bench to sit upon and read and generally chill out. (Of course, the fact I was reading a collection of rather grumpy columns written by Warren Ellis is neither here nor there. I'm sure if it had been raining I'd have felt rather grumpy by osmosis, but not today.)

After an hour or so, an old gent with a dog sat himself beside me and, as you do, we started chatting. Which turned out to be quite tricky, what with his hearing aid and the sound of the planes barrelling over us at a rate of one per minute - and very low, too. He'd lived in Richmond all his life and said he was used to them; I've lived here for nearly five years (on and off) and I barely hear them any more, either. Except when speaking to old gents with hearing aids, it would seem.

"Remember Concorde?" I asked, wistfully. "How it used to fly over at 12pm and 6pm every single day, and how you'd have to stop everything you were doing while you waited for it to pass?"

"Oh, I miss Concorde," he replied, sounding genuinely sad. "She was a beauty. I remember for the Queen's Jubilee, we were having a street party, and she flew over at 9pm, all lit up... just exquisite, she was. I'll never forget her."

And you know what? For some reason, that broke my heart. I hadn't realised how much I missed that old bird until I saw the loss in his eyes. Unlike the millions of other, anonymous planes that criss-cross the skies above my hometown day after day as they leave or arrive at Heathrow, Concorde had a personality. She was a friend. Sure, she rattled your windows and scared the birds, but she was - as he said - a beauty.

I hope she flies again one day.

I'm back at home now and the builders have finished hammering out windows and are, no doubt, planning to start demolishing walls just as I go to bed. Wouldn't surprise me. It's a Saturday today and they started work at 6.45am. I would go downstairs to complain, but - as I discovered when I tried to ask them to keep their eyes out for my missing foster kitty - they speak fluent Polish and not much else. They were very friendly, though, if a little baffled as to why I was showing them a picture of a cat on my phone, pointing out of the window and pretending to cry...

Best Builders Ever?

2007-08-02T22:10:00.000+01:00

Yes, two posts in one day.
It's been a very long day.

Particularly for the builders who are currently refitting my downstairs neighbour's flat. They started work at

6.30am

and it is now

10.15pm

and they are STILL WORKING.

They've been doing this for TEN DAYS NOW.

Much as I appreciate their AMAZING WORK ETHIC,

I really WANT THEM TO STOP.

please? just stop banging and hammering and using your power tools... for an hour, at least? there are only two of you when the hell do you even eat your dinner?????

So long, and thanks for all the fish...

2007-08-02T09:12:00.000+01:00

So. I'm not stupid. I didn't leave windows open around my foster kitty in case he decided to return to the wild. Of course, I soon discovered that having a cat in an enclosed space can get a bit whiffy, particularly if they accidentally missed their litter tray one time (and felt really guilty about it afterwards, if you can read guilt into a cat's face).

So I did leave my lounge window open one inch last night (after ascertaining, using a scientific process, that Mal couldn't have squeezed through the gap in a million years because he had a very large head). Then I tied the window handle to my radiator, tested its strength and went to bed safe in the knowledge that, barring the cat untying the string, the window wouldn't open.

And guess what?

The cat untied the string.

Somehow.

I didn't see any opposable thumbs, but apparently they were there.

There was a 30ft drop outside the window, but a roof off to one side which he obviously managed to land on.

So.

I won't be seeing Thomas O'Malley, or his thumbs, ever again.

*sniff*

Give A Cat A Home

2007-08-01T08:53:00.001+01:00

Meet Thomas O'Malley:

He's my very first foster cat. At the moment he's watching TV in my lounge (I've never known a cat so fascinated by TV, mirrors, reflections and shadows) after finally figuring out how to use his litter tray after two days (you don't want to know).

O'Malley - who I'm obviously calling Mal in homage to the captain of the Serenity - is a tatty, manky, battered and torn puss who's lived rough for many months but loves humans. He obviously had a nice home and wandered off to find some ladeez, then couldn't find his way back. He turned up at my flat on only an hour's notice (the charity had nowhere else to put him) after being wormed, checked over by a vet, microchipped, de-flea'd and de-naughty-bitted (if you get my gist). It took him 24 hours to come out of his shell but he's a happy lad now.

And, if I say so myself, he looks much healthier than he did on Monday night. All the food probably helped.

Anyway, I've got him until he can find a loving home with a garden. If you know of anyone in the Twickenham area or somewhere nearby who would like him, let me know. He's too timid to handle children but he's good with other cats. And he's an absolute sweetheart!

Course, you may have to prise him out of my grip with a spatula first. I'm getting rather fond...

Moe Better Blues

2007-07-29T12:11:00.000+01:00

To try to get over the pain of knowing there will be no more Harry Potter (catches breath in shock, bites knuckles to keep the scream inside), I went to see one of my favourite comedians do stand-up on Thursday night at the comedy club that sits, rather handily, just over the road from my house.

I last went there two years ago to see Father Ted's Ardal O'Hanlon ("Why the hell are you all sitting in this boiling hot hall watching me, when you could be at home watching Big Brother in the nip?") and it's taken all that time for somebody else to come along I was interested in seeing. The culprit this time was Rich Hall, an American comic you've probably seen on Saturday Night Live (many years ago) or, more recently, Have I Got News For You and QI.

He's a cranky, cynical genius. I fell in love with him during an episode of QI when Stephen Fry asked him, in an accusatory tone, "Why do Americans drive on the right-hand side of the road?" and Rich answered, "Because we INVENTED THE FUCKING CAR."

Rich was also the inspiration for Moe the bartender from The Simpsons. I thought this was just rumour until I read Matt Groening confirming it in an interview - and, hell, just look at the evidence:

Moe the bartender

Rich Hall

It was great seeing Rich in the flesh at long last and the gig didn't disappoint - I even heckled him at one point ("Don't patronise me!" he cracked back, but he said it the Yank way - pay-tronise - and that got a laugh in itself).

So I've cheered up, although I still miss Harry (whimper). Hopefully my new feline companion will help me with that small problem. It looks as though I'll be fostering cats for my local animal rescue charity, so I'm fully expecting my wonderfully clean and tidy flat to be wrecked within a week. Stay tuned...

... Oh, and speaking of cats, I assume you've all read the news reports about the cat who seems to know when the residents of his care home are going to die, curling up next to them four hours before their final breath? Oscar's been nicknamed the "Kit of Death" and scientists are scrambling to explain his extra-sensory premonitory powers.

It didn't take long for Oscar to be lolcatified:

Should've seen it coming, really.

Happiness Is... Acquiring A Puss

2007-07-26T19:27:00.000+01:00

I've been in the depths of despair since finishing the very last Harry Potter book.

I've been so depressed, in fact, that the only thing I can think of doing to cheer myself up is to get a cat.

So I will.

Ah. That's better!

(Oh, alright, I haven't got it yet, but watch this space.)

It's Over!

2007-07-21T20:02:00.000+01:00

Finished the new Potter book in eight hours, only 40 minutes behind my best mate (we would've finished together if only I hadn't made a sandwich at one point - darn my hunger pangs!).

Now I can't say a word without spoiling it. Gah! But it's a bit good. And I cried quiiiite a bit. I'm not ashamed.

I'm babysitting my neighbour's cats this week. Spud's made herself at home:

She really doesn't care if Snape is evil or not.

All Hallow's Eve

2007-07-20T21:18:00.000+01:00

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows is released in less than 2 1/2 hours. I was going to nip out and buy it tomorrow but, hell, I can't wait, so I'm heading out to Waterstone's in Richmond at midnight to buy it. I'm not queuing for hours so that really, honestly, doesn't make me sad. Okay? Right. As long as you know that.

It occurred to me that I should make a list of my theories as to what will happen in this final tome, just so I can say "I told you so!" if I'm right. (Or, conversely, never mention it again if I'm wrong.) I already theorised here in September 2005 that Snape isn't really evil. Additionally, I'd like to add that I think Neville will die - after all, he's linked to the prophecy and Voldemort just as much as Harry is. And there's every chance Hagrid will bite the big one, too, just because it would be sad (to everyone else, maybe; I don't like him that much).

And I'd like to state for the record that if JK harms a hair on Fred or George Weasley's heads... well, there'll be trouble.

Finally: I won't really say "I told you so!" if I'm right, because some of you won't have read it yet. I won't spoil it. But once you have, and if I am, expect me to gloat... BIG TIME!

Two hours 25 minutes. Move faster, clock! Faster!

Listing A Bit

2007-07-17T20:56:00.000+01:00

I'm rather woozy on pain meds right now and felt like composing a list. Don't expect it to make sense because, as I said, "woozy".

Here goes...

All that is bad in my life right now (in no particular order):

1) My poorly back.
2) I have so much work to do I'm almost panicking.
3) My washing machine has broken.

All that is good in my life right now (in no particular order):

1) My poorly back is being tamed by painkillers.
2) I have so much work to do I can finally pay my bills.
3) My washing machine has broken but my wonderful landlord will replace it by the end of the week AND will take a whole heap of junk out to the tip for me when he removes my old washer - for free!
4) The noisy wasps living in my bedroom window frame have stopped being noisy and now I'm growing rather fond of them.
5) I have the first three Supernatural: Origins comics next to my bed to read in a minute.
6) The Official Supernatural Magazine has been announced and guess who's gonna be scribbling for it? *grins*
7) I saw the sequel to Russian vampire film Night Watch last night. Day Watch was ace!
8) My flat is super-tidy after I finally got round to cleaning out under the sink and my airing cupboard (where I found a sword, oddly enough).
9) This has been the best summer ever. Heat? What heat? Bring on the rain!
10) I got home from my screening last night and my neighbour's cat spent ten minutes yowling at me to rub her tummy before I could even get in the door. So I did.
11) The new Harry Potter book is ALMOST HERE!
12) Somehow, despite being unable to exercise for six months, I've managed to lose 8lbs. And it's stayed off!
13) I dreamt about Stan Lee the other night. I don't know why, but it put me in a good mood for two days.
14) I picked up a twig earlier today which had fallen from an oak tree complete with tiny little acorns. Then I used it ten minutes later to scoop an enormous stag beetle off the pavement and put it safely in a bush. Um, don't ask me why I told you that, but it seemed important at the time.
15) Crowded House's new album has finally clicked with me.
16) While we're on the subject of music, Regina Spektor's "Us" is pretty much the best song ever, isn't it?
17) The new issue of Top Gear Magazine had free fridge magnets so you can make your own "Wall Of Cool" on your fridge. I happened to have a spare Ford Gran Torino fridge magnet so now Starsky's car is in the "Sub-Zero" section. Wish I had a '67 Chevy Impala fridge magnet to join it, though.
18) I had an invite to the press screening of The Bourne Ultimatum - I'm so excited!
19) Those lolcats are still rocking my world over at icanhascheezburger.com. Latest piece of genius is this:

20) And I really should stop now because those comics are beckoning and I should read them before my painkillers put me under for good.

Mmm. Painkillers. Me likey...

Adventures In 3D

2007-07-14T12:26:00.000+01:00

For anyone who's interested, here's an update on my poorly back (and I should mention here that I've been quite humbled at how many people have wished me well, both on this blog, on MySpace and on Facebook, not to mention emailing me directly, so thank you all!): the injection worked a little. Just a wee bit. Enough to take the edge off the pain, but only when it feels like it, and I still get a horribly numb leg and am pretty much crippled. Even the addition of Very Strong Painkillers(TM) haven't helped too much - and they make me woozy and dizzy and quite tired, so bugger. I'm probably back to how I was two months ago, so I have improved, but it's not enough.

Next step: chat with the surgeon on 13 August. I will beg for surgery. Again. Until then, the painkillers mean I can just about go shopping (woohoo!) and my leg doesn't hurt so much when I'm in bed at night, so I'm thankful for small mercies.

End of update.

Last night I went to see Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix for the second time, only this time at the IMAX with the last 20 minutes in 3D. Incidentally, I had no idea the IMAX at Waterloo was the UK's largest screen until the manager told us all beforehand; he also babbled on about how the sound is the best sound you can ever get and I totally agree with him, it was awesome, but I do wish the film hadn't looked so blurry compared to how it looked on the screen at the Empire Leicester Square last time I saw it. I guess bigger isn't always better.

Anyway, the upshot was this: I've never found Voldemort scary. But in 3D? I nearly wet my pants. He's naaaaasty! The final showdown - which involves lots of flying glass - was stunning, and there's something unimaginably cool about watching Harry Potter flying out of the screen on his broomstick. I'm still disappointed that we're in the 21st century and nobody's invented holographic movies (come on Lucas! Come on Cameron! You're the most likely candidates), but until then 3D will do nicely.

The final Potter novel comes out next week. With the last book, I had to read it in one day so I could write the review for SFX. This time I'm not reviewing it for anybody so I can take my time. Although I have a sneaking suspicion I'm gonna read it in one day regardless... who's with me?

What Goes Around, Comes Around

2007-07-11T13:21:00.000+01:00

Just to add to my last entry:

As I said, I now live in the same street I lived in when I was at university back at the start of the '90s.

I seemed to spend a startling amount of time in those days writing essays about how 1956's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was actually a metaphor for the communist threat to America in the age of McCarthyism and HUAC.

Now it's 2007, 15 years later...

...and I'm writing a feature about how 1956's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was actually a metaphor for the communist threat to America in the age of McCarthyism and HUAC.

Except this time I'm getting paid for it. And I'm not typing it out on a rickety old typewriter with a bottle of Tipp-Ex at my side.

I guess you could say I took exactly the right university course for my career. Funny how life works out!

Now, if only I could convince my old American Studies professor that the Klingons in Star Trek were the bloody Russians and not the Chinese, as he tried to teach us in one lecture, I'd be happy. (I mean, come on. Who were the Romulans if they weren't Chinese? Sheesh.)

The Secret Garden

2007-07-09T16:36:00.001+01:00

Back in 1992, when I was at university, there was an innocuous door in an anonymous wall on the road outside my campus.

I had a sneaking suspicion that, behind it, all was not what it seemed.

Occasional glimpses of what looked like a tomb could be spied over the top of the wall, and the door was always locked - although curious snatches of exotic architecture teased me whenever I pressed my eye to the keyhole. It was a mystery that was only answered years later when I found myself watching Lucinda Lambton's One Foot In The Past on BBC2 and saw her enthusing about the "Kilmorey Mausoleum" - an enormous Egyptian tomb, right in the heart of a busy London suburb, hidden away and left to rot.

I left college, moved away and forgot about the secret tomb... until now. These days I live in the same street (hey, if you like a place once, you might as well go back!) and just last week I spotted a sign on the mysterious door announcing it was unlocked between 12-2pm every Monday. It was too good a chance to pass up. Today I finally went through the door.

This is what I saw:

Beautiful, isn't it? It's much larger than it looks in these pictures: probably 10-12ft high. It's made from gorgeous pink marble and was designed by the architect HE Kendall, who was also responsible for sections of Knebworth House. Although it looks Masonic, it really isn't: the design came from the illustrations Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned when he visited Egypt.

I didn't know this until later, of course. As I was wandering around, taking in the carvings and the strange peace and quiet of the wild garden sealed off from the main road, I realised I wasn't alone. There was a lady sitting on a bench in one corner who turned out to be the gardener, Claire, and I know this because I ended up sitting with her for an hour, drinking lemon and ginger tea and discussing how the Earl of Kilmorey built the tomb in 1850 for his mistress, Priscilla, and how apparently there are secret tunnels leading to and from the mausoleum which have been lost over the years. Then we started talking about the garden, which has been seeded with flowers from ancient meadows, and when I told her I had a wasp's nest outside my bedroom window she pulled out a book and tried very hard to identify exactly which species they were for me.

(At which point I should note that I'm happy to have the wasps living with me because hey, they need to live somewhere, but I do wish they didn't make such eerie tapping noises in the wall all through the night.)

At one point four suited-and-tied businessmen stumbled through the door into the secret garden and stared at the mausoleum in awe before coming over to speak to us.

"I was just telling these guys there was an Egyptian tomb here and they didn't believe me," said one. "I couldn't believe it when we walked past and the door was open! I used to climb over the wall and play here when I was a kid..."

I get the feeling Claire hears that a lot. She was full of stories about the tomb and its inhabitants, not to mention her hopes for the future, because after years of neglect the mausoleum is being renovated. It's an absolute joy: a stunning example of a Victorian folly in a place you'd never suspect. When I finally left, Claire told me to make sure I shut the door behind me so that the fox cubs living in the garden wouldn't get out onto the road; when I did so, it was like shutting the door on the past.

It's a bona fide secret garden. It's open for two hours a week. It's the resting place of the Earl of Kilmorey and his mistress and it's the perfect spot to drink lemon and ginger tea with a complete stranger and talk about flowers. I think I may go there again someday.

PROOF THAT SOME PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER BE PARENTS

2007-07-07T19:48:00.000+01:00

The Evidence:

1) One railway bridge.
2) Two little boys.
3) One too-dumb-to-live mother.
4) One large kite being flown off the bridge by aforementioned little boys.

Possible Sequence Of Events That Everybody Except The Too-Dumb-To-Live Mother Could Plainly See Happening:

1) The kite could fall on the tracks and the kids wouldn't be able to get it back.
2) The kids and their too-dumb-to-live mother could be told off in no uncertain terms by a British Rail employee.
3) The kite could touch the live tracks and FUCKING ELECTROCUTE TO DEATH one or both of the boys.
4) The kite could hit the windscreen of a passing train and cause a FUCKING DEADLY CRASH as the driver brakes in alarm.

The Actual End Result:

1) Passing stranger (ie myself) politely explaining to too-dumb-to-live mother that her little boys could lose their kite or, failing that, DIE HORRIBLY unless they stopped dangling the kite off said railway bridge.

2) Too-dumb-to-live mother goes terribly pale, screams at her kids to get off the bridge and leaves, shaking, thanking passing stranger (ie myself) profusely.

3) Passing stranger (ie myself) fights desperate urge to follow too-dumb-to-live mother home in order to give her a bloody good kicking for being too fucking dumb to live.

Am I overreacting? I'm not, am I?
Kite + railway bridge + not much wind to keep it in the air + passing trains + small children = HIDEOUS DISASTER, right?

Then why couldn't she see it?

Darwinism in action, folks.

lolcats: The Best Medicine

2007-07-06T22:19:00.000+01:00

I just laughed so much at these I think I tore something:

The final one's my fave. God, did I laugh!

I think lolcat pics should be prescribed by doctors to alleviate pain (because heaven knows, the pills I'm on aren't bloody working!). They're just the best... things... evah!

There. Is. No. Spoon.

2007-07-04T14:30:00.000+01:00

Alan Johnston was released! Yaaaaay!

I think we're all a bit happy now.

Okay, so: I went into hospital yesterday. It was surprisingly untraumatic - I even enjoyed a lot of it, which was about as unexpected as, uh, Alan Johnston being released today, I guess. I didn't sleep a wink the night before (apart from ten minutes just before my alarm went off at 5am, during which I was convinced that Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter was poking me on my Facebook account), but the reason I didn't sleep had less to do with nerves - of which I had none - and more to do with the fact I was in pain. So I ended up at the hospital at 7am bloody relieved to finally be doing something about it after six months.

The staff were wonderful, really friendly and chatty; it was one nurse's birthday and I spent the whole morning begging her for cake, even though I wasn't allowed to eat anything. I was asked about 20 times if I'd ever had a heart attack or if I had fillings in my teeth or if I was allergic to anything - my response to the latter earning me a bright red wristband with the word PENICILLIN written on it in enormous letters. When I told the anaesthetist I was allergic to penicillin he asked me what happens when I take it.

"I die, apparently," I replied. "My doctor told me years ago."

"Okay," said the anaesthetist, writing on his clipboard.

"I don't even eat mouldy bread," I continued. "I'm not taking any chances."

"Right," said the anaesthetist, still writing on his clipboard, and then he looked at me like I was mad, realised I was joking and laughed like a drain. I'm glad I amused him because ten minutes later my life was in his hands.

I'm still rather surprised that being wheeled into an operating room for a general anaesthetic and a bloody great injection in the nerve at the base of my spine wasn't scary in the slightest - my beeping heart monitor didn't even speed up. I was just intrigued by the whole thing and kept asking questions, much to everybody's amusement. For the record, here's the conversation I had as they prepared to knock me out:

Me: "I can't believe you're playing Neil Diamond in here. Could we not have had some Led Zeppelin?"
Matron: "We were thinking about Def Leppard but thought it might upset the surgeon."
Male student nurse: "Well, here's the needle I'm about to put in your hand."
Me: "It's not very big, is it?"
Male student nurse: "No, it's just a wee little one."
Me: "All the men say that to me."
[Shocked silence. Then laughter.]
Anaesthetist: "We've got a right one here."
Male student nurse: [After slapping my hand to find a vein for a minute or so] "Um, I've got a problem..."
Me: "Are you trying in vein?"
Anaesthetist: "Please let's put her under soon."
Male student nurse: [After injecting me and cocking it up, so the anaesthetist had to pull out the needle and put one in my other hand] "Sorry about that."
Me: "That's alright. You're already torturing me with Neil Diamond, so the needle means nothing."
Anaesthetist: "Okay, I'm giving you the anaesthetic now."
Me: "I'm not doing that 'counting backwards from ten' rubbish, you know."
Anaesthetist: "Alright. What do you want to say instead?"
Me: "See you later, guys! Wheeeeeeee..." [Snores]

You know, thinking about it, I'm amazed they didn't give me an overdose.

Long story short: I woke up 35 minutes later absolutely fine; ten minutes after that I was sitting upright in bed back in the Day Ward, reading a book, asking for coffee, complaining they only had digestive biscuits and not chocolate digestive biscuits and demanding the nurses move the cabinet on the right hand side of my bed round to the left because I'm left-handed and I was being prejudiced against. Just after that, the birthday nurse gave me a biggest slice of chocolate cake I've ever seen and told me to shut up. I was quite happy.

Funny thing is, every single person in the Day Ward was poorly after their anaesthetics. The woman next to me was sick and all the others either slept for an hour after their procedures or were completely out of it. One guy even spent ten minutes waving his arms around like he was fighting off a swarm of bats. I didn't feel woozy at all, certainly didn't feel sick (even after an obscene amount of chocolate cake) and was up and out of bed so soon the nurses all gave me funny looks. I think I've found my superpower after 35 years: I am immune to the after-effects of general anaesthetics. That'll come in handy in everyday life - couldn't I have had super sex-appeal or something?

Twenty-four hours later, the injection in my back doesn't hurt at all, but I still have sciatica. The doctor told me it could take a few weeks for my nerve to realise it's not been aggravated any more, and until then I could have "ghost pain" while it carries on behaving the way it's behaved for the last six months. Thus, I went for a walk earlier and every time it hurt - which it did a lot, dammit - I mentally told myself, "There is no pain. There is no pain." After a while that became a Matrix-inspired "There is no spoon. There is no spoon." That's my new catchphrase now.

Back to work tomorrow. If you see anyone on the Bakerloo Line looking pained and mumbling, "There is no cotton-picking, god-damned, sonofabitch, mother-humping spoon!"... You'll know why.

Ouch...

2007-07-02T22:10:00.000+01:00

Went to see the surgeon today to discuss my poorly back - and he says that apparently I can't have surgery because it's too risky and could make things worse.

So, in lieu of surgery, I'm going under general anaesthetic tomorrow morning and they're sticking a whopping big needle in my spine to try to reduce the inflammation around my disc.

Firstly: ouch.

Secondly: an appointment for the very next day ten minutes after seeing the consultant? That's what I call service!

If the injection doesn't work, I'm screwed. If it does, I'm gonna be as happy as this bunny here:

The Idiots Are Back

2007-07-01T20:47:00.000+01:00

This was Piccadilly Circus at 6.15pm on Friday night:

Deserted. Looks like something out of 28 Days Later, doesn't it?

This is the view down the Haymarket:

Tiger Tiger, the bar the car bomb was placed in front of, is just behind the lamp post. I really like Tiger Tiger. I love the Haymarket. I can't believe anybody would want to blow up two cars and kill possibly hundreds of innocent people. Bastards.

And this one speaks for itself:

London's full of policemen and police tape right now. But, as ever, us Londoners go on with our lives: I went to a screening of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix just after I took these pictures in a cinema barely 100ft away. What else can you do?

On the way home afterwards I stopped to watch a film crew in Leicester Square. "This is very centre of London's nightlife," said the reporter, indicating the dozens of people standing around and watching him talk to the camera. "Last night, even at 1.30am, it would have been packed with potential victims."

A moment later a policeman wandered up and asked loudly, "Have you got a permit to film here, sir?" I can only hope it wasn't a live broadcast.

Oh, and a friend of mine was actually in the Haymarket at precisely 1.30am the night the cars were discovered. "It's funny," he said the next day, "all I could think when I found out about the bombs was that a Burger King would have been a really shitty last meal..."

The Haunting

2007-06-28T13:49:00.000+01:00

I was lying in bed last night and I heard someone snoring.

Not, you might think, anything unusual. Except that I live alone. And my neighbours don't sleep anywhere within earshot.

Alright, so I do watch a lot of Supernatural, and I had just listened to the podcast for the Doctor Who episode "Blink" before going to bed (which, as you may recall, gave me nightmares when I saw it a few weeks ago). But I absolutely didn't imagine it: it was real, genuine snoring, emanating from the bottom of my bed, and there was nothing in the room that could've made that noise AT ALL.

I think it's fair to say I was a bit freaked out.

But seriously - what kind of ghost SNORES?

(And I just know some smartass is gonna say "One with a sinus problem" now.)

Free Alan Johnston

2007-06-25T07:30:00.000+01:00

I've just seen Alan Johnston's latest video on the news. The poor guy had explosives strapped around his waist and was reading out a speech written for him by his captors. Creepily, he delivered the words as though presenting a news report for the BBC: calm and unhurried, with only the tiniest edge of fear in his voice.

Possibly the most moving thing I've seen in a while. Hurry up and come home, Alan.

The London Philharmonic vs Saturday Night Fever

2007-06-23T15:03:00.000+01:00

I'm supposed to be making good use of my free ticket to the Hyde Park Calling festival this afternoon and watching Crowded House live. Sadly, I'm not there. I've said it before and I'll say it again: having a bad back sucks. It sucks at the best of times, but having my most painful day in nearly two years on the very same day I'm supposed to be watching my favourite band sucks so hard it, uh, blows. (Which is an expression I've never really understood, but it does seem to sum up the feeling.)

Instead I'm watching re-runs of Dark Angel on Sci Fi and marvelling at how young Jensen Ackles looks, how funny Joshua is and how JC MacKenzie's Normal is the best thing about the whole series ("Bip bip bip!"). I'm also paying tribute to Crowded House by drinking a can of the Kiwi drink L&P after it was recommended to me by my friend Jeff the other night - which reminds me, funny story:

Jeff, who I hadn't seen in nearly three years, is the kind of guy you can always rely on to spin a good yarn. He's also an old friend of Peter Jackson's, which means he's full of amusing, Rings- or Kong-related stories. Annoyingly, I can't repeat many of them here, but he did tell me one that made me chuckle...

Apparently Jeff met up with Peter when the London Philharmonic Orchestra were recording the soundtrack for The Return Of The King at Watford Town Hall. (Yes, Watford Town Hall. That's the glamorous location used to lay down the music that went on to win an Oscar. Go figure.) Anyway, they were just getting into the swing of things that evening when suddenly everybody started packing up. Puzzled - because it wasn't really that late, and the musicians had been on a roll - Jeff asked someone why they were leaving.

"It's because we've got to be out of here by 10pm," said the guy.

"Really?" replied Jeff, surprised. "Why's that, then?"

"Because there's a disco on at 11pm."

So that's the London Philharmonic, recording an Oscar-winning score on what was to become THE SECOND-BIGGEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME, kicked out of their studio by a town hall disco.

There's something so ridiculously British about that...

No words required

2007-06-20T22:52:00.000+01:00

All Sorts Of Bobbins (And An Explanation For A Moving Column)

2007-06-19T20:10:00.000+01:00

So I finally got my MRI scan results today and discovered that, as suspected, one of the discs in my back is bulging and pressing on the main nerve running down my left leg, hence the excruciating pain every time I stand up. I'm seeing a consultant at the start of July (after my physiotherapist managed to get my appointment brought forward by six weeks - I jumped an NHS waiting list! Result!) and I should know then whether I need surgery or not. But it's looking about 99% certain, because there's no way this will fix itself, and it sounds like it's fairly major surgery, too.

So, that wasn't really good news. Except at least they can fix it, so I'm pleased about that.

Then, in one of those weird cases of brilliant timing, just after the hospital called me (and I was feeling a little down, understandably), I had another phone call from an old friend who just so happened to have a spare ticket to see Crowded House at the Hyde Park Calling Festival this weekend. So now I'm seeing my favourite band play their first big UK gig in over a decade completely free, which I guess is the universe's way of saying sorry about my back.

(Of course, being that the universe can be kinda twisted and cruel even when it's throwing me a bone, my bad back will probably make the concert rather painful, seeing as there won't be any seats helpfully sprinkled on the grass in Hyde Park. I'll risk it, though. It's Crowded House, fortheloveofmike! Wheeee!)

Onto other things...

Some people have been wondering why my column in SFX magazine has shifted into Spoiler Zone. I have to say that I don't mind the move - although I do miss Andy Watt's illustrations - and it does give me carte blanche to reveal spoilers in the sealed section that might annoy people who stumble across them on an ordinary page. (I'd also like to point out that my first column - the Laundry List one - was written before I knew about the change, hence it not being spoilery or referencing the move in any way.) My columns will also be exactly the same length, so nothing's been lost there.

I asked Dave Bradley (SFX's Editor And All-Round Nice Guy Who Drinks Far Too Much Coffee) to summarise why he made the move, and here's what he told me...

1) You can be spoilery.
2) You love TV, we love it when you write about TV, your commentary on TV episodes is always perceptive and entertaining: it makes sense to have you closer to the TV coverage in the magazine.
3) Readers requested more insight, personality and analysis in Spoiler Zone - you're part of our grand plan for providing that.
4) We're redesigning bits of the magazine - nothing major, some spit and polish - and we want to move things around to see how they work, to try and break out of some habits, make the best use of space, direct people to contribute in new ways. Moving Nelson's Column further forward in the magazine, and contextualising it a little, is part of that. We're considering moving Langford's Column closer to the books section too. We welcome feedback from readers about it, and if it proves to be unpopular, we'll move it somewhere else - simple as.

So there you go. I have to say, I'm amused to find myself part of a "grand plan". I keep wondering if I should find a way to secretly get the words "Bad Wolf" into every column from now onwards.*

And finally: thank you to everybody who shared a cat anecdote with me this week after I posted a piece about the lovely Spud. I feel I should point out that I'm currently covering for a magazine Production Editor who should be on his honeymoon right now... except that his cat bit through his new wife's hand the night before they were due to leave and she ended up needing surgery on her knuckle. No honeymoon. Lots of pain. One disgraced pet.

Which proves that cats, much as we love 'em, can be right little bastards.

*Geeky Doctor Who reference, for the few non-SF readers out there.

Talkin' To The Animals

2007-06-16T12:49:00.001+01:00

See the fluffy kitty sitting on the wall in this picture? Her name is Spud. She belongs to my neighbour and she's lovely. (She's also the spitting image of a cat I had named Fred while growing up, which means every time I see her I feel a bit sad.) Anyway, I just leaned out of my living room window and spent ten minutes having a conversation with Spud. It went something like this:

Me: "Hey, Spud!"

Spud: "Meoow!"

Me: "Watcha doin'?"

Spud: "Meeeow."

Me: "Why are you sitting in the rain, puss?"

Spud: "Meeewow."

Me: "Are you bored?"

Spud: "Meeeow!"

You get the gist. Every time I spoke, Spud replied. It was hilarious. She even jumped up on the wall so she was nearer to my window. I bloody LOVE cats, I do.

Now it's thundering and Spud is nowhere to be seen. I wonder if she's talking to the thunderclaps?

Exorcism Through iTunes

2007-06-14T23:48:00.000+01:00

I've spent the last two days working on Metal Hammer magazine and loving it. The team were great and the stuff they write is so out of the realm of my experience that every word's a surprise. I mean, who knew there was a band out there called Rotting Christ?

Whole new world, I'm tellin' ya.

Of course, two days spent listening to thrash metal does leave you yearning for something a little less, well, otherworldly. So tonight, determined to redress the balance, I spent two hours browsing iTunes and downloading a ridiculous amount of music from my childhood to remove the thrashy ringing from my ears.

I really do have the worst taste in music. For every act I'm proud to like (Goldfrapp, The Doors, Crowded House) there are ten I can't believe live on my iPod. The latest unfashionable rascals to join the rabble included Jean-Michel Jarre, Adam & The Ants, Kenny Rogers and Starship ("We Built This City" is an underrated classic).

And who knew that David Essex sang "Together In Electric Dreams"?

...Like I said, the worst taste.

Damn You, Who!

2007-06-11T07:20:00.000+01:00

I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who yesterday. Consequently I slept for about 45 minutes last night because every time I closed my eyes I thought, "Uh-oh... STATUES!"

What am I, twelve?

I can only imagine what the kids of Britain are going to be like this week. There'll be about four hours of sleep between them...

The Spirit Of The Stairs

2007-06-10T19:45:00.000+01:00

Last night I had a fun evening out with Mark Millar (Marvel comics scribbler extraordinaire), an assemblage of his slightly tipsy friends and my mate Jon, currently News Editor on Men's Health magazine (who gets more muscly every time I see him - can't think why). It was raucous and geeky and hugely entertaining, even if I had to leave early to catch a train which turned out to be filled with a huge number of Australians chugging from bottles of wine.

I was rather unsettled by something that happened before I left, though. I popped to the bathroom just as two girls walked into the toilet mid-conversation and, without seeing me, disappeared into cubicles. Then I heard one of them complain loudly:

"I fucking hate journalists. I really fucking hate them. They're fucking scum. God, I hate them."

And, being a journalist, I was actually quite offended.

You know that thing that happens when somebody says something, you can't think of a reply and then an hour later what you should have said finally hits you? I believe it's known as "The Spirit Of The Stairs" - in that your perfect response comes to you as you're walking away. Something witty and urbane, profound and not a little soulful, something to make the person who's just spoken feel as though you are the most wonderfully verbose person they'll ever encounter.

The Spirit Of The Stairs caught up with me when I was on the train surrounded by drunken Aussies. What I should have done was march into the girl's cubicle, look the journo-hating girl right in the eye and say,

"Hey! We're not all scum, you know."

Or, er, something like that.

Yeah, well. Maybe I'm not as wonderfully verbose as I think I am.

As it was, I simply ran away.

Stardust And A Sarcophagus

2007-06-06T21:42:00.002+01:00

So on Monday I did two interesting things:

In the afternoon I had an MRI scan on my lower back, which involved me squeezing into a long metal tube and listening to The Four Tops on West Middlesex Hospital's headphones while the machine clanged and twanged and wobbled around me for 15 minutes. It was kind of like being inside a machine gun (for the first half of the scan) and a large guitar while somebody played bad Russian folk music (for the second half of the scan). I also made the MRI technician scratch his head in surprise when I pointed out the large mural of the Egyptian pyramids on the wall and asked, "Is that there because the MRI machine looks a bit like a sarcophagus?" To which he replied, "Huh. I've never thought of that before."

I guess you don't need much of an imagination to be an MRI technician.

In the morning I was lucky enough to interview Neil Gaiman in a swanky room in a swanky hotel in a rather swanky part of London. There was no clanging or twanging or pictures of the pyramids; instead there was a large poster of Stardust propped on the mantelpiece, a nice cup of tea and some interesting conversation. Conversation which began like this:

Neil: "Hey, Jayne. So, I read on your blog that you saw Stardust but couldn't say what you thought because you signed an embargo form."

Me: "Uh... you read my blog?"

Neil: "Doesn't everyone?"

Me: *gapes like a goldfish*

Alright, so I'm sure Neil Gaiman doesn't really read this blog. He probably stumbled across it once while looking for people's reactions to Stardust. And it's not as though I've got anything to say that a man who scores nearly two million hits on Google would want to read. Also, as I pointed out to him, my blog usually consists of me wibbling on about sexy men and not much else.

(Which reminds me: I told him I'd call him a sexy man so he wouldn't feel left out. So, um, consider yourself sexy, Mr Gaiman. And I don't care what The Guardian has to say about your beard: it most certainly is NOT "disreputable". That article seemed really prissy to me, anyway...)

Another thing that came out of the interview was that I finally got official permission from the film company to talk about Stardust. Which means that at last I can say:

It's wonderful.

It's fun. It's silly. It's passionate. It's beautiful. It's full of derring-do and even a little derring-don't. It's brimming with sparkling performances, including a break-out turn from Charlie Cox as the film's hero (girls, get ready to drool), a hilarious cameo from Robert De Niro and a chance for Michelle Pfeiffer to eat the scenery in a way the actress has never, ever done before.

Stardust is everything The Princess Bride was back in its day: a heartwarming fairy tale for boys and girls to fall in love with. It'll come out in Britain in October - please go and see it. It's genuinely lovely!

And that, with the exception of an amusing story about a ferret, is pretty much everything that happened to me on Monday.

Weekend Of The Living Dead

2007-06-03T19:25:00.000+01:00

It's like clockwork. Every time my friends Anny and Matt drive all the way from Bath to visit me in London, our time together is spoiled because one (or more) of us is unwell. This weekend was no exception, for they were both sporting the kind of colds that have you wanting to sterilise door handles after they've touched them in the fear that you'll pick up the snuffles yourself. I've never seen so many tissues die in the line of duty, or heard such loud nose-blowing noises coming from my bathroom (Matt is a champion at nostril-honkage).

Meanwhile, our trip to Richmond Park today for a picnic was lovely but ever-so-slightly hampered by the fact that I could only walk a hundred yards without having to sit down and recover from my sciatica, which chose this weekend to remind me exactly why I'm going to the trouble of having an MRI scan tomorrow. When you're actually relieved to be stuck in a traffic jam because it means you can sit down for a few more minutes, you know you're in trouble.

So between us we could have had a sucky weekend; it's rather amazing that we still managed to have fun. Particularly while watching last night's Doctor Who, which was unashamedly lumpy-throaty and also one of the most wonderfully-cast episodes of any show I've ever seen.

Funnily enough, there was a bit of nostril-honkage from me after it finished. I must have a cold coming on...

IT'S OFFICIAL: I Am The Saddest Saddo In Sadsville.

2007-06-01T18:20:00.000+01:00

I blame my Aunty Mary.

It's all her bloody fault.

When I was a kid - a wee, corruptible, EASY TO INFLUENCE kid - my Aunty Mary lent me an album which, I've come to realise, is to blame for the fact that I have absolutely no musical street cred whatsoever. I may be 35, but the legacy of that unfortunate album lingers on.

Yes. Thanks to my Aunty Mary, there are now 20 Barry Manilow songs on my iPod.

Alright, so maybe Take That made him a little bit cool when they released "Could It Be Magic". And hopefully most people reading this already know that David Boreanaz's Angel loved a bit of Barry during karaoke night. But he's still BARRY MANILOW, and he's still really sad, and I can't believe I'm a fan. Not a big, must-have-every-album fan... just enough of a fan to know all his classics off by heart. Which is bad enough.

Then again, poor Barry does get a lot of stick when he's actually quite a cool guy. Somewhere in my possession is a creaky old cassette tape containing one of his live shows, during which he tells the crowd, "How y'all doin' up there at the back? You're all so far away - I must look like a little singing, dancing nose!"

When I added the Manilow songs to my iPod I sent my Aunty Mary an accusatory text message.

"I still love him!" she replied. "Although his face has gone a bit funny nowadays."

I have to say, she's got a point...

... but I still love him. He writes the songs, you see.

Death By Chocolate

2007-05-29T18:43:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to share an email I received this morning from my friend Andy Watt:

"i'm watching one of those awful greedy c**t property developer, homes under the hammer shows, theres a couple that have just bought an old unused chapel, no garden, but it does have a massive graveyard outside the front door. the woman described it as "really
chocolate box"

what fucking chocolates does she eat?!!

and all because the lady loves.................corpses."

Face Off

2007-05-28T15:00:00.000+01:00

Good lord. I've been a member of Facebook for about three weeks now and I swear it's the online equivalent of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I can't BELIEVE how many people have signed up/friended/messaged/poked me in the last week. (NB: when I say "poked", it's not rude - just a Facebook function.) It's as though Facebook is spreading around the world so quickly that the speed is making the planet spin just a little faster on its axis.

It's actually making me a little nervous. I'm hoping the glamour wears off after a while and we all go out and get some fresh air. Until then, I've just joined a group who love kakapo and am now a member of the Hiro Nakamura Appreciation Society. And I'm happy to read everything my friends are posting because there's no such thing as privacy on Facebook - it's out there for the world to see.

Damn, it's compulsive.

You'll soon be one of us.

I always wanted to travel the world...

2007-05-25T13:51:00.000+01:00

I just appeared on over 282 million television sets.

Alright, so perhaps not all of them were turned on. And many were sitting in hotel rooms in far-flung corners of the globe, probably being ignored by travellers more interested in buying pay-per-view porn.

But still... 282 million. That's pretty impressive, isn't it?

It was all thanks to the BBC World Service, who interviewed me about the 30th anniversary of Star Wars earlier today and then broadcast the result across the planet. They sent a swish taxi to pick me up from the office where I'm working at the moment (on a Top Sekrit project, dontchaknow) to take me to BBC TV Centre - and did you know that there's almost always a little crowd by the gatehouse who peer into the cars and pray that you're someone famous? I felt like such a fraud as a gang of hopeful teenagers tried to suss out if they knew me or not...

I've been to BBC TV Centre a few times now, but it actually felt a little sad this time round thanks to the proliferation of banners and posters voicing support for kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston:

The reception area was covered in posters and the corridors leading to the BBC World studios were hung with his image. It's like the whole building - no, the entire corporation - is holding its breath, waiting for news. Between him and Madeleine McCann, there are a lot of people hoping right now. It's a glum old world.

Glum was certainly the word for the two fellow guests I shared the green room with before the show: one was an American journalist who talked about the Iraq war, the other a doctor roped in to explain Parkinson's disease. We discussed how President Bush would probably veto any bill passed in Congress against war funding and how coroners were too scared to ask bereaved families for permission to harvest their loved ones for tissue to be used in medical research. I have to say, following the guys on screen after such doom and gloom to talk about light'n'fluffy Star Wars was a bit of a challenge, but the interview went really well.

Bloody good job, too. 282 million screens. Holy mackerel! I'm so glad I was having a good hair day. And didn't have spots. And didn't look fat. Well, it had to happen sooner or later, and I'm pleased it happened when I went global. There is a God! Or at least an Archangel For Television Appearances.

The weirdest thing was that the BBC receptionist was wearing shorts, and when he stepped out from behind the desk he was barefoot. Auntie Beeb has apparently relaxed her dress code of late...

A Word From Joss Whedon

2007-05-24T17:21:00.000+01:00

Everybody should read this. And everybody needs to look at the sky.

Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death

Things to say "hello" to...

2007-05-21T11:46:00.000+01:00

My friend Natalie had a beautiful baby girl a few days ago. My friend Liz had a baby boy. Young Sureyya and young Freddie are no doubt destined to grow up and fall in love. Fate has decreed it so!

Congratulations to both families - and may your new offspring live long and happy lives!

Not quite as momentous, true, but I have new baby too: a shiny iPod. After years remaining loyal to my faithful Sony Walkman (won in an SFX quiz many years ago), I wandered by the iPod store in Regent Street and pondered whether I should indulge myself - only to discover the very next morning that my Walkman had given up the ghost. I honestly think my traitorous thoughts broke its heart. Still, now I have 550 songs (and counting) in my pocket, am downloading stupid amounts from iTunes and had the joy of watching the Vodcast of Have I Got News For You on the train to work this morning. Gave me the warm fuzzies, it did!

The only downside is that the screen merrily displays whatever I'm listening to, and I'm convinced my fellow commuters are judging me for liking Ricky Martin. Bugger.

Because you can never have enough pictures of Nathan Fillion...

2007-05-19T18:25:00.001+01:00

Okay, sorry to bore anyone out there who really doesn't care about Nathan Fillion, but I wanted to share this picture of myself and Dave Bradley - editor of SFX magazine - shamelessly gatecrashing my friend Mandeep's photo with him:

And... that's quite enough of The Fillion now.

I'd like a new heart now, please

2007-05-18T23:34:00.000+01:00

[No spoilers here!]

Just saw the season two finale of Supernatural: an episode named, not inappropriately, "All Hell Breaks Loose", although in my case it could just as easily have been called "Let's Rip Jayne's Heart Out And Stomp On It Quite A Lot".

Man, that made me blub. And smile. And realise Supernatural is my most favouritest* piece of telly around at the moment, even over Heroes, and I love THAT show so much I want to hug it and squeeze it and smoosh it to bits.

When I was a kid I'd look forward to Christmasses and birthdays so desperately that I'd get butterflies in my tummy for weeks beforehand. Nowadays I don't really care about Christmasses and birthdays; that butterfly feeling flares up before I watch an awesome TV show. Knowing that Supernatural was gearing up for a kickass finale, I had a fluttery tummy for the whole of this week and it was a glorious feeling when that kickass episode didn't disappoint.

I'm glad I still get butterflies - it proves I'm young at heart. (Either that, or I really need to stop drinking the coffee from the vending machines at work.)

Anyway, I'll sum up with this: OMFGWTFSPN! Which, as I'm sure you agree when you watch the episode, really says it all.

* What? Favouritest is totally a real word.

Shameless Photo Opportunity

2007-05-10T20:25:00.000+01:00

I don't know what I love more about this pic: the fact that Nathan Fillion decided to go for "freaky" rather than "hunky", or the fact that he manages to look hunky regardless.

And how come he's three feet taller than me?

Photo credit:
Fantasy Photography by www.vitalattractions.co.uk
0151 726 9538

Pic'n'Mix

2007-05-07T22:16:00.000+01:00

Phew! Well, I haven't quite hit the 2,000 words I was supposed to write today but I've done enough, not to mention writing an extra review on top that isn't due until next week, so I'm feeling a little smug now. Yay me!

So, to celebrate that - and also the fact that the SFX team came fourth in yesterday's Sci-Fi London quiz (so we weren't second like last year but hey, it was better than fifth or sixth or seventeenth, wasn't it?) - I'm going to post some interesting pictures for y'all. You can click on some of them to make 'em bigger if you so wish.

Check this out, for starters:

An ordinary camel train? No. You're actually looking at their shadows. Check it out again and try to spot the real camels!

Then there's this:

Yeah, I have no idea what it means either, but it made me laugh. Next up is this...

... which is the cover of the first Supernatural comic, drawn by the genius that is Tim Sale, the guy behind all the paintings in Heroes among other things (Superman For All Seasons). That's John Winchester with wee!Sam and wee!Dean, and the sulky look on wee!Dean's face CRACKS ME UP!

This is the poster for Stardust, the new Matthew Vaughn movie based on the book by Neil Gaiman and adapted by Vaughn and Jane Goldman:

I saw this film last week at a top sekrit screening and I can't say a goddamned word about it because they made me sign a form - but I will say I adore the poster and leave you to form your own conclusions from that.

And, finally, here's what happens when you take a toy Jawa into work for a photoshoot and your friend Gillen decides to have fun with it. I keep wondering whether that really is the correct spelling of the Jawa's favourite word... is it "Utini" or "Ooootini"? I may never know...

And that is all.

The Art Of Procrastination

2007-05-05T16:09:00.000+01:00

I have 2,000 words to write for Monday night. I'm not free tomorrow (I'm spending the day at Sci Fi London, if anyone reading this is going too and wants to say hi). This means I have only a day and a half to finish my work. I can't miss my deadline, I need to get it written, and time is running out.

Am I writing?

Am I buggery.

All I've done is write a list of what I have to do, and now I'm having my dinner and am about to watch the latest episode of Lost.

Guh. I suck at life.

Serendipity (All Over Again)

2007-04-29T20:33:00.000+01:00

I've had the strangest week.

It began with me breaking a world record.

It ended with me being told I may need major surgery on my back.*

Inbetween, to my complete and utter amazement, I met the driver of that 1972 Dodge Challenger I've been raving about on this blog for the last few days.

I did say it was a strange week...

*I'd like to point out that the two events are in no way related.

So Total Film threw a 10th birthday bash at the Cafe De Paris in Leicester Square on Wednesday night and Nathan Fillion was a Celebrity Guest. I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA he was due to turn up until the day before the party, which was when I went over to someone on the magazine and asked if they'd seen any episodes of Drive yet and they said, "Isn't that Fillion bloke in that? He's coming to our party tomorrow."

Now, considering that I'd just discovered Nathan's MySpace site and friended it, fallen in love with his new show and fallen even more in love with his new car, I call that coincidence rather serendipitous. There may have been squeaking. I won't confirm or deny it. I'm sure you'll agree, though, that it was a fairly squeaksome moment.

The party was excellent: huge, great fun and vastly entertaining. As, indeed, was Mr Fillion himself. It's such a cliche to say the words "Nathan Fillion" and follow them with "...is a very nice man", but he is! He's also drop-dead gorgeous, effortlessly charming and looks thrilled to bits if you show him you have a photo of his 1972 Dodge Challenger as your phone wallpaper. He'll also take you to one side and regale you with the hundreds of behind-the-scenes shots from Drive on his digital camera. And then he'll show you some pics of him and Joss Whedon, Amy Acker and Summer Glau, then a few of his house (oooh, nice) and, inexplicably, his hotel room, of which he was hugely enamoured. Well, it was rather posh.

Unfortunately for both Nathan and all fans of Drive, the show was cancelled by Fox in the US that day (possibly while its star was actually at the party). I'm not happy, and I'm sure he's not happy, and I hope Fox will never be happy again because they don't deserve to be. I swear, the American public do nothing except watch television but if you wave something as original and cool as Drive in front of their noses, they yawn and turn over to American Idol. What. Is. Their. Problem?

It's not like we're not used to it, though. Firefly, anyone? Poor Nathan. It's starting to be a trend...

In happier news, I'm officially a record breaker!

Last week I joined 5,567 others in Trafalgar Square to, uh, bang coconuts together in full view of the Guinness Book of Records. It was on behalf of the musical Spamalot and we were egged on by the cast of the show, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. I was right at the front and am actually visible in this picture, but sadly I'm very small so you'll have to take my word for it:

I swear, you've never heard LOUD until you've heard over 5,000 people banging coconut shells together to the tune of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life". I'd also like to point out that the best part of the entire evening - excusing breaking a freakin' world record, huzzah! - was when Terry Jones walked onstage and the guy next to me yelled out, "He's not the Messiah!"

Ah, Monty Python quotes. I want one on my headstone. Although "Dinsdale!" might look rather incongruous.

Oh yeah, and the back surgery? Sucks. I need an MRI scan first, so it's not 100% yet, but until then I'll keep my fingers crossed. Bizarrely, as I limped back from my hospital appointment, my local Tescos burnt down and the sight of the firefighters cheered me up quite a bit.

Did I mention I've had a strange week?

The news is Nighy...

2007-04-26T21:39:00.000+01:00

I did something rather brilliant a few days ago and attended a particularly memorable party last night, all of which means that now I have much to blog about when I get the chance. Bear with me.

Until then, I'll just mention that I saw Bill Nighy at Marylebone Station today, and DAMN!

That man is one dapper dude. And he's freakishly tall...

Serendipity

2007-04-25T16:08:00.000+01:00

As you may know, in my last post I proclaimed my serious girl-love for Drive's stunning Dodge Challenger. I'd like to make it clear that I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CARS unless they just happen to strike me as being hugely sexy while I watch them in TV shows. So far in my life, this has only happened three times:

Starsky & Hutch's 1976 Ford Gran Torino:

Supernatural's 1967 Chevy Impala:

And, as of this week, Drive's 1972 Dodge Challenger:

(Actually, this ISN'T the car from the show, but I'll be buggered if I can find a picture of it and so this random one will have to do.)

Anyway, here's an amusing story: yesterday I was trawling the net at lunchtime trying to find a picture of said Dodge for my computer's wallpaper. A work colleague - who I'd just met - peered across at my screen and said, "Aha! You have good car taste."

"Thanks," I replied, thinking, 'Oh cripes, he probably thinks I know loads about cars and I really don't.'

"I like Dodges, but they're not my favourite car," he continued, and I waited for him to launch into a description of some car I'd never heard of in my life, knowing I'd have to nod and look like I knew what he was talking about because I didn't want to appear to be stupid.

But do you know what he said?

"My favourite car is the '64 Chevy Impala. I love that model."

To which I instantly replied, "I think you'll find the '67 Impala is much better. Look, here's a pic of it on my phone."

And oh my lord, did that impress him. In one fell swoop he thought I was a genius and treated me as such for the rest of the day.

I swear, sometimes TV comes in very, very handy...

Viva Elvis!

2007-04-23T13:27:00.000+01:00

FACT: It's impossible to have a bad day when you start it off by listening to Elvis belting out "Bossa Nova Baby" and "Viva Las Vegas" very loudly on your Walkman.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Drive Time

2007-04-23T00:05:00.000+01:00

I've been hugely busy over the last two weeks (writing a 10,000 word book, sub-editing in my old office, meeting people, attending pilates, having acupuncture, limping a lot and watching Spider-Man 3 and being disappointed). However, one thing I HAVE found time for is a new show called Drive. It's currently airing on the Fox network in the US, was created by Tim Minear (I bow at his feet) and stars Firefly's Nathan Fillion (I bow at his feet, too). And it is, quite simply, brilliant.

I've seen three episodes so far and each one made me whoop like a cowgirl at a rodeo. Drive's intelligent, funny (yet deadly serious) and the cinematography makes me want to leap on a plane to Florida, buy a car at the airport and ride some American freeways for myself.

The show's about an illegal road race in which the participants compete for a prize of $32 million. But they're not all in it for the money: some have been forced to take part, such as Fillion's character, who's driving because his wife has been kidnapped. I won't say any more because I'm scared of spoiling it. Just make sure you bloody watch it the MINUTE it hits UK shores. Or download it. Except I didn't just say that, because it's illegal an' all.

I'm also afraid to say that Drive has done the impossible: it's toppled Starsky & Hutch's Ford Gran Torino and Supernatural's 1967 Chevy Impala in my affections. The minute I caught sight of the jet black 1972 Dodge Challenger driven by Fillion I wanted to throw myself on the bonnet and lick it all over.

Seriously.

Here's a clip (pretty non-spoilery) to show JUST HOW FREAKING COOL THIS CAR IS:

I'm in love. I am honestly, really, super-seriously gosh-darned in love with that hunk of gleaming metal. I may never be the same again...

It's a bit magnificent...

2007-04-14T22:07:00.000+01:00

Well, the new series of Doctor Who is in its third week on BBC TV screens... and I'm in my third week of falling in love with the show all over again. I enjoyed year one. I even loved bits of it. I enjoyed year two. I loved bits of that, too. But neither series seems to have grabbed me quite like this one has.

I don't know if it's The Doctor's new suit (not that I can see any difference between this one and the old one, but my mate Biddy assures me it's much tighter). I don't know if it's Martha Jones, who delighted me in episode one and has kept it up ever since. I don't even know if it's that the stories seem more hilarious (the "Expelliarmus!" quip in "The Shakespeare Code" had me in tucks) and dramatic (The Doctor finally telling Martha the truth about his home world in tonight's "Gridlock"). Whatever it is, I just know that this year's Doctor Who is the kind of show I wanted to watch when I was a kid. I wish I was ten again...

...Although a ten-year-old probably wouldn't have watched this scene with The Doctor adorably holding a wee little cuddly kitten and had a bit of a funny turn in her ovaries:

(Sorry for the mental image. But cute man + cute kitten = much internal squee-age!)

I must also send thanks to Iain, who responded to the sight of Father Ted's Ardal O'Hanlan in the show by sending me a text message that read: "Ted! It's huge crabs, Ted!"

It was like Gigglemania in my flat tonight.

Bad Backs & Velvet Hearts

2007-04-09T21:01:00.000+01:00

If British schools did that thing they do in the States where they hand out high school yearbooks and give all the pupils taglines, I would’ve been voted “Girl Most Likely To Get Kidnapped By Aliens”. I would also have been voted “Girl Least Likely To Ever Attend A Pilates Class”, which makes it all the more interesting that I actually went to one the other night.

Having a bad back sucks. Anyone who has a bad back already knows this, but it can’t be said enough. Technically, I don’t have a bad back at the moment - it's absolutely peachy - but I DO have sciatica, which stems from my back, and my left leg is well and truly buggered because the nerve running down to my foot is being compressed by my spine. Doctors, consultants, physiotherapists and x-rays all tell me one thing: I'm screwed.

Thankfully, I can still work because the moment I sit down the pain completely disappears, so I’m extraordinarily thankful for that. And there's a chance it'll get better with exercise, hence me signing up for a pilates class, something that's So Not Me I can't even begin to tell you. I really am "The Girl Least Likely To Attend ANY Exercise Class", and something as poncy as pilates is just beyond the pale.

Naturally, I was rubbish. But I'll get better. And so will my leg, because it bloody has to.

The reason I've mentioned all of this is because I was faced with a terrible choice the other night: pain or pleasure? I received a "Friend Request" on my MySpace site (myspace.com/kakapojayne) from a band called The Velvet Hearts, who just happened to be playing in Putney two days later. I listened to some of their music on their site and fell truly, madly, deeply in love. I wanted to go. I rounded up my friend Paul to come with me. I was really excited.

But the gig was standing. And I can't stand for more than five minutes without having to swallow two lots of prescription painkillers, neither of which work. So what could I do?

I bloody well went, that's what I did. And I sat on the floor, because I'll be damned if I'm going to let my sciatic nerve get on my nerves. I had a brilliant night, too, because The Velvet Hearts were wonderful, and before the gig Paul and I sat by Putney Bridge and watched the sun set on the Thames and it was ace.

So if there's a moral to this long-winded and self-indulgent story, it's this: if you have to chose between your back or your heart, go with your heart. Or even The Velvet Hearts (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=139921508).

Life's short, and if you have to limp a little to have some fun, just get on with it and limp. It's worth it.

Out with the old, in with the new...

2007-03-29T22:15:00.000+01:00

Here's a cheerful song about why new Battlestar Galactica is better than old Battlestar Galactica:

Thanks for the link, James!

Life On Mars. Not what you'd call "politically correct"...

2007-03-28T22:28:00.000+01:00

"She's as fake as a tranny's fanny," proclaimed DCI Gene Hunt in this week's episode of Life On Mars, and I goshdarned just about fell off my sofa laughing. Not as much, however, as I laughed at this comment from the self-same copper (who's totally my new TV hero):

"You great, soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French, bender, Man United-supporting POOF!"

I have a few problems with this show, but when characters say things like that I love it with all the bits of my heart that don't object to words like "bender". They can get away with it cos it's post-modern, can't they? And Gene Hunt could say anything and I'd forgive him. Unless, in a future episode of the show set after Starsky & Hutch, he proclaims his rampant dislike of their Gran Torino.

Then I'll hunt Hunt down and firebomb his Ford Cortina. It's, like, totally gay.

Holy. Bloomin'. Crap. (Again.)

2007-03-27T00:22:00.000+01:00

I spent this evening watching Catherine Tate interview David Tennant live on stage at a theatre in Covent Garden for a Radio 4 show. And, while it was hilarious and wonderful and jolly good fun, I'm afraid it's now completely boxed away in my brain and forgotten about...

... because I've just finished watching the season three finale of Battlestar Galactica.

[DON'T WORRY: NO SPOILERS BELOW!]

The thing about Battlestar Galactica is that you start with the miniseries, realise it's quality stuff and then watch season one out of a sense of duty. But it's tough going, heavy and bleak, and you don't so much "look forward" to an episode as you "make yourself watch it", only to realise halfway through that it's excellent. And then a few episodes into season two you realise you're addicted, and then the end of season two has you screaming because you can't believe they just did that, and then you're into season three and you're so lost in the religious philosophy and the Iraq War parallels and the relationships and the bloody, balls-out bravado of it all that you finally realise the show is one of the top ten television series of all time.

I'm not just talking sci-fi, either: it truly is a magnificent piece of television. The mainstream critics agree (the American ones, anyway, because the British press don't know shit from Shinola) and the only downside to the whole thing is that the show is called Battlestar Galactica, a name guaranteed to put off viewers who don't like "that whole space thing", like a guy I know at work who won't watch it even though I've told him a million times it's as good as his favourite show, The Sopranos, and he's an idiot for being so blinkered by the name. I finally won him over this week by explaining that him not watching Battlestar Galactica because the name makes him think it's a silly sci-fi show is a bit like someone not watching The Sopranos because they think it's about opera. I'm quite proud of that analogy, because he finally folded and has agreed to watch the miniseries. He's gonna kick himself when he finds out what he's been missing.

Anyway, the upshot is this: I just watched the season finale; I almost passed out three times from holding my breath in shock; I can't believe I have to wait months to find out what happens next, but I'm thrilled the fourth season has been commissioned already.

The good news is that word is spreading. Everybody's talking about Battlestar nowadays: it's finally made the leap into the mainstream. Last month, as I was strolling along the Thames, two middle-aged blokes walked by me and I heard one of them say to the other, "Much as I love it, I still can't get used to the fact that Starbuck's a woman!" When you overhear ordinary people in the street discussing a sci-fi series, you know it's hit a nerve. And as much as I love all those other shows - Supernatural, Heroes, a million more - I really do think Battlestar Galactica is the king of them all.

Television very, very rarely gets better than Battlestar. If you don't watch it... shame on you.

Holy. Bloomin'. Crap.

2007-03-23T22:00:00.000Z

Just watched the very latest episode of Supernatural from the States. No spoilers here, but it contained a scene that really needs to be watched by every woman (and some men) old enough to experience the thing we humans know as "the raging horn".

If you're not spoiler-conscious, here it is (and if this link doesn't let you click on it, blame the fact Blogger doesn't like Macs and won't let me highlight it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5I0lC0PNH0&e

One word: MUSCLES!

If you are spoiler-conscious, then all you need to know is that I've emailed the link to two non-Supernatural-watching friends, who have both decided that they are absolutely gonna watch the show now, dammit.

It's THAT good.

Right. I'm gonna go turn my heating off. It's hot in here all of a sudden...

Cultural Express

2007-03-19T16:38:00.000Z

Guard standing in my carriage, using the intercom to make an announcement: "The next station will be Mortlake. This train is going to Teddington. Please mind the gap when you leave the train."

Businessman standing nearby: "That was positively Shakespearean."

Guard: "Well, I try my best."

Oh internet, how I worship thee...

2007-03-17T21:10:00.000Z

Crowded House are doing a live webcast tonight at 10pm. It's their first public appearance - well, pretty much - since they last played together as a band over a decade ago, and it'll be beaming around the world in just 35 minutes.

At 9pm I loaded up the page to check it was working and was thrilled to spy Crowded House REHEARSING live on the internet before their big performance. I have no idea if they knew their soundcheck was spilling out of the studio (it's just disappeared, as though someone flicked a switch when they realised), but I've seen Neil Finn looking ridiculously relaxed and it played perfectly and he sounded mighty fine and I'm a very, very, VERY happy bunny.

Roll on 10pm when festivities proper begin!

The internet's so good to me. Last night I spent over an hour chatting to my friend James in Los Angeles using Skype, which enables you to make a phonecall through your computer with spectacular sound quality for absolutely no charge whatsoever.

A whole hour, talking to someone in California, for free!

Crowded House playing live in my living room!

I swear, if the internet gets any more wonderful I'm going to have to marry it already.

Oh, and it just struck me how funny this looks:

That's Crowded House all cued up on my PC screen, an episode of Miracles all cued up on Shep's screen, my favourite mug (because I'm never more then five minutes away from a cup of coffee) and a signed photo of Rob Lowe on the wall.

Two computers on one desk? That's the 21st century for you, baby!

That Bloody Jayne Nelson Gets Everywhere

2007-03-15T22:40:00.000Z

I'm freelancing on Total Film for the next week or so. I walked into the office this morning and before I could even take off my coat I was greeted by one of my colleagues pointing an accusing finger at me and squawking loudly, "You woke me up last night, you hussy!"

Nonplussed, I managed a confused "Eh?" before he informed me he'd been just about to fall asleep at the end of the day when the sound of my voice woke him up with a jolt. For a shocked moment he thought I was right there in bed with him, before realising I was speaking from his TV and hadn't somehow materialised alongside his jim-jam-clad form. "Gave me a right start," he said. "There you were in my room, and there I was in bed!"

(Naturally we used the situation to our advantage, managing to wind up a few innocent souls who heard us saying we'd been in bed together and proceeded to get the wrong end of the TV aerial. Would've been rude not to, really.)

Anyway, I was surprised because I'd had no idea I was on BBC2 last night, although when I checked my emails I had a message from my friend Gold Anne informing me she'd been surprised to spy me, too, and then people kept stopping by my desk all day to tell me they also saw me, and it finally culminated with me going to the pub after work and meeting someone I haven't seen in six months and them greeting me with an amused yell of, "I SAW YOU ON TV LAST NIGHT!"

The moral of this story is: if you appear as a talking head on a show on one of the BBC's digital channels, chances are you'll end up on terrestrial TV eventually. Who knew a show about parallel worlds in science fiction would prove so popular? Jeez.

In other news: Neil Finn was spotted 20ft from my office the day before yesterday. "I came to find you, but you weren't in, were you?" the spotter informed me today. I'm touched that he knew I liked Neil, but I can't help but wonder what on earth he thought I'd do with the news - go out with a butterfly net and snag myself a singer?

Honestly. Like I could've carried him home...