Yeah, 12 months tomorrow since mom died. Can’t believe it really, and I have no positive feelings to report on the matter.
Still in a bit of mess in terms of living situation too. Wish I could just get settled somewhere. Very depressed. May get drunk in a bit. Dunno. Not much else to say, really.
Here’s an early 1980s pic of mom…
Read More »What’s Another Year
Now, look: it’s the middle of May and it’s the middle of the afternoon. You take the dog for a walk. What do you expect? Well, a la Brighton, what you get is you and the dog repeatedly being almost blown off your feet. Literally.
If this was an isolated incident, fine. Hm, okay, today is particularly bad, and you normally get this of a night. But still. I didn’t get anything like this in the depths of Winter in London (or Brum, very often).
Read More »Lotsa Weather
Hmmm, okay, as the stories about this have spread across the Internet like a rash since Blake Bell posted about it, I might as well confirm that the Jonathan Ross show I was working on back in Feb/March (and which I have continued to help with where I can, as needed) is entitled “In Search of Steve Ditko”. It’s a profile of the less-famous half of the original Spider-Man creative team, to be aired on BBC4 sometime in the near future.
My March 1st entry was related to this, of course.
Otherwise, I don’t want to discuss too many details, or nuts and bolts, except to say, I hope it’ll be a really cool show, and it’s nice to have been able to contribute.
Read More »In Search of…
Hmmm… haven’t felt much like writing on here for a while. Real life gets in the way sometimes, have had a really, really weird three weeks, sometimes very depressed and generally disorientated.
Well, the move to Brighton happened. And about five seconds after, I realised it was a total, fucking mistake. You can’t begin to imagine what an amazing mind-fuck that is. This is what happens if you’re stuck in a too-expensive place on your own—you don’t think things through properly.
How can I detail my problems with Brighton? *sigh* Let’s try a bulleted list…
* I actually have friends in London.
* I miss them.
* It’s not as quick/easy to get to London as I deluded myself.
* It’s even harder to get to anywhere else in the country. Travel from here is just a total pisser.
* I got shit on by a bird for the first time since I was about seven years old within a couple of days of coming here.
* The coastal winds are utterly vicious, especially at night.
* And the nights are cooooooooold.
* Spiders and woodlice and bugs generally… lots of them. Everywhere.
* Nothing resembling a ‘proper’ city locally.
* Most of the buildings are ancient and in a shockingly awful state of decay. Even the really expensive ones. Double-glazing hasn’t been invented here yet.
* Living in an ancient, conversion-job building with a shared entrance and paper-thin walls really sucks. I don’t want to know when someone in the floor above farts, but I pretty much do.
* This Hobbit-hole won’t even allow a single divan through its doors. I still have neither a proper sofa to sit on or a bed to sleep on.
* Fresh coastal air, yes, but tons of earthy dirt and grime and dust nonetheless. Everywhere. Poor pooch Fred had a totally black belly within a week of being here.
And on and on and on. Think you get the idea. Brighton’s a beautiful place to visit, but man, living here is another matter entirely.
Read More »A Farce, You Say?
Right, so I went to Brighton yesterday (meaning Wednesday). That’s the moving situation. I’ve decided that, as Brighton is just 40 minutes away from London (the city centre) on the train, the air is a hell of a lot cleaner, and most importantly, you can rent quite nice places for about the same as you can get squalid dumps in most of London… that’s where I’m gonna relocate to.
The irony is that this is where mom and I planned to move to. We were still talking about this a year ago. It was roughly a year ago that mom started to show symptoms that led to a grim diagnosis and the end of her life. That’s been on my mind a fair bit, for obvious reasons, but I’m trying to not let it get me too down.
I do like Brighton, anyway. The seafront’s a major attraction, and as it’s not all that large, you’re never too far away from anything. I have to go into the city from here if, say, I want to browse a large music store… the only local option is a tiny HMV in Wimbledon. Yeah, Wimbledon turned out to be much smaller and less impressive than initial impressions suggested. :-/
Read More »Brighton
Well, y’know, Paul and I were strolling around Northampton today, and who should we bump into? None other than Mr. A. Moore and J. Ross Esq. Small world!
Well… the extent to which I will discuss the last six days is: I’ve been working at the Hot Sauce offices on a Jonathan Ross show that is comics-related. I don’t want to divulge the subject until it seems appropriate to do so, but suffice it to say, I believe it will be a very interesting and worthwhile project.
Today, after a week of helping with research materials, briefs and arranging interviews, as well as contributing some questions for interview subjects, I was around for the shooting of some original artwork from Jonathan’s collection. JR had places to be, so I was quite honoured to be asked to stay around and help select which pieces to shoot. It was a fun day. On the whole, it’s been an enormously positive experience.
Read More »Hot and Saucy
Somewhat inspired by Paul Gulacy‘s Master of Kung-Fu run (which I’ve been re-reading), and especially his use of famous likenesses on various characters including, in #38-40, Marlene Dietrich… plus his occasional use of stippling / pointillism… I had a go with the technique myself…
What the hell, thought I’d try a test posting from The Other Side. Just to see how weird and kinky it feels. Hmmm. Well, slightly, maybe. Anyhow, it gives me an excuse to post this pic I took from my bedroom window in the early hours, around 3.30am, upon discovering it had started to snow:
In my latest flurry of gadget-buying, yesterday came the Canon mini-DVD camcorder. It wasn’t rashness on my part, but something I’d intended to get for quite a while. There are always things you wish you’d been able to film, and as Paul and I have one or two interviews planned (first one coming up early next month, no names mentioned just yet), it was a good time to grab it.
It’s a very nice piece of equipment. It has a widescreen option, which is pretty cool. My only (minor) disappointment is that there is no input for an external mike, which isn’t totally necessary but would’ve been a useful option to have. Great value for money overall, though.
Read More »PC vs Mac (Not Really)
