Busy week, inluding the inevitable packing up the office leading into the Big Sales Conference Organised By Me taking place while ‘some men’ moved all the stuff to the new premises. Which I have not seen yet and still have no key for. Whoops. Hmm… I am looking forward to getting in there and sorting it all out and resisted the urge to leave a gift-wrapped poo on a certain lazy liar’s desk before I left. She’s never at it so would not have noticed until Christmas even if I had done my dirty protest. I am a grown up so I thought better of this, as proven by my wearing of a suit on Thursday. No tie of course, so last year.

Unexciting things this week:

Trying to find a copy of issue 4 of Phonogram Singles Club in London and failing.

Sanding down painty lumps in the lounge walls very badly.

A lot of cardboard boxes and parcel tape. I swear I dreamt about this too.

Attempting to watch Funny People but deciding that as there were no funny, just lots of people, and its 4.3 hours running length was a bit long that it may be best to not bother. Damn, Apaptow was one of my big entertainment cheeses in his TV era and the films bug me because of this. If I wanted to watch ugly dumb potty-mouthed men bragging about pussy I would still be managing a Pizza Hut delivery unit.

Exciting things this week:

Sia leaked a song from her 2010 album!

The BNP befriended a Muslim-hating Sikh and the usual tools failed to see the irony.

Daily Mail readers love the now-no-longer-racist party. Ironies.

Patrick Wolf done made a video for that good song:

I liked the new Muse single:

The first part of that Doctor Who animation appeared and it was alright if you like that sort of thing.


I am old skool so I find the CGI-ness a bit creepy, and the characters just look stoopid when running. Animated Who can be great though, see the DVD of The Invasion for an example.

The Sarah Jane Adventures finished and it was overall a good old fun load of nonsense. Really deserves a repeat slot in a more prime time timey wimey zone though as it definitely deserves a wider audience. The first story was the weakest but there were some strong ones this year including a mad wedding episode, Floella Benjamim vs ghosts, the absurd but funny loopy northern Mona Lisa rampage and some good gungeing this week.

Roll on series 4 please. CBBC is so much better than it gets credit for (is it Ed & Oucho December yet?).

Hurrah, it is Friday again and it’s been a busy week. My first London Book Fair where my feet were ruined by grown-up shoes but I experienced the joy of lumberjack chips in the pub, tons of Christmas Highlights kits for head office buyers to look at, a whole load of printing and a fair amount of doing stuff on Amazon meant it was busy busy busy but it had a great soundtrack: new Patrick Wolf album leaked (an essential purchase for June, lots of mad beats, funny instruments, good storng melodies and peculiar voice bits), the Noisettes album was released (I bought it as it is so much better than their first one and quite disco-y in a good way), some new Jarvis Cocker tracks landed on the internet (that 8/1 blog is rather smashing) plus the pants song from The Apprentice of course.

Oh no, I fogrot to eat my Wake Up Call this morning. This might explain the pants problem. Brilliant cereal box design though. Honest.

I have become slightly obsessed with prematurely cancelled (by Fox of course) early 00′s comedy Undeclared.

Maybe because, like The Inbetweeners, some of it reminds me of awful people I have known. The terrible music fight in the linked clip especially so as I once shared a house with a couple of not-at-all-from-the-hood white blokes who only played hip hop and only played it very loudly. Very Westwood (Tim not Vivienne).

Obligatory comics recommendations (mutants spesh):

I still love X-Factor even if the art team changes every other issue. No it is not the talent show off the telly. It is quite camp sometimes though with the fabulous bitchy one.

Meanwhile, in Uncanny X-Men where artist Greg Land is still copying images from catalogues and porn:

Uh-oh! Obligatory continuity-messing sort-of-resurrection alert!

Also: gays and stuff… at least good old Northstar is a stroppy one. Who could blame him after he was killed by a brainwashed Wolverine then resurrected as a zombie by evil ninjas only to be somehow restored to normality in an ending I must have forgotten about?

So… what’s going on with Dollhouse? Well it improved bloody loads after a few episodes which wasn’t hard as it started very badly. But now it might be dead or might be alive. Well it is on Fox. Damn rumours…

What’s that? The Daily Express reckon Gillian Anderson from The X-Files is going to be playing The Rani in Doctor Who? Hmmm…

In other news, the new Big Finish play (story 1 of 3 of the McCoy mini season) was damn fine, I wore shorts outside today (which is not right), bought a part for my oven in a shop for men (an electrical shop) successfully and made my first vegeburger mix burgers. They were yummy.

Another week, another sales conference. My glamorous job in the world of publishing means I get lovely yummy cnapaes and wine from rather good caterers, unlike the ones those feckin’ Apprentices made this week on the telly:

Mmmmmm lettis!

I am so glad the return of The Inbetweeners lived up to my expectations:

There’ll be complaints from fish people, mark my words.

It’s Comic Catch-Up Weekend. Unless I get horribly addicted to Wii Fit Hula Hoop again, but my muscles (yes I have some) have only just recovered from my last session. I may have a great BMI but my Wii Fit age is sometimes ‘pensioner.’ Anyway, comics:

Peter took his mask off (again but for the first time. Oh don’t ask) and Jessica remembered him from the retcon in Alias. Which was nice, if rather geeky.

Buffy issue 23 was a return to form…

Did I imagine this? No, it is here for all to see:

Fuck me, that makes K9 & Company look good!

Tools of the week are the residents of an ‘affluent’ village formed a human chain to stop the Google car taking pictures of their lovely big houses for Street View as they were concerned about burglaries and then talked to the Daily Mail who published loads of photos of their lovely houses:

“I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime. This is an affluent area. If our houses are plastered all over Google it’s an invitation for burglars to strike. I don’t mind estate agents taking pictures but this shows people how to get in and how to get out. I was determined to make a stand so I called the police.”

Surely somebody should have pointed out their fail at missing the point?

My real world life has been all boozing and schmoozing (and laughing about a forthcoming Princess Diana book that I really should be more professional about) and I learnt that afternoon drinking doesn’t completely do my head in if it is in a posh restaurant in Soho and paid for by a publisher. Sometimes I need my confidence-booster to function with new people and I can mostly keep the peculiar side of my personality under control. Bonus points for not going mad in Forbidden Planet while tipsy, I have heard of this recession thing you know. Then I went and ruined it all by buying a Wii online after The Final Pub Quiz (it goes on but the blandness is upsetting now. A robot could host that quiz with more wit and charm. Whoops). The Wii is still in a box, as are my Cyberman army but I aim to sort that out soon when I find some space (Jamie won’t let me have an extension built for my Doctor Who theme room, he is so mean)… and if I survive The Mothers Day Extravaganza tomorrow. But the Galactica finale takes preference and it is a double episode so that’s something or nothing plus the inevitable brain drain after watching it.

So here are some ‘cool things’:

Grant Morrison has done a good old interview that I read and went “yeah” to. With pretty pictures!

“When we laugh at Bizarro World, we’re laughing at ourselves and that’s the genius of the concept. So yeah, I’d say the Bizarro reality is always our world as seen through a shattered window pane. When you’ve got creatures who represent the “opposite” of human culture, they can only show us how arbitrary, pointless or ridiculous many of our own customs or thoughts are. We chose to make Bizzaro world into a kind of cosmic sewer of meaningless, nightmarish, imbecile activity in the face of looming apocalypse. Superman, with no powers, must harrow Hell and find a way home.My favorite bit is the reverse “Stars-And-Stripes,” when the Bizarro people sing: “Under land of no free, am us home cowardly.”

“Zibarro was the Morrissey Bizarro. The sensitive outsider on a world of lunatics. He was great to write.”

“Right now I’m working on the new Batman and Robin book which is out this summer. Bruce Wayne is gone so we’ll be seeing a new Batman and Robin team in action together for the first time. This is continuing the story from Batman R.I.P. and the pitch is “David Lynch directs the Batman TV show.”

Comics, eh? Whatever next?

What’s going on in Twitterworld today?

Hmmm…

What DVD do I not want the most?

Urgh. Ready for what?I dread to think. All suggestions welcome.

The new Pet Shop Boys album is in fact rather great. A couple of average songs in there but this might well be my pick:

So authentic.

This week I have been to London twice (and not stepped inside a comic shop both times) for work. Once for a sales conference filled with delightfully posh women who said things like “plahstic” and I ended up in a conversation about Twitter because I am the one who understands things like that. Publisher in question has quite a few Twit followers so I wouldn’t worry if I was them. Met some authors, one of which who keeps cropping up at things but I didn’t tell him I prefered it since Ms Toksvig replaced him. Today’s trip was a big stock check mostly involving obscure woodwork titles. My brain dissolved after 4 hours so I went off to buy shoes (plain boring black ones to go with my new suit which is not black but doesn’t suit the current brown shoes) and for some reason the nice man who served me thought I was a teacher and asked me about it. Cue blank face then blagging. Nobody talks to shop workers so I actually make an effort to be friendly. Unlike with most other people, as I am usually a right grumpy (and actually shy) bastard.

XO pointed this out…

The general consensus is hurrah for Tori but cheap typeface. And that hair (wig?) just reminds me of ClaireBear from Heroes. Her un-super wig has almost put me off watching that particular show but I’m holding on in there. This week’s (BBC2) episode showed some promise and the appearance of Movie Donna Hayward might have helped.

Other shocking picture of the day:

I bet this model would never sing the feem tune like the old one.

Currently listening to a sampler of The Bloody Pet Shop Boys new album. S’alright, innit? Royksopp featuring Robyn’s new track beats it but that is Track Of The Month after all.

Why am I still making these LOLyoaks?

I think it’s the only way I can cope with the show most of the time. I like to make myself suffer.

Back to that song…. The Girl and The Robot (i have now upgraded it to Song Of The Year) is downloadable here right now. Click it and play it to death. The album‘s pretty great too….

Did you listen to it?

Today on my half-day (as I do longer other days) I logged on to the work email at home at 7, we drove in crappy traffic to the office for 5 minutes, went to Jamie’s office for half an hour where I logged on again and had a nice cup of tea, got the train from Borehamwood (carefully avoiding the Big Brother celebrity house up the road) to St Pancras, tubed it to Green Park, walked to a posh hotel near Grosvenor Square to drop off a laptop that I had sorted out for a sales rep, walked to a bookshop near Piccadilly and did a hefty stock check, bought a nice soup and bread, spotted no famouses, walked to Forbidden Planet and bought geek things and got the tube home, only to find rather a lot of emails waiting for me. Is it any wonder my head hurts? Maybe that’s why my nose was bleeding a bit and I had shortness of breath. It’s all downhill from here, bah humbug. But with nice new things:

In happier news, the atheist ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’ buses are here and my favourite ‘Christian’ (no not Terry) is on his hotline to heaven (just like Bananarama?) about it:

Mister Beardy Happy Face Stephen Green from Christian Voice (a tedious whiney voice that does not represent as many of its type as it believes) moaned about the message, bleating “The ASA does not just cover goods and services, it covers all advertising… It is given as a statement of fact and that means it must be capable of substantiation if it is not to break the rules. There is plenty of evidence for God, from peoples’ personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world. But there is scant evidence on the other side, so I think the advertisers are really going to struggle to show their claim is not an exaggeration or inaccurate, as the ASA code puts it.”

Green (Stephen, not Goblin) failed to provide any evidence that his friend God did exist but conveniently ignored that sort of thing.

Richard Dawkins is still annoying though. Being married to Romana version 2.0 is not enough of a reason to like him.

When I asked God for his opinion of this kerfuffle he was too busy worrying about important things, like wars and old fashioned high-energy lightbulbs.

What the hell is going on in Hollyoaks? Apart from the usual dead-eyed acting and flimsy motivations of course. I was driven to this:



And on that note… time for more lurgey drugs.

PS Just before I posted this, my lightbulb pinged and is now dead. God is not amused.

What a stoopid day. The office building had a weird semi-powercut so the electroinic key fob reader on the door was deactivated. Trust me to come in early on that morning and have to stand outside freezing my everythings off for an hour until the caretaker arrived. Still, it gave me a chance to meet some of the other people who work in the building and rather worryingly they knew who I meant when I described “the person with the disgusting cough” , “annoying shouty mobile phone man who always has a loud financial crisis” and “sweary angry mobile phone woman who I think has relationship problems” when I mentioned the voices I hear outside my door. Oops. Internet came on around 11, phones around 2 and lights at 3. What fun!

I empathise with the Black Widow, and recommend the new Captain America comic.

That Mark Millar is a cheeky bastard…

and Manhunter will be sorely missed.

Other lowlights today? The worst omelette I have ever eaten, the dirtiest bus I have ever travelled on and the worst episode of Hollyoaks. Not good bad , just bad. As many of you would expect no doubt.

My comedy nerd credentials came in handy at the pub quiz last night with the question about who was Britney Spears’ first husband….

And just because I can, here’s a picture of Kevin Zegers pretending to be having a poo and looking pretty:

How confusing.

Busy times again. I’ve been in Lewes (which is a village or town or something, not a man) for an overnight sales conference in a suit that is a bit too tight on my bum and belly. I think it’s time to go up a size, how horribly inevitable… It was a good afternoon and morning, with a nice evening inbetween with a good mix of people, some excellent drunkish awkward moments in the bar (not by me), a hint of nemesis potentials (the most joyless woman in the world) and a lovely room that was unfortunately bloody cold due to being old and not-very-insulated.

The room service lasy seemed very determined to let me let her close my curtains for me. How odd. I think I took away all her fun. On the bed is Fables Volume 11, which I read from 1:05 to 2:00 last night/this morning.

It was odd to be without Jamie but it did mean that I had both packets of biscuits. Which almost made up for it.

Mmm…

Those old Doctor Who casting rumours keep coming back again and again. No spoilers here but if true it’s a great actor and it’s going to make the Daily Express readers all miserable which is a super bonus. Stupid bloody people with their own twisted interpretation of Timelord physiognomy, how very odd.

Talking not of yet more events in December, how about this?

PLAYING SHOP

Playing Shop is a new sitcom written by and starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb (Peep Show).

They play Eric and Jamie, two of the most dynamic, practical and driven men ever to try and run a business out of a garden shed. Convinced that everyone else involved in commerce are idiots, they think that this insight alone will make them millionaires. To such men, redundancy is just an opportunity – an opportunity to blow all their money on two massive trips to Rymans. Armed with new computers, state-of-the-art stationery and a blogger’s contempt for the rest of mankind, all they have to do is sit back and wait for greatness to be thrust upon them. Oh and somehow earn enough money to keep themselves in lager and snacks. They’re up a creek basically, although they have got a paddle – they’re just not sure whether they can be bothered to use it. Welcome to the epic struggle of two men attempting to make a fast buck without getting up before eleven or ever missing “Bargain Hunt”. If you would like to join us for this brand new comedy on Saturday 20th December at Teddington Studios, then apply now!

Teddington Studios? Only in the freezing Winter, once again. But why not? Anybody want to come?

I had about 6 consecutive sleep hours last night so I am nothing like how I was yesterday, i.e. the body of a pensioner and the brain of a retarded child. Bloody insomnia is a curse, I have no idea how I managed a day at work yesterday but took the opportunity to phone some friends who just happened to work in bookshops that were on the list I made for potential signing sessions for a famous author. Hurrah for the fleshy ones!

Today is another of my odd one day holidays (I don’t want or need a whole week off before Christmas as nobody exists to cover my job but that’s fine) so I am catching up on all those little things like downloading new music (new Duke Special album sneaked past me but Amazon have it in stock, I must stop clicking there as I have purchased about 10 CDs from there in the last month) and reading comics. Currently listening to that (leaked) Britney Spears album and it could be anyone singing it. I suppose that’s what makes the Photoshopped robotic one so versatile (some decent pop songs though) … unlike this week’s new artist Val Emmich (brought to my attention by a certain musical blog) who’s much more ‘real’ and even sent me a nice hello on a certain social networking site.

It turns out he was in 30 Rock last year (as Liz Lemon’s too-young boyfriend) but he’s mostly a musician and not a robot.

Quite nice, so I bought his new album. Damn you, Amazon!

Is it wrong of me to find this funny?

Dr. Manhattan: Thong Version. Damn DC prudes!

Weirdest telly moments of the week:
Ally McBeal mucking up her chance at adopting Greggs’ (no, not the bakers, the detective) from The Wire’s unborn child on Brothers & Sisters. And the news that President Laura Roslin is going to star in Grey’s Anatomy as a surgeon with Asperger’s syndrome. What?

Not that I would watch the televisual equivalent of those Mills & Boon medial romance books.

I’ve never been much of a Trekkie but the Star Trek trailer looked quite good…

Shame about a certain Scottish accent, and I am worried that I have a man crush on the new Captain Kirk.

We are off to the Mitchell & Webb screening at that venue with the frisky security procedures and doctors’ waiting room-style bar. The squeezy beerz are on me!

What a peculiar week, lots and lots of variety in the stuff what I got done:

My first ‘taking an author around loads of shops to sign their books’ (if the bookshop can find the books that is) went well. Could have done without the disgusting rainy weather though, but my psychic shopping powers came through when I bought a big mac (of the coat variety, not the cow in bread variety) a few days earlier.

It stopped raining on Tuesday for a bit and I finally got the office cleared of book debris enough to get a lady in to clean the carpet. Lovely Spanish cleaning lady did make me feel a bit Lucille Bluth but I didn’t traumatise her and I even got to go upstairs in the office building for the first time ever. If the place is so huge how come I rarely see any other humans?

Look at my lovely office space now:

What an exciting panorama.

This week’s new music moments found me finally liking a song from IAMX and playing that Frankmusik song a bit too much:

I think he’ll be on my list of Music 2009 people, even without his giant keyboard.

I escaped into the Other World Of Books on Friday with a trip to Ye Olde Bookshoppe. They have now added a squillion extra staff to go nicely with the new carpets and sparkly Christmasness but thankfully there were still some old faces left there. Not that they look haggard or anything. Hurrah for loyalty cards and early Christmas shopping.

Talking of Christmas shopping, we had a treat on Saturday and went to The Big Tesco in Dead Set Town, as Jamie’s office is just down the road and he had to do something to the WOTAN they have in a special server room. I was disppointed to find no zombies anywhere near the Big Brother studio, just lots an lots of people, some of whom were scary in other ways. Not since Big Tesco (Essex Version) have I been so confused by the locals. Women who looked pregnant but probably weren’t, a chav version of the Milky Bar Kid, too many babies with pierced ears, old ldies wth massive lacquered hair and faces drawn on with felt pens… I was so bewildered that I could not work out how to put the trolley back and get the £1 coin out. Seriously. Jamie had to show me, and my excuse was that I have never shopped anywhere with such a high trolley theft rate that they had to introduce such a system. I had a good mind to write to The Daily Mail!

And before I forget:

Now let’s move over to the play area…