Well, it's Christmas Day and, miracle on 23 East Road, it's snowing. For any of my friends back in the UK, that refers to the white stuff that falls from the sky that isn't rain, but so rarely on any important December days.It's a thin layer to be sure (so far), just enough give a light covering on what was awaiting me when I arrived. Still, it's the first time in umpteen years I've had a white christmas, so despite everything it'll more than suffice.It's nice to know that whatever shitty things...

Not had a lot of access to the Net in the last few days as Holly doesn't have a landline yet. However I have picked up an ocassional wi-fi bleed which must be coming from a nearby property. Actually, I'm probably hijacking the signal from the church next door. Thoughts that I may be going to hell for this are tempered by the fact that every Christian I know says it is better to give than receive, so at this time of year, I hope they practise what they literally preach ;) The ground is still largely...

I woke in London in the morning with the kind of icy mist and rising sun that looks so great when you can see wide open spaces. sadly, it was mainly warehouses and buildings, but you can't have everything. Checked in easily for Virgin with no major hassles.Sooooo, the flights were good in the sense that they took off, flew and landed safely and in the right order. I left Heathrow an hour late but with the promise of a shorter than normal 10hr flight. Watched Stardust and Rattatouille (sp?) and Doctor...

So. Off I go. Technically this is the first day of my excellent ADVENTure ( see what I did there?) and things have gotten off to an okay if not quite exact start. I was supposed to be staying at the Yotel at Heathrow Airport (in one of those pods/cabins that everyone is talking about) but now it appears that everyone is talking about them not opening on time, so I'll be shuttled off by shuttle to a nearby hotel at Yotel's expense. Bad PR, but good response, I guess.Now on the train down to London,...

Last weekend was the Dublin City Comic Con. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in... No wait. That was Mos Eisley... easy mistake to make.Building on the success of last year's outing, the DCCC was a two-day event and was a great mix of comic creators, artists, writers, alcohol, geekdom, alcohol, Doctor Whoness and... alcohol. Last year Team Wisdom, named after Doctor Who scribe Paul Cornell's Marvel comic, took second place at the charity quiz. This year, amidst muchserious...

As some people may already know, the WGA (The Writers' Guild of America) went out on strike on Monday over residual and payment issues. In most debates there are two sides to every story, but it has to be said that in this one it's hard not to have the utmost sympathy for the writers when you look at the deals they've been forced to swallow in the past and the attitude of modern Hollywood today when it comes to giving up ANY extra slice of very profitable pies.I've never written for TV - I'd love to but when is there time to even attempt what others already do exceptionally well - but a lot of...

I just got back from the Collectormania event in Milton Keynes - the city of roundabouts - another packed weekend of activity which is great fun but also ultimately tiring - even though there were no official duties. There was quite a sureal moment when - on the Saturday, I shared a lift with the tall, unfeasibly bespectacled veteran director George Romero as I headed to the bar and a few minutes later had Helen Slater (Supergirl) walk past looking as striking as she ever did back in her 'S' days....

So. The Vancouver trip went well... then it was on to Denver by way of LAX... good job I like flying (or at least getting to new places eventually).Denver was warmer than I thought it would be in October and though not quite as hot as LA it was in the late 70s most of the three days I was there (It seems I bring good weather with me whenever I go somewhere, so ya boo sucks to the naysayers ;) )Holly picked me up from the airport late on the Wednesday and we went to her new house which, like a tardis,...

Well, in the way that trips often do, time has flown and I'm only a few hours away from leaving Vancouver. This past weekend I was eMCeeing the HLWW8 event here. Eighteen months of planning and much like Christmas it's ages of anticpation and then it's all over again so quickly.Being the eMCee is something of both a fun and thankless task. Fun in the sense that you get a completely unique insight into the event both before and after and thankless because... well, really the same reason - you aren't...

I never knew it was so hard sending things throughthe post. To save suitcase space I decided to send some clothes back to the UK -being greener than the Hulk on environmental issues, I decided to use the same box that John Bierly had sent me some stuff from Indiana in the day before.But noooooooo.Seems while the industrial tape he secured it with was okay from Indiana, the LA post office didn't like it one bit. So had to get a whole new box and send this morning. Except.... they didn't like where I'd put my return adddress, so had to write it out again. And fill inanew form. All this to send...

Yes, I'm off again. I'm on one of those jaunts that leads the uninitiated to muse 'If he gets paid so little, how can he afford all these trips???' I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Fair to say that it's totally legitimate, that I earn my keep and the closest I get to espionage is to watch a special sneak preview of the upcoming series of 'Spooks'. In all seriousness, I don't know how I do it either. I think having a very small, but wonderful set of friends who I can pay back in...

It's hard to describe the headaches (metaphorical and, oh, so very actual) that come from your computer going down at the exact point you need it to be performing at its peak. With less than a month to go before my US/Canada 'tour' (ha!) and tons of work to do... well, the last few days minus power-cable have been...annoying. More annoying than Alien 3 even. However a replacement cable arrived this morning and now the t-shirt designs are off to the printers, the brochure is nearer done than not...

Tonight, after two hours spent carefully designing an ad, my laptop suddenly turned itself off - result: all work lost as I was just about to save it but hadn't. As the laptop works with battery power, I'm busy saving files to a disc just in case. It's not the fuse, so I can only presume the charger overheated or somesuch. Not sure if temporary or permanent.Anyway, if e-mails don't get answered etc, this will be why. Normal service will be resumed, probably just after the nick of time if this is anything to go by...

So. The new passport arrived. It took a week and £72, so not too bad, I guess. This time the accompanying photograph means I don't look like a softly-spoken, writer-not-a-fighter, but more like a ninja-trained, internationally-wanted spy with amnesia problems international man of paperwork with a wry sense of humour. Which is nice.I've been reading about proposed changes to the ID systems in the UK and US and I have to admit that getting a new passport now was as much about non-conforming to the...

My social life has been sadly lacking recently - largely due to the workload between HLWW, Impact, Verbatim and the fact that as I get slightly older I seem to have less but infinitely better friends but who don't live on my doorstep (which would admittedly not be comfortable for them).However this week was a Mozapalooza. On Friday met up with a friend in Leeds who was travelling through the area for a job interview. I promised drinks and merriment (a reckless promise this being Leeds) and managed to just about deliver. The rain held off, the food was tasty (Iguana, by the Corn Exchange gets the...

America and Britian may be two countries separated by a common language, but I never really realised how much until the recent trip to the States and a chat with Mark Ryan (of Transformers/Robin of Sherwood fame.) I was telling someone today about how difficult it was for both Mark and myself (both proud Yorkshiremen) to describe a Yorkshire Pudding to the colonials in a way that made any sense and conveyed it's regional and global superiority as edible delight.Oh, sure. It's not too difficult to...

The last week's been a busy one and not just coping with the sunburn. I've gone from hugely appealing to hugely a'peeling... but maybe TMI. On the professional side we've been gearing up for October's HLWW8 event in Canada and readying the announcements of Peter Wingfield, Gillian Horvath, Donna Lettow etc to the already impressive line-up (see the event website via http://www.highlanderworldwide.com/ ). I've started work on the brochure and the proposed cover looks good - see above. Now I just...

There's no such things as 'average' weekends.Late Thursday night the boiler at the house went into overdrive for no apparent reason and we noticed that it was getting very hot very quickly just before midnight. Thankfully we managed to shut it down and a repairman gave it a safety-check so that it was possible to use it again. Part of me is tempted to think this was a last metaphysical joke on Roy's behalf.On Friday it was my grandfather's funeral and it was good that we didn't get the requisite...

My grandfather, Gordon 'Roy' Shearing, died today. It's weird to type those words, even when you know they're coming. He was my last surviving grandparent and at the age of 87, with rapidly failing health, it was expected - though I remember the words Joss Whedon used in one of the finest hours on television on the subject, that death is ALWAYS sudden too.He lived a life less ordinary, living in places as different as Leeds, The Bahamas and Southamption, before spending most of of the latter half...

Within forty-eight hours of getting back from America, I was headlong into my brother's wedding. Headlong is an apt description as though I'd spent much of that forty-eight hours trying to adjust my body-clock, I was still feeling a bit off balance - and that was before any of the alcohol.Though the temperatures back in 'Blighty' were nowhere near those of the US, the day remained sunny and warm. I always enjoy a good excuse to get washed and bushed up and though I've yet to see any of the official...

Yes, the final leg of the trip was New York, a place I'd always wanted to visit but never had the opportunity to before. Thanks to a very good price on an arrive-LAX & depart-JFK flight and the fact that my HLWW associate Camille (and her husband Steve) had graciously offered to let me stay with them in New Jersey, the opportunity was now here - even though it was a small window of opportunity.I arrived at La Guardia later than originally planned on Monday afternoon and was scheduled to fly...

After the Rockies there were still plenty of treats, a professional massage as a birthday treat - everyone should have those regularly: verrrrrry relaaaaaaxing - food with Holly's friends and then back to Kit and Ariel's so that I could be close to the airport for an early start to my next port of call. I took off from Denver at about 7:30am and flying thru Dallas Fort Worth up and across to Columbus (which meant changing my watch twice in two, er, three hours). But oh me-o, oh-my-o, Columbus Ohio...

Leg two of my trip took me to Denver. Heatwave: 80 degrees. My friend Kit (whose wedding I attended in Biarritz last year) was getting ready to graduate from law school. As I'd promised/threatened to visit them - and Kit's cousin Holly - on my next viable trip, it seemed that this was the best opportunity and though it was mainly a family gathering, I was made to feel welcome (and, after all, I had met most of the family last year!). Holly and I were drafted in to help set up the picnic in the...

There's been a ton of things I should have been blogging about in the last few months. My trip to the States, Steve's wedding and a whole raft of things I could be typing. So let's start with the US trip. Partly for business, partly for pleasure I spent nearly a whole calendar month in America in May. Firstly there were almost two weeks in Los Angeles where I stayed with Kerry and divided my time between work and just having a relaxing post-birthday breather and experimenting with my new camera...

It's been ages. I know. I don't write. I don't call. There'll be more along shortly. Promi...

There's something that's both very vain and very voyeuristic about blogging. Unlike a diary you have to be aware (even hope) that someone else is reading what you write. On one hand it has to be personal and on the other there are still personal limits that you can choose to impose or not. Every so often when the mood takes me (and deadlines don't) I hit that button at the top of the blog page that says 'Next Blog' and it takes to me to random pages. It's a great exercise in life and it takes you...

Okay, the days have been getting away from me and my intention to do the day-by-day rundown of the Scotland trip seems a bit redundant. So here's a bunch of pictures. Each is worth 1000 words, so this my longest short post in ages. Firstly, one of the hills of Glenfinnan. Out of shot is the viaduct used in Harry Potter, but I wanted to catch the sunlight and the rainbow before they faded...This second image is almost a reverse shot, looking out to the west and the sun setting over the Glenfinnan...

Thursday December 28th: I'm up for breakfast, which for anyone who knows me, is a major feat... especially when the sun has not yet risen. Frankly if the big ball of light at the centre of the universe can't be bothered, why should my heavenly body, either? The early sleep has made me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by 7:00am. That's great if you're a squirrel, but Mosbys are less cute under such conditions. Yes, this is deepest (and currently darkest) Scotland and as I tuck into some corn flakes and...

In the spirit and format of the now legendary 'Biarritz or Bust' blog entries, there will be following a series of 'Dear Diary' about my week in Glenfinnan. Naturally you'll have the first blog at the lower point and have to work upwards. Equally traditional, Net access was minimal, so these entries are being uploaded on my return. The wonderful thing about brain and blog is that they allow time-travel...Wednesday December 27th:I didn't bother going to bed as, by the time I'd done three quarters...