Well, I think I may have just been in my first earthquake*. I thought it was a rumbling gust of wind outside (today has been very windy) but it went from a noise to a vibration to the whole house groaning. It was short, lasted only for a few seconds but I'll swear the earth moved. (Story of my life). Ironically, the last time Leeds even got a slight shake, I was in Los Angeles. Okay, these last ten minutes were hardly San Andreas, but that's not my fault.In other news, Mark Millar's latest comic...

As usual, I stayed up and watched the Oscars. There's been varying quality over the years, both in the winners and the show itself, but with the field wide open and with lots of material at his finger tips, there were some genuine surprises in the winners and Jon Stewart did a fine job of blending politics and cinema ("... usually when there's a female or black president, there's a asteroid about to hit the Earth").Having missed a couple of the big hitters this year, my attention was on the smaller...

It's been a busy couple of days. I haven't been down to London in some time, but the chance to do some press with the likes of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson (for In Bruges) and Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana ( for The Other Boleyn Sister) was enough to get me up at an ungodly hour on Monday morning and head down to the Big Smoke (or rather the Little Smoke since the law changed on cigarettes).The train trip down (and indeed the one up, on which I'm currently about 30 minutes...

Usually, when it comes to journalism, I'm on the safe side of the tape-recorder or printed page. I'm a great believer that the subject of the interview is much more important than the person asking the questions - as long as the questions are good and the replies more than a grunted 'yes' or 'no' (which, yes, does happen on occasion and, no, it's not pleasant).However on some ocassions, I'm the subject of the interview and when it's transcribed word-for-word, then I realise how often I 'um' and...

I can honestly say with hand on heart - and yes, I appreciate the irony of that - that I'd completely forgotten it was Saint Valentine's Day this week. I'm not an unromantic person when I put my mind to it and I've seen enough people fall madly in love and not kill each other to know that it can happen and it can be wonderful, fluffy and wuvvy-duvvy and that Cupid can be one hell of an archer when he puts his little cherubic mind to it.Then again, unless I'm seriously involved with someone at this...

The WGA strike is over. Well, no it's not really. For the last week or so various industry types have been procaliming as such, but in reality the last bits of the current deal weren't even hammered out until this past weekend and even now, the details have to be agreed by the members. However, yes, the WGA management appear to be saying to their members that they recommend the deal as the best one available at the moment. A vote on whether to go back to work immediately (well, Wednesday) is underway...

Today I finally took in my laptop to PC World. It's been wonky for months, with the space-bar giving up the ghost a few months ago and I've got by with a spare keyboard attached. With my parentals going away, I'm now using theirs until I get mine back. The guy at PC World says it could be several weeks... and it would have been quicker if I'd just let someone come and pick it up rather than bringing it in. *sigh*However mum managed to see some discount christmas gifts (URL Santas that drum various...