Saw the new X-Files movie this week.Truthfully... I thought it was pretty dreadful. The acting was okay, the direction was okay, but the whole film feels... unfinished. The series ran out of steam because Chris Carter and company liked asking questions but didn't see any urgency in answering them. This film sums that up... there's hardly a plot point that doesn't have a whopping great '?' after it. In fact, you'd be lucky to find one definitive comment in the whole movie. I'm not sure if that's because of the rush to get it to screen, or just the team wanting to play up the ambigious angles every...

I gave in. I was weak. Vain. (Perhaps even yuppy-ish if that word didn't make me sound old). Yet strangely justifiably pragmatic. So I keep telling myself.Yes, I swapped my cell phone for a Blackberry device at the local 02 Phone shop today. My last phone was okay and would have gone on for a while, but the back casing went missing somewhere en route to/from Iowa and looked/acted a little worse for wear. After speaking to my colleague Alison Jones at the Batman junket and finding that she'd got...

Well, as you can see opposite - if you're viewing this at the actual blogsite and if not, GO VISIT immediately and double my readership - the teaser is up for the next Highlander event I'm involved with. It'll take place in April 2009 and the 'City of Angels' and enlarged letters in the logo may just give you a clue as to where.The design took a while to put together and once again the trick was to give the logo an association with Highlander itself: hence the sword shape. But it is only one element of the whole launch image and event title which should be online sometime over the weekend. These...

Another busy week. I went down to London late on Sunday for an early Monday morning start with Batman, The Dark Knight. There was a press screening at the big IMAX screen near Waterloo Station and it was... quite stunning. Not remotely the 'superhero' movie I was expecting - more like an episode of Law & Order or the movie HEAT, with added kevlar. Christian Bale is good, but the rumours are true... Heath Ledger is simply outstanding as the Joker, a sociopath criminal who isn't in it for profit...

Normally all is fairly boring in Leeds. My tight social circle seemed to gradually dilute and evaporate over the last eighteen months and I've noted that I really, genuinely do have more close friends outside the country than I do within it. I've been lucky to visit Sydney and Iowa this year and hope to do so again at future dates, so I can't complain too much (but when has that ever stopped me?).However looking ahead I do have busy weekends coming up. This Saturday one of the local Impact writers,...

Jet-lag is a bitch. It's Friday evening in the UK, a week since Independence Day celebrations, and - without wishing to rub Jilly's nose in it - I think I've got her share of sleep... I must have had about seventeen + hrs since Wednesday afternoon and had to drag myself out of bed each morning. But somehow managed to get all the last remnants of Impact material done and dusted.In the next fortnight I have Dark Knight press stuff to do and, more importantly, several leads to follow up including chasing invoices etc to pay the bills. Glamourous, moi? Notsomuch.This weekend, while realigning myself...

Iowa to Chicago flight got in 30minutes early, so it NEARLY off-sets the delay on the outward journey. But I had more than enough time to grab something to eat and drink here and confirm my Standby status. Currently at Chicago O'Hare with about an hour before ETD. I've heard all the horror stories about this place, but seem to have avoided any of the bad experiences (so far). Things are running relatively smoothly and all the staff have been helpful. IF all goes well, I'll be back in the UK around 7:00am Wednesday. It looks like I'll have a bulkhead seat on the AA flight, so that may give me a...

As a kid - and in days when it was much safer - I used to spend my spare time going off with my fellow ankle-biters into the woods to try and catch newts and frogs and the like. I'd spend hours scurrying through undergrowth and wondering how far I could technically push my parents' rules abouyt where to go and where not to, without breaking them.Tonight I took a short walk from Jilly's house, down by the railroad tracks (not in use at the mo)and found myself by the banks of the Sioux River and straight...

Well, it's Wednesday in both the US and UK and I'm about halfway through my Iowa trip. The weather has been gloriously hot - actually reaching 91 degrees yesterday. It's cooler and cloudier today, but still very nice.Jilly is recuperating well and though it'll be near the end of the year before she's running any marthons or suchlike, she's already getting around well and even able to drive short distances. In the meantime I'm helping get the house sorted (I've discovered my innate domestic god...