Okay, time to play catch up after a week too busy for blogging. So, I arrived in LA on 21st after a relatively speedy and trouble-free flight. I decided to take the optional and very good-value upgrade to Premium Economy and so got some space to stretch. No-one else was on my row, so I also managed to lay down and get some sleep.  Arrived safely and was through customs and to the Westin less than an hour after landing.  Met up with Carmel and the gang thereafter and started the prep...

Yesterday was interesting. Dragged my bags across from Covent Garden to Golden Square where I was able to leave them at the Paramount offices. Saw Star Trek in the morning - complete with a security guard standing next to me with night goggles-machine to make sure that as a veteran of twenty years I didn't pull out a massive VCR an dstart recording the movie in the screneing room (he dropped them in the dark, irony's a bitch, isn't it?) The film is a good sci-fi romp. All the cast do well (gotta...

So... on my way. Left the house at about 1:45 this afternoon and I'm currently on a pretty crowded train to London. Good job I reserved a seat as there'll be a fair amount of people standing for the rest of the journey. As that doesn't include little old ladies, I'm holding onto my seat for all its worth :) Just hope my luggage isn't squIshed before I even get to Heathrow. Should get into London around 5:20 and will be at the Travelodge around 6:00. Will take it relatively easy tonight and just...

No London or Wolverine on Thursday, then.  But I may get the chance to meet up with Val in Leeds for a quick drink prior to us heading out to LA. The absence of the trip to the Great Smoke means I have to do a bit of re-organising about my departure (now definitely heading to London on Sunday rather than Monday before flying Tuesday) but it also frees up some of my time tomorrow to get other necessaries out of the way. I'm already 3/4 packed with just the basics to add. I'm also taking some copies of The Cutting Edge to the con. Slowly but surely I'm getting through everything I need...

I can see it now... it's going to be one of those weeks where everything is going to be hurry up and wait. A week from now I should be well on the way to LA - possibly somewhere over the mid-west at this point -  and fretting that I've forgotten something like a toothbrush...but in the meantime I'm at the mercy of an electronic communication system and, more accurately, the people using it. I was supposed to be going down to do press with Hugh Jackman and director Gavin Hood for the upcoming Wolverine film on Thursday. Perfect timing as there's a possible screening of the new Star Trek...

Sitting waiting to be seen by the doctor, I noticed Elvis standing silently in the corner. He wasn't saying much but it occured to me that in an area where doctors evaluate how your head is doing, this was a somewhat cruel and unusual situation. Thankfully it was a cardboard cut-out and he and the four-foot bunny-rabbit in a nurse's outfit a few chairs down were not  hallucinations. Possibly. Uh-huh. The doc's given me a clean bill of health, technically. He told me in specific detail what had happened back in November ( the brain: imagine a main river with lots of side-streams... it...

Well, just on my way back from doing press for Race to Witch Mountain in which a certain Mr Rock (Dwayne Johnson) gets the star-billing. And a nice guy he is too... he enjoys the promotional side and never seems to take himself too seriously and had some pretty good pragmatic insights into making the transition from arena to silver screen. He's a genuinely good actor and while Witch is strictly for the ankle-biter brigade and demographic, it'll do no harm to his résumé . And he's certainly a nicer guy than the security-guard who greeted me on arrival and quite literally strode up towards...