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Thursday, December 31, 2009
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/wishes.html posted by Neil
I have to read something tonight, if I can stay awake. (I'll do it somehow. Intravenous tea, possibly.)
I know it's bad form to repeat yourself, but I was about to list all the things I hope for the readers of this blog in 2005, and I realised I'd already written it back in 2001, when I said...
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
And I sent them to http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/another-year.html which ended,
...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. And some people liked one, and some liked the other, and I suppose I'll write something new for tonight. But I haven't written it yet, and wanted to post this before midnight happened in the UK. For me, 2009 has been unquestionably the best and strangest year of my life, with many enormous highs and one huge low -- highs such as the Newbery, the Coraline movie, the low being my father dying so suddenly and unexpectedly -- but the biggest change of all was finding myself in a real relationship for the first time in a very long time, and with someone who loves me and makes me ridiculously happy, and who has me doing things I would never normally do, like finding myself in a Boston concert hall with a lethal musical instrument on New Year's Eve. And none of it, the good bits or the rough, would have been as easy without the support of my children. You don't get many years like this in a life, and I am both aware of this, and amazingly grateful. And an email from my editor letting me know that the Graveyard Book is still on the New York Times Bestseller List after fifteen months, reminds me of how much I owe to all of you. So thank you. Have a wonderful 2010. And goodnight.
Happy New Year to everyone! Nice to see so many of you this year, and hope to see many of you next year too. Have a wonderful end to 2009 and a great 2010!
Also, remember that New Year follows Dragon*Con rules. (Dragon*Con has only one rule: Do Not Die.)
Scrap my comments about not having a favourite TV show of the year. Making use of my parents telly, I've discovered a programme that is essentially American Chopper only about CAKE!
Current music: Ace of Cakes on "Good Food".
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/how-i-got-to-boston.html posted by Neil
My son Mike had to be back at work at Google in San Francisco on the 30 th. I had planned to get to Boston for Amanda’s New Year’s Eve concert on the 31 st, and I had wanted a day in Boston to recover. We were both on 7.00 am flights from the highlands of Scotland – his flight to take him to Gatwick, where he would bus to Heathrow and take a San Francisco plane, mine to take me to Manchester, where I would fly to Amsterdam, and from there to Boston. So I napped for a couple of hours and we left the house at 3:00 am. I drove for three hours, got us to the airport for 6:00am. Was sort of proud of myself. We checked in. We were on our way through the security line when a voice said “Due to snow, the airport is now closed. Nothing will be landing or taking off until 8:30.” We ate breakfast. They called me to the ticket desk and changed my flight from Manchester to Gatwick, with the same get-to-Heathrow plan that Mike had, which I didn’t mind. At least we’re together, I thought. Then I noticed they’d made a complete mess of the actual reticketing, went back and pointed it out to the lady who’d done it. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t notice. Not to worry. I’ll make a phone call and tell them what it ought to be.” My heart sank a little at this. (If it is not actually written in the system you can find yourself screwed as people squint at their screens at what’s written there, and the statement that “a lady said she’d make a phone call” can be met with indifference.) But Lorraine, my assistant, was still awake, and had just emailed me to see if there was anything she could do. And the tickets had been booked through a travel agent with a 24 hour helpline, so I asked Lorraine if she wouldn’t mind making sure that everything was okay. Since the last time I was in that airport they’d moved and hidden all the plug sockets, but I found one anyway at an office desk and charged my computer. At 8:30 the Tannoy voice said they’d tell us what was happening at 9:30 and at 9:30 they said they’d tell us at 10:30, and I do not know what they told us at 10:30 because I went to sleep in my chair, and slept until midday, when the Tannoy voice told us that we were boarding. From the Twitter stream, it looked like Lorraine was still awake and locked in a hellish battle with the airlines. “We will still make it,” I told Mike. “It’ll be a close thing, but we will make it.” I tromped across the quarter of an inch of snow that had fallen, puzzling over how this could shut down an airport, knowing the kind of snow it takes to shut down Minneapolis-St Paul airport. But then, in MSP they expect snow. We boarded the plane, found our seats. The pilot announced that the de-icing rigs weren’t working and I went back to sleep. My hopes had shrunk from getting to Boston today to just getting out of the airport. I woke up. We were still there. I walked back into the plane, told Mike that we wouldn’t be getting out of the UK today. “Yeah,” he said. “But we’re together”. And I thought, He’s right. This would be awful on our own. Together it was just some kind of interesting adventure. We took off at 2:15pm. We landed in Gatwick at 3.45pm Lorraine called just after we landed, before we were even off the plane. “You’re on the 7:15pm flight from Heathrow,” she said, and did a rapid briefing on what it had taken to get my ticket and its value back from FlyBe and over to British Airways. She’d been up all night and worked miracles. She was ready for bed. While we waited for our luggage, Mike talked on the phone to United, and got off very glum. “They’ll rebook me, but they’re charging $1900 to do it,” he said. He’d also used his airmiles to do it in business class, and was losing that. Luggage arrived. Lorraine called to make sure our luggage had arrived. She sounded beyond exhausted. “Can you check Mike’s ticket?” I asked. “They want another $1900 to get him home.” She took the booking number, called back twenty minutes later having got the change fee down to $300 and having got him back into business class. An amazing lady, my assistant. We took a taxi in the rain from Gatwick to Heathrow, I checked in without problems, hugged Mike a lot. The plane was late taking off due to the new pat-down and bag-examine rules. I was patted down (the pat-down wouldn’t have found any explosives I’d hidden in my inner thigh, where the idiot on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight hid his, because the man was too polite to check there) and my backpack was opened and looked into (it has many compartments that weren’t opened or checked, and the man would have missed a syringe if I had had one, like the aforementioned idiot had). I wondered for whose benefit the pat-down and baggage rummage was, and decided it was to make everyone feel safer without actually being inconvenienced in the way you’d have to be if you wanted to make sure no-one actually brought something dangerous onto the plane. I landed in Boston 28 hours after I left the house. Took a taxi to Amanda's apartment. I'd taken a hotel room nearby, as I knew she was going to be practising Tchaikovsky for the New Year's Eve gig until late, but was I asleep in her bed in minutes and the 1812 Overture with real cannon fire would not have woken me. … Yesterday was spent in the hotel, writing introductions and things. I went out for lunch with Chris Golden and Steve Bissette. Went back to the hotel. Wrote. Went with Amanda to watch her getting her hair done. Back to hotel. What I am going to do today: write, (blog in bed which I am doing now), wear a tuxedo, do a brief reading at Amanda's show tonight, play an instrument. I am not looking forward to the latter bit. ... Lots of interesting stuff creeping out at the end of the year. I'm probably proudest of this:  The theme of National Library Week is "Communities thrive at your library". Lots of details and a poster at http://www.ala.org/nlw.
Right. Time to stop blogging in bed and go and grab some breakfast.
Expect one more post, in a few hours, with a wish for 2010 in it...
3:13PM
'ello!
Believe it or not, I'm actually still alive. I've just not had really anything worth saying for the past few however longs it's been since I last posted. Life has been eventful and mostly fun when not being physics based although I've had a few moments of woe but I've not had anything worth saying. Hope everyone is fab. Anyway, in the absence of content, here's a few New Years Memes!
Best Gig - Skunk Anansie in the Electric Ballroom was fantastic although NIN do come a very close second
Worst Gig - Although nothing to do with her and everything to do with all the audience talking all the way through was Regina Spektor.
Best Album - A Different Season by The Shee
Worst Album - I've taken up avoiding bad music and buying albums for the sake of who they're by so I'm not entirely sure.
Best/worst Video and TV stuffs- No TV, so no idea!
Best Book (that I've read, for the first time this year): If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor was definitely my favourite. It was really harrowing though, I was feeling rather emo when I read the end and it left me totally in shreds
Worst Book (that I've read, for the first time this year): I've spent far too much of the year knee deep in physics textbooks (slightly unfair as I do love my degree, but there are times when I'm not so fond of my lecturers explanations of things).
Best Film: I've not cinema'd much this year, but District 9 was by far the best I saw
Worst film: I only saw it yesterday but Avatar was a bit rubbish. It felt rather like watching someone else play a computer game with added attempting to have a political undertone and stuffs. Very pretty though.
Best Person: almost everyone I know
I'm not giving a worst person award because it's nasty
Best Joke: I'm a physicist, thus I don't have a sense of humour.
Best Biscuit: Sainsburys "Taste the difference" Strawberry and Clotted Cream shortbread.
Best Absinth: the only absinth I had this year was drunk in Chris's flat at silly o'clock in the morning while he and Anna shouted poetry at each other. Exactly how absinth should be enjoyed. Head like a potato.
Best Coctail: Mojitos! But also the cocktail menu at the beginning of the night that lead to the above incident a while later.
Best Word: Ombudsman.
Best Boots: I'd say my John Rosha boots only I've managed to wear through the soles of them already. At least this means new shoes! The problem is my brain is telling me this means that I need to go to Jeffry West...
Best Shop: The most fun I've had in a shop this year was definitely Liberty although I've not actually bought anything there (the shirt I've been coveting isn't in the sale :( ).
1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before? Very little unfortunately. My life has been mostly taken up by physics.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn't make any last year. I'm toying with a few this year with mostly revolve around putting me first occasionally and sorting my life out.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! :) Alice and Richard, Chris and Rebecca. Several more friends are pregnant at the moment too.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully no.
5. What countries did you visit? Just the UK
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? Better health (as always). Less exams (which it will once I get the next lot out of the way). More excitement!
7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Uneventful year has been dull.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Actually making my way through the evil exam week of doom.
9. What was your biggest failure? Not being able to do things I wanted to do with my holiday. Failing to get the placement I wanted.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Same old, Same old.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Vivienne Westwood Cufflinks :D
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Quite a few people, very few of whom will read this.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Mine mostly.
14. Where did most of your money go? Aside from the usuals, poncy clothes :D
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? NIN/JA! :D
16. What song will always remind you of 2009? Possibly something off the first Yeah Yeah Yeahs album for no real reason other than coz for.
17. are you happier or sadder? Generally happier
thinner or fatter? Thinner or at least more trim, despite a truly awful diet over the past few months I've also been walking for an hour a day
richer or poorer? despite some conspicuous over consumption and occasional excessive purchases, Richer.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Seeing friends.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Revision. Being ill. Drinking for the wrong reasons.
20. How will you be spending Christmas? I spent it with my family, we had cocktails and roast beef
22. Did you fall in love in 2009? Not that I've noticed, this doesn't really mean anything though!
23. How many one night stands? None
24. What was your favorite TV program? I've not actually had a telly.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Not as far as I'm aware. I don't think I actually ~hate~ anyone. There's certainly some people who I like significantly less than I used to.
26. What was the best book you read? As was said above "If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor".
27. What was your greatest musical discovery? The Shee. I vaguely knew of them as they went to uni with my friend Karen, but I'd not actually heard them until this year and they were fab.
28. What did you want and get? My shirt from Blaqua. I first saw it a few months before I actually bought it but couldn't stop thinking about it so ended up having to buy it.
29. What did you want and not get?
A hovercraft.
30. What was your favourite film of this year? District 9.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? On the day I had a day of cellos and eating with Sel which was awesome. The day before I went to the zoo with Alice and Izzy and some school peoples which was also awesome fun. I was 29.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Better health. Better weather! A giant robot!!!
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Excessively poncy, poorly ironed shirts and skinny jeans.
34. What kept you sane?
Sane??? Seriously???
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Mmmm... Shakira.
36. What political issue stirred you the most? I've been entirely underwhelmed by pretty much every politician in the world and their ability to actually do anything. As summed up by the Copenhagen summit.
37. Who did you miss? Lots of people.
38. Who was the best new person you met? Have I met new people?!? I'm not sure I have. I have loads of awesome friends so it's all OK.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009: Physics is actually quite difficult times.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Date for your diary...
Myz Lilith's 21st* Birthday party for Supervillains and Evil Geniuses
*in hex
6th February 2010 from 7pm
My house - contact me directly for address
I am going to be 21. Again. (Counting in hexadecimal). Which isn't cheating. At all. Honest.
However, since some people may count switching to a completely different numeric system as being a little bit underhand, I want to make sure that those celebrating with me will be kindred souls who understand that reality occasionally needs adjusting in our favour. Therefore, this is a party for EVIL GENIUSES and SUPERVILLAINS.
Come dressed as an existing super villain, create a new one... (No heroes allowed, unless you can prove you are a double agent.) Prizes will be awarded for best costume, most imaginative weapon, most evil laugh, and best plan for taking over/destroying the world...
**Or first of two reminders, the second of which will be two days beforehand... I tend to be crap at doing the hard sell thing
Current mood:  devious
Sunday, December 27, 2009
We had a lovely Christmas day with Izzy - breakfast and a few presents at home before spending the morning with my parents. First duty was going with my Dad to feed next door's cat, which Izzy loved! More presents and lots of playing
After Izzy ate her lunch we headed over to Richards parents, where there were loads and loads of presents for Izzy - we had to open her presents in batches, to give her a chance to play with everything as we went along. Lots of fun and playing. Lots of chocolate (for me... and a few buttons for Izzy too :) ) and food. A go on singstar and the wii. All good :)
Now to update Izzy's wishlist in time for her birthday!
Current mood:  cheerful
Saturday, December 26, 2009
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/from-exact-middle-of-nowhere.html posted by Neil
Waving from the Middle of Nowhere, where there's no TV, my cell phone doesn't work and the internet is slow and klunky enough that semaphore might be more efficient.
Statuesque aired last night on Sky 1. I didn't see it. Didn't get to see the first part of the last David Tennant Doctor Who either. ( Statuesque is currently available on Sky Anytime, for UK Sky subscribers, until the 31st of Dec. Look it up under the title of "Ten Mintue Tales") (Yes, Mintue. I know they mean Minute, but that's what it's up as right now.)
On the other hand, we got a few hour's sunlight today. I saw some of that. And yesterday we went for a walk and, using map coordinates and the GPS Mike's amazing new Google Cell Phone (aka Dogfood) we found a Viking stone circle. And I'm cooking a lot on the Aga. My favourite present was one my children had clubbed together to get me: a painting of my dog, by artist Kelli Bickman. They know I love Kelli's stuff, and figured that I would be made happy by a painting of Cabal by her. And I am, very happy indeed.
Anyway. I hope you had a very happy Boxing Day, and that all your boxes belong to you.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
I hope everyone is having a safe and snowy Christmas week :) 2 more sleeps.
Lots of adventures here - 10 hour trip home from work on Monday (they let me go at 3:15, and I got home at about 1:05 am :( ) so I was so achey yesterday I called in sick. Today is holiday, so I'm not in again until Tuesday. Izzy is in nursery today, but I'm off to see her be a sheep in her nativity play later this afternoon.
We saw Nik and Penny on Sunday, which was fab :)
Anyway, what I really came on here to say was that I've not done many Chrimstmas cards again this year. Instead I have bought you all some chocolate. :)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/why-all-lettering-is-getting-smaller.html posted by Neil
I'm flying out tonight to the UK. I'll hole up in the middle of nowhere with my children and ex-wife and my mother as well, and probably be off-the-internet the whole time. There will be no TV in the middle of nowhere, so I will miss Doctor Who and miss "Statuesque" on Sky1 (10 pm Christmas Day).
Trying to deal with the last things I have to do before I get out of here. (Also realised very late last night that the problems I've had reading comics for the next Year's Best American Comics that I'm guest editing has nothing to do with losing my love for comics and everything to do with the fact that somewhere in the last year I must have started needing reading glasses for small print and had not realised this. I found a pair of reading glasses and the world became one with good, easy-to-read comics in it once again... I suppose more things like this will happen as I age. How odd.)
I leave you with a handful of links...
Okay. Back to last-minute things...
Monday, December 21, 2009
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