This may all come to naught, but I’m just wondering: while I know I have a number of friends in what I might charitably call “the largely irrelevant bit outside the M25” (Who, me? Parochial?), I’m just wondering: do I know anyone in (or in easily commutable distance of) Leeds? And importantly, is there anyone of that parish who might be able to put me up for a night or two later in the year?

Last summer, I picked up a few really rather nice short-sleeved linen shirts – two black, and one purple. (Yes, there is a theme in my wardrobe. Well done for spotting it.) Anyway: They were reasonably priced, fairly nice looking and very comfortable. I’ve still got them, but I thought I’d try and pick up a few more this year. Initial expedition to the places I got last year’s from have failed to bear fruit, so I thought I’d look on-line. Surely somewhere in the world has to be selling the sort of shirt I want, in a colour I want.

Apparently not. Can I find anywhere that’s setting men’s short sleeved linen shirts in non-pastel colours? Not a fucking chance.

I have nothing useful to say, I just wanted to vent. Go back to whatever you were doing.

In a franchise that has contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, it should not be possible to say “that ending was too fucking stupid”.

And yet I am saying exactly that.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t a Phantom-Menace-grade celluloid abortion. It wasn’t a waste of money or time, mine or the makers. I was amusingly diverted for most of the movie. But at the points where it gets stupid, it get really, unforgivably fucking stupid. Not in a “switch-your-brain-off-and-it’ll-be-entertaining” way, no. In a “so-stupid-it’s-just-plain-poor” way.

What bugs me is that it’s meant to be pulp. The very font of fun-but-stupid. Except I can’t help feeling that what they made was the inverse. Stupid-but-fun. I feel I’m forgiving it the massive weaknesses, because the fun bits were good. And then I think about the fun bits, and realise they could have done those same sequences in *any* Indy film, and they get less forgivable.

But, in the end, I had fun staring at a really big screen. It’s just not fun I feel entirely good about.

That musical toy I was mugged by the other week is possibly the best bit of beeping, flashing plastic I have ever wasted 20 quid one. Really, an irrational amount of fun.

Also, I suspect NIN’s latest album was made on one.

• Glorious spring weather out the window behind me.
• Plans for the weekend that I’m looking forward to.
• A week off next week.
• Just about managed to get back into a regular exercise regime, and actually made a little progress on it.

I am…

• At work.
• Coming down with a cold.

I could do without this. I refuse to have my life disrupted by getting the plague, dammit.

99% of you will have no idea who this man was. I only met him once at a convention, for about ten minutes, (during which time he sold me three excellent graphic novels I had never heard of) and haven’t had even passing internet-contact with him in years. But he was one of the good guys, as testified to by the fact that just about everyone I know involved with comics in any way is making a post memorialising him, and like a couple of people have said, for someone I barely knew, I find myself remarkably saddened to hear of his passing.

Rory was the owner of what must be a very serious contender for the title “Best Comic Shop In The World”, Comic Relief in Berkley – I popped in there on a visit to San Francisco a few years back, and even for someone spoiled by the likes of Gosh! in London, it was obvious they couldn’t hold a candle to his operation, and not just in terms of size.

He was a tireless cheerleader for excellent comics of any kind and the medium will be poorer for the lack of him. All the best, Rory.

I have not been out clubbing properly in bloody ages. I feel the need to do something about this, plus there’s a bank holiday weekend coming, I have nothing to do on the Sunday until 5pm, and I have next week off work. This therefore feels like an opportune weekend for going out and get ruined.

a) Anyone else fancy clubbing?

b) Anyone got any suggestions as to where? I would ideally like the pounding pounding techno music until stupid o’clock in a reasonably low-chav environment, and if I can avoid it, I would like it not to be Slimelight, but a quick google reveals nothing that sounds terribly inspiring on this weekend, so I may yet wind reverting to default option out of lack of imagination.

Anyone?

If you have a studio, with a website, or even just a sign on your door, or really, anywhere that lists your opening times, then you would be well advised to make sure your studio is open at something close to those times. And at the very least, if it isn’t, you might stick a sign in your window to explain that.

Living Image in Greenwich don’t seem to feel they need to bother with such basics as that, the dozy fuckers. I showed up there at 1pm, an hour after their listed opening time (on both the website and the door) and they were shut. “Fair enough” I thought. “Maybe the trains are being a bastard, and they’ll be along in a bit.” So I waited about for a bit, encountering 2 lads who, like me, were along to book an appointment, and one slightly addled chap who said he’d popped along to get a barcode done. Or may just have been high. He certainly admit to serious drug use when younger, and I’m not entirely sure he’d given them up.

Alarmed by the slightly addled chap who would not stop talking to me, I decided I go and get lunch, and then pop back, hoping that he’d be gone, and they’d be open. A fryup and a pint later, I returned at about 3 pm. He was gone, buy they were still shut. So I fucked off to Into You, instead, where I now have an appointment for Tuesday 24th June. (Must book afternoon off.)

All in all, not terribly impressive – that’s two hours out of my day they wasted by not having any sort of sign anywhere obvious that they were going to be closed today. Still, they lost my business, and that of at least two, possibly three, other people today, so I guess what goes around comes around.

I am sure I’m supposed to be doing something this weekend. I just can’t remember what. Can anyone remind me? Or failing that, and assuming I don’t suddenly remember what the hell it is, is there anything interesting going on?