Mick's BICS

Last weekend, I attended the British International Comics Show (BICS) here in Birmingham, and it was a really enjoyable weekend. The venue, as it as has been for the last couple of years, was Millenium point, a giant, grey building that looks like it should be in Mega-City One. this means that the two guys dressed up as Mega-City judges looked right at home when they were milling about the place.

Our friends Jamie and Theresa came up to stay with us for the weekend, so this meant Jamie and I could go to the show whilst the ladies went shopping. They also went to see Fame at the cinema, and apparently it's a load of shit. What a surprise.

When you get there, you have to go into the lift to get to where the event is being held. This must've been the right place, because sharing the lift with us was a stormtrooper. Not the historical Nazi-type, you understand, the imperial type, from Star Wars. After we got out of the lift, Jamie, who is a Star Wars nut, saw a group of blokes dressed up as various types from the space saga. There were Clone Troopers, Stormtroopers, Mandalorians (well, a couple of guys dressed as Boba Fett, anyway)and TIE-fighter pilots. He gave me his camera and then went and asked them if he could have his photo taken with them, and they duly told him to get on his knees and pointed their blasters at him. As usual, I pressed the button and nothing happened. I have a real problem with digital cameras. It's as if my hands turn into cow's tits.(That's why all of our holiday photos have just me in them!) It's a shame, it would've been a cool photo.

After we got in, we had a mooch about, and there seemed to be quite a lot fewer stalls than there were last year, but this meant there was more room to walk about. Unless you were stuck behind the Dalek, which seemed to revel in blocking the gangways. This year, as I didn't really have anything new to sell, my plan was to show my portfolio around and hopefully get some work. Everyone I showed my work to really seemed to like it, and I've already had a couple of emails asking me if I'd like to do something.(more on that when I know more myself!)

The main reason for going to these things, however, is to catch up with people you only ever tend to see at these things or shoot the shit with the creators you've worked with before. I tend to find that you hardly ever talk about comics with comics creators. The main topic of conversation seemed to be how shite the launch party was. I was glad I didn't go. It was held in the Panama bar, which is off Broad Street (Birmingham's 'Golden Mile' , which is only golden in the same way a stream of piss is golden.) I read somewhere that BICS special guest Howard Chaykin described the women he'd seen on Broad Street as “the sluttiest, trampiest women” he’d ever seen. Sounds about right.

As usual, we met up with Andy Winter, my collaborator on Septic Isle (still selling well), and moaned about the state of the world, as we tend to do, and we arranged to go out for dinner later on. I also showed him the two pages I've done for the four-page web comic I'm doing for him right now. (preview panel above) Also, over the weekend, I bumped into a couple of people I've not seen for a couple of years. Firstly, there was Michiru Morikawa, who was on the StripSearch course with me way back in the mists of time, and anyone who lives in Brum will be familiar with her art, as it is her work that's on the back of many of our buses, asking people if they want to adopt. Anyway, she's gone back to live in Japan, but she was back to promote her book Buskers, published by Imsomnia Publications. Her work is fantastic, pick up a copy. It's worth it.

I also bumped into fellow Brummie and Villa fan Ben McCool, who wrote the script for the Stuffed comic, which included my very first published comic art. He lives in the Big Apple these days, writing for DC. As usual, he had a stinking hangover when I saw him. He told me that he was taking his DC editor to Villa Park for the match against Manchester City. That's got to be a culture shock for the poor sod. He probably now knows very well what Karren Brady gets up to of a night-time, after having it sung at him by 40,000 people.

I also had a couple of stints manning the MC2 table, which was right next to Diamond Distribution's table, which had loads of free comics on it. During both of my stints, I never sold any books, but I was asked about sixty times 'Are these free?' by punters looking at the Diamond table.

On the Saturday night, Me and my glamourous other half, Jamie and his, Andy Winter and Andy Radbourne (creator of Brit Force, another comic you should go out and get) all went out for dinner and a few drinks, and a cracking night was spoiled when I got home by me not looking where I was going in my garden and ending up falling into some bushes and skinning my knee. The less said about this the better.

We went back on the Sunday, after being forced to watch Strictly Come Dancing, which seems to go on forever. There have been wars that have taken less time. Most wars are probably less psychologically scarring, too. I showed my portfolio to the people I didn't get a chance to see the day before, and again, generally positive feedback. I ummed and aahed about forking out for some Copic pens. They were very expensive, and despite hearing 'they're what Adam Hughes uses' at least twenty times, I decided not to, as I'm not Adam Hughes.

Generally, though, it was a great weekend, and I'm hoping it happens again next year, which is likely, as more people came this year, apparently. More normal-looking people, too! Since I've been going to Comic-cons regularly, I've noticed that the clientele is getting more and more normal-looking; glamourous, even! The days of the BO-stinking hunchbacks are long gone.

Shock News! Something Interesting Happening In Birmingham!

This weekend, I'll be attending the BICS (it used to be the Birmingham international comics show, but it has been upgraded to the British international comics show this year.), which is held at Millenium Point, here in Birmingham. I'll be manning the MC2 table for a wee bit each day, and no doubt I'll be lurking around the Moonface Press table at some point, too, so if you want your freshly-purchased copy of Septic Isle signed by me, hunt me down. Figuratively speaking, of course.


It's really strange attending one of these things in your own town. I'm used to going to Bristol and staying in a hotel, so just hopping a bus to go to a major convention like this doesn't seem right, yet. This event is going from strength to strength every year, and with the Bristol show seemingly shrinking away into nothing, it's possibly now the UK's premier comics convention. I just hope all the publishers do something original this year, the last couple of years have been dominated by zombies. Marvel zombies 1,2& 3. Zombie variant covers. Barack Obama vs. The Army Of Darkness (okay, I made that one up, but I wouldn't be surprised if something like this turns up in Previews in the near future.) And last but not least, DC have jumped on the bandwagon with Blackest Night (which is apparently quite good, although I'm yet to read any of it). I'm fed up with the reanimated dead. You wouldn't catch me jumping on that particular bandwagon.

Okay, maybe I would. It's good to see the Zombie-Mick would still wear his glasses.

Anyway, come along to BICS! You know it'll be good for you!

Oh, and following up on my last post, I thought I'd put this video up, too. You've probably seen it, as it's done the rounds, but it raises a smile, even on my dry, black-hearted , cynical lips.

Way Out West.

Apparently, last night, Kanye West got pissed up and stormed the MTV VMA stage in protest when Taylor Swift won Best Female and tried to take the award away from her. He wanted Beyonce to win. I have to agree, this video of hers is probably one of the best I've seen in years.

Birmingham City 0 Aston Villa 1

After a tight game and a tense finish we beat our scabby neighbours from Small Heath 1-0 with a goal from the lovely-looking Gabriel Agbonlahor (left). Isn't he beautiful?

It was all too much for me and my blood pressure. I'm off for a lie-down now.

UP THE VILLA!!!!

What I did in the school holidays, by Mick, aged 35.

Hello again! Sorry for the lack of updates, but it's been a busy few weeks, mostly taken up with work, various trips around the country and spending time with my nippers during the school holidays.

If you're interested, these are a few of the things I've been up to. If you're not, well, you can stop reading, I suppose.


Nine Inch Nails/ Jane's Addiction

Blimey, this seems like ages ago now. Those of you that read this blog regularly, or actually know me personally (that does happen, sometimes) know that I'm a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. Ever since I first saw them live way back in 1991 in a shitty little club here in Birmingham that isn't even there anymore. The American leg of this tour was called the 'NIN/JA' tour, which sounded cool. I can imagine Trent Reznor thinking 'Well, we're NIN, so we need someone with the initials JA to support us, just so we can have a cool name for our tour.' So, after Julie Andrews, and then Birmingham's own Joan Armatrading both turned him down, they asked the recently reformed again Jane's Addiction. ( I'm only kidding! I know Trent Reznor is a big fan of Jane's Addiction, even sampling Perry Farrell's screaming for 'Ringfinger', the last track on NIN's debut album Pretty Hate Machine, as well as using 'Sex Is Violent' on his soundtrack for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.)

As I said, NIN/JA was the name of the US tour. By the time it got to th UK, it had changed its name to 'Wave Goodbye' as Trent Reznor had decided that NIN aren't going to tour anymore. So I can say now that I saw them on their first tour, and their last. I bet Trent saw me in the crowd and thought 'I'm glad Mick's here, it kinda bookends the whole touring experience for me.'

Anyway, the gig was in Manchester, at the MEN arena. The hotel me and my glamorous other half stayed in wasn't very good. Should've been, for the price, but it was awful. I'm not a big fan of Manchester anyway, I've been there four times now, and it's never impressed me. That said, each time I've been has only been a flying visit, maybe I'd enjoy it more if I stayed there a bit longer. (Did that sound diplomatic enough? Good.)

Because we left after work and drove straight up there, we missed about half an hour of Jane's Addiction, but what I did see was very good. I was slightly distracted by the vertical sweat stain that was on the back of the bassist's shorts, but the music was good. However, at one point, a couple of scary-looking women in front of us turned around and asked me if I liked it. When I said 'Yeah' they shook their heads and the scariest looking one said 'I just don't get it, me.' So, in summary, Jane's Addiction: Good, but not for everyone, especially if you resemble Morticia Addams' chubbier sister.

Looking around the stadium, I realised I was one of the oldest people there. Most of the crowd probably weren't even born when I saw them in 1991, which is a frightening thought. Anyway, when NIN came on, they were awesome. Their light show probably damaged my retinas forever (this was before the government's ban on filament bulbs) and even though this was their last ever tour, they didn't go for the standard 'greatest hits' setlist. They played songs that I'd never heard them play live before, as well as some of the old standards. It was, basically, a great night, and I'm glad I was there.

Banksy vs. Bristol Museum

My girlfriend's old friend Sarah came over from Amsterdam (She's not Dutch, she works there.) to visit and we all agreed that going to the Banksy exhibit would be good for a laugh, so we booked a night in an ibis (always fun!) and buggered off down to Bristol. This was the first time I've been to Bristol without being there for the Comics Expo. It was kinda strange not seeing any imperial stormtroopers or kids dressed as Wolverine milling about, but that was cool as I like Bristol. I've had many a fantastic time there. And, unusually for the Summer we've just had, the weather that weekend was fantastic.
We were told to expect queues, and by the time we got there on a Saturday afternoon, the queue was massive, and we were told that we were likely to be waiting for three hours, so we didn't go that afternoon. Luckily, unbeknownst to us before we got there, Bristol was holding its annual Harbour festival, which consisted of loads of boats, obviously, live shows, music and comedy and lots of barbecues and drinking. We watched some of the live show, but after watching some woman fanny around on a tightrope whilst some bloke sat by the side playing flamenco guitar, (It's supposed to be 'arty', but I call it 'bollocks'.) I thought it would be a good time to go to a pub. Then again, I always tend to think it's a good time to go to the pub. Thing is, because of the festival, all the bars were heaving, and they only served you drinks in plastic cups, which I'm not fond of.
So, after a few plastic pints (for me, anyway. The ladies had cocktails. That's because they're ladylike and posh, and I'm neither of those things!) we went for an overpriced al fresco dinner, which tasted nice, I suppose, but it was kind of ruined by the sight of a local teenage girl who was too pissed to stand up and throwing her ring up. We took this lesson about binge drinking to heart and then went for a few more plasticky pints in several of the dockside bars.
The next morning, we got up early, which isn't good if you have a hangover, had a mediocre breakfast and several coffees at the hotel , then headed up to the Bristol Museum an hour and a half before it opened. It sounded like a good plan the day before. Still, the wait was worth it. It was a fantastic exhibition. I've been to a few exhibitions before (including the ones I was a part of) and they tend to be dry affairs. Except for the ones where there were free drinks (which was the only reason I went to a few of them). Not this one. This exhibition was fun. Sick and twisted, but fun. No free drinks, but great nonetheless.

As you go in, you notice the Ronald McDonald figure stuck to the front of the museum, he's very high up, his make-up is tear-stained, and there's an empty bottle of Jack Daniels perched next to him, and it looks like he's about to jump. As you enter the exhibit, you walk past a burned-out ice-cream van, and behind it is a policeman on one of those kiddie's rides you see outside supermarkets, with distorted ice-cream van music, and the effect is eerie. Before you go into the exhibition proper, there's a painting riffing on the old Hansel and Gretel story, only it's Michael Jackson opening the door to the children. Out of respect, there was a candle burning in front of it. This set the tone for the rest of the show.

The main part of the exhibit focuses mostly on his graffiti stuff, most of which is very clever, although a lot of it is anti-police, and that gets a bit boring after the fifth image of coppers kissing each other or holding hands. The highlight of this first room was a giant painting of the House Of Commons, only the politicians have been replaced by chimps.

The second room was set out like a zoo, several cages with animatronic puppets in them, one with a caged ape painting an imagined sunset, one with chicken McNuggets hatching out of eggs, a rabbit putting make up on in front of a mirror, a Birdseye crispy fish-steak swimming around in a tank, and so on, all basically highlighting how awful the human race is to animals. Which is a fair point, but I reckon it's the animals' fault for being so damn tasty. My favourite part of this room was the cage with an aged, wretched-looking Tweety Pie in it. I could've stood there and watch that thing sigh all day.

That wasn't the end of it, either. Banksy had had a go at the rest of the museum, too, replacing pictures and exhibits with his own. So, you get what looks like a Constable, a country landscape, but this one has a car in it, with a visible bare arse in the windscreen , and it's titled 'Dogging'. It's not highbrow, but it's funny. There was another one where UFOs were attacking an old painting of a busy seaport. My favourite of these replaced paintings was this one, called 'Agency Worker':


This was a clever way of geting people to have a look around the whole museum, trying to find the bits Banksy had tampered with. There was all kinds of puerile things, including a dildo in the stalactite collection, a plate with a turd on in a cabinet full of ceramics, and one of those awful plates with a photo of kittens on it was put in a cabinet with fine china.
Anyway, we had a blast. It's the first time I've been to an art exhibition and come out laughing. I'd recommend you go, but I think it's finished now. Oh well, go to Bristol Museum anyway, it's a lovely building.


Other stuff.

I've also been on various trips around the Midlands with my offspring: Cadburyworld, West Midlands Safari Park, and Warwick Castle, which were all good fun, and I've also been down to Brighton for a wedding, but I'm knackered now. I just want a nice, relaxing stress-free weekend for a change. Oh, hang on, Villa play Blues this weekend! Aaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!

New season, same old shite.

Modern football is rubbish.

It's Back!

At last! Tomorrow sees the start of the Premiership season 2009/2010. Weekends have a purpose other than just shopping again! I did start writing a post about how football is being ruined by the excessive money being bandied about by the rich clubs, but I deleted it, because I still love the game, and I can't wait for the footie to start.

The club I've supported since I was swimmimg around in my dad's ballbag, Aston Villa, has had a funny old pre-season. Gareth Barry, our club captain, left to join moneybags Manchester City, which was weird, because he always said he wanted to play in the Champions League, and if Villa didn't get there, he'd join a club that did. Before last season, Liverpool kept trying to sign him, but our manager, Martin O'Neill quite rightly told them to fuck off. This season, however, he's gone and joined Man City, who aren't in any European competitions at all. He gave some bollocks excuse about becoming stale at Villa, but we all know the hundred and twenty grand a week he's now getting in wages is the real reason he went there. I'd love it if Manchester City win absolutely fuck-all this season and finish nowhere near the Champions League, but then, I'm childish like that.

We have also lost our talismanic centre-half Martin Laursen, who retired through injury, and we've not replaced him. We've signed three new players in the close season, Fabian Delph, from Leeds, who, by all accounts, is going to be a star one day, but he's untried at the top level, Habib Beye, a defender from Newcastle, who got relegated, so he can't be that good, and Stewart Downing, a winger from Middlesbrough who is a decent player, but won't play until at least December, because he's broken his leg. O'Neill keeps moaning about how small our squad is, yet he never seems to buy any players. Put up or shut up, Martin. You'd think it was his money he's afraid of spending.

Villa won the Peace Cup in Spain, beating Champions League teams Porto and Juventus along the way. I know you can't read anything into these two-bob pre-season tournaments, but it shows how far we've come since O'Neill joined Villa. What was weird was seeing Villa get the cup from the Reverend Moon when we won. Strange.

As we've got next to no chance of winning anything this year, what I'm really looking forward to are the the derbies. Wolverhampton Wanderers and Birmingham City are both back in the Premiership this year, and it's good that the Midlands has a decent showing in the Premiership this year. The Wolves games I'm not that bothered about, although I hope we beat them, of course, but the priority is Birmingham City. We have to beat them. We will beat them. The 5-1 beating we give them the season before last was a fantastic result that will live long in the memory. It's almost up there with the birth of my kids as a great day in my life. The bluenoses (that's what City supporters are called up here) have been too gobby since they got promoted, and I'd love it if we shut them up.

So, basically, I'd love us to win something, but we probably won't. I'm just glad football is back after a boring summer watching shite like cricket, tennis and athletics. If we start doing badly, maybe I'll publish that post about how football is rubbish these days.

"Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like f**king Shaft!"

I read somewhere the other day that it's been ten years since Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out. And this got me thinking;those prequels were a load of old shit, weren't they? I was so excited, at the time, being a child of the original Star Wars generation, and the trailer got me all excited, but then I went to see it. It was shit. You think I might've been warned by the 'fix it 'til it's broke' original trilogy special editions. You might be arguing with me in your head now, but read on, and I'll prove to you the prequels were shit:

The Baddies in Episode I are a Trade Federation. Yeah, the bad guys are a corporation! Stick it to the man, multi-billionaire George Lucas!

The aliens in the trade federation talk in rubbish 'We So Velly Solly' Japanese accents. You see, all evil businessmen are Japanese! Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!!

The bad guy droids are all linked to a central computer, so why do they talk to each other? And why do they say 'Roger roger' all the bloody time?

The Gungans all talk in rubbish 'Yaaa mon' Jamaican accents. Giant rasta frogs must've sounded brilliant in the scripting stages. They're basically just spacey Uncle Toms. Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!

Having Brian Blessed as their leader must've also sounded brilliant in the planning stages. Didn't turn out that way, did it?

Jar Jar Binks. Everything he says and does. He was the first major CGI 'synthespian'. What a missed opportunity.

Watto, the owner of the Skywalker slaves, talks in a rubbish 'Oy Vey' New York Jewish accent. He's a corrupt businessman. Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!

Queen Amidala's scary voice when she addresses anyone important.

Jake Lloyd as Anakin. I can't imagine the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the whole universe ever said 'yippee!'

I also can't imagine that the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the whole universe built C-3PO, either.

I also can't imagine that the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the universe is called 'Annie' by his friends and family.

I used to think Jedis had some special ability that made them be able to use the Force, but no, it's because they have Midichlorians in their bloodstream. I hate the whole notion of Midichlorians. If they could make a clone army, why not clone midichlorian infested blood too and have yourself an army of thousands of soldiers with Jedi-like abilities?

Anakin didn't have a dad. He was a virgin birth, apparently. Eh?! Is it a Christ allegory? Only, in this version of the New Testament, Jesus goes bad and throttles his pregnant missus? Nope, it's those pesky Midichlorians again, fertilising poor old Shmi Skywalker. I reckon Lucas just couldn't be arsed to write about Anakin's dad, he was too busy fucking about with rasta frogs.

That two-headed alien that commentates on the podrace is one of the crappiest-designed aliens I've ever seen.

The best characters, Qui-Gon Jinn, Sebulba (Yeah, I know he's an essentially one-dimensional cartoon bully, but I think he was a fantastically designed and realised alien) and especially Darth Maul (the best thing about the prequels, in my opinion) all die in the first episode, leaving all the shit ones behind to try and hold our interest.

Darth Maul's two bladed lightsabre might've been a cool surprise, if only they'd left it out of the sodding trailer!

Ewan MacGregor's piss-poor vocal impersonation of Sir Alec Guinness.

How come all the technology on show is much more advanced than the stuff we saw in the original trilogy? This is suppose to be set before those. Also, the people in Star Wars' past were far more equal opportunities, with more women being fighter pilots, etc. I can't remember any female fighter pilots in A New Hope. That's not a criticism, though.

The casting of Hayden Christensen as Anakin for Episode II. He's possibly the worst actor in the world after that bloke who plays Nick Cotton. Not unfairly is he referred to as 'Mannequin Skywalker' in Clerks 2.

Episode II is supposed to be ten years after Episode I?! Nobody looks ten years older, except Anakin, and if it is ten years after the first one, this makes Padmé a bit of a cradle-snatcher, doesn't it? Aren't there any Jedis her own age she can fall in love with and make them turn to the Dark Side?

I liked it when we didn't know that much about Boba Fett. It made him a much cooler character. Now we know he looks like that bloke from Shortland Street and Barb Wire under his helmet.
Jango Fett was a cool character, though, but like all the best characters in the prequels, he gets killed.

The fact that the prequels were filmed in Australia, and so have lots of people that used to be in Neighbours are in it. Except for Jim Robinson, who appears in every other American movie.

Obi-Wan and his 'You're going to be the death me' jokes/predictions when talking to Anakin.

That whole sequence when C-3PO heads gets swapped with a federation droid just isn't funny.

R2-D2 can fly?! Does he forget he can do it by the time he meets up with Luke and Leia?

The whole sequence when Anakin spends time with Padmé on Naboo and tries to chat her up by saying she's not like sand, is clichéd and awful, and illustrates something that's wrong with all the prequels; the god-awful dialogue.

The same old cliché; Anakin gets to his mother the very moment before she snuffs it.

The Death Star was designed by cock-roach people? Eh?

The Clone Wars sounded cool when they were referred to in the older films, but they were a bit of a letdown when we actually got to see them.

Yoda in Episode II doesn't look anything like the Yoda from Episode I, and even though he can't walk without the aid of a stick, as soon as he gets his lightsabre out he starts whizzing about like a giant bluebottle?

In fact, Yoda's cut-and-paste way of talking gets on my tits. In the original ones it was cute, you could explain it by the fact he was very old and he's talking in a second language and he has trouble with sentence structure when he's saying what he's thinking when he's thinking it, but in the prequels, even when he makes a bloody speech he still does it. And the original muppet in Empire still has far more personality than his CGI replacement in Episodes II & III.

Sorry to dwell on him, but Yoda was mates with Chewbacca when he was younger? Did he used to babysit for Han Solo's mum and dad too?

Christopher Lee's Count Dooku is a cool character, as it's Christopher fucking Lee, but again, his character gets killed way too soon.

Padmé dies because her husband tried to force-strangle her when she's heavily pregnant, but even though she's dealing with that and the colossal pain of childbirth, she still knows exactly what to call the babies, even the one she didn't know she was carrying? And even though most Jedis can see into the future, know-one knew she was carrying twins?

I still don't know why the Emperor's face went all lumpy.

The emergence of the black-helmeted Darth Vader should have been the highlight of the prequels, seeing as that was what we were all waiting for, but instead, we got this:


NoooOOOOOooooOOOOO! It's almost Shatneresque.

If you're going to hide a baby from the biggest baddest bastard in the universe, letting him keep the name Skywalker and giving him to his stepbrother on the planet he grew up on isn't really the best plan. It worked, though, so what do I know?

And finally, in A New Hope, Obi-Wan clearly states that he doesn't remember owning a droid. That droid is R2-D2. Surely you'd remember that robot that was by your side when all the bad stuff was happening?

And so I rest my case. the Star Wars prequels were shit. They weren't all bad, the lightsabre duels were much more exciting, the podrace was cool (a bit overlong) and some of the scenes in Revenge Of The Sith (the death of the younglings; the Jedis getting wiped out; Owen and Beru getting baby Luke) pack a dramatic wallop that equals anything in the other films, but there wasn't enough of those to save it from the overall dreck.

Oh, and thanks to Tim Bisley for the title.

Roman Holiday part three: Final Roundup.

Right, I'm going to finish this if it kills me. I'm going to quickly round up the rest of my holiday in Rome, because I've taken far too long to actually get round to doing it properly, and I'm sure you lot are fed up of reading about it by now. It's like when someone offers you their holiday snaps to look at, and you take them, interested, only to find that interest totally evaporated by the time you get to the fifth photograph. (I'm reminded of that quote from Black Books: 'All holiday photos are of people who didn't realise they were that fat, squinting!')

So anyway, I'll go through what we looked at, as quickly and as (hopefully) humorously as possible:


Trevi Fountain



You can tell this was built in a time before the tourist was invented. The fountain, which is huge, is in a really small square. Because of this, you end up shoulder-to-shoulder with other tourists, beggars, pickpockets and tat peddlers, and there's loads of them.

The beggars are odd. In most other places, they invade your personal space and ask you for money. Sometimes they tell you their story. Sometimes they stumble over, pissed up, and swear at you until you give them a couple of quid to go away. Maybe that's just Birmingham beggars. Not so much in Rome, as most of the beggars I saw tend to lie prostate on the floor, as if praying, with a tin can in front of them in which you're supposed to put any spare euros you might have.

We didn't even get to chuck any coins in the fountain either, as is the tradition, because it was so bloody crowded there, but I did get shat on by a pigeon, so it's swings and roundabouts.

It is a bloody impressive thing, though. An awesome piece of sculpture. We didn't see Anita Ekberg dancing in it though, but that's probably a good thing these days as she's nearly eighty, bless her.


Pantheon

This place was originally a temple for all the Roman gods, built by Agrippa, but it burned down and was rebuilt by Hadrian. In the sixth century, it was given to Pope Boniface IV who converted it into a Christian church, and it's also the site of Raphael's coffin. It was the biggest dome ever built before the invention of reinforced concrete, and at the top of the dome is a big circular hole, called the Oculus.

This place is amazing. You walk in, and you notice how much cooler it is in there, you're no longer baking hot. As I mentioned, Raphael is interred there, and you can see his coffin through a glass window. I don't know where the rest of the ninja turtles are buried, though. It is an amazing piece of architecture, especially when you consider it was built in the early second century.

Generally, though, all this religion stuff leaves me cold. I can appreciate the beauty of the buildings, but they won't convert me to God-bothering. What pissed me off about this place was when I heard it used to be covered in marble, but them pesky Catholics took it to build St. Peter's with. By this point on the holiday, I'd heard this a few times at different ancient Roman buildings (the Forum and the Colosseum, amongst others) mainly because I'd have liked to see it in all its original splendour. But then again, how many ancient buildings can you see in their original form, anyway?
Apparently, the best time to see this place is when it's raining, as seeing the rain come in through the oculus is supposed to be amazing, but there was no chance of that at the time we went.

Castel Sant'Angelo

The day we went here was my birthday. We tried at first to get into St. Peter's Basilica, but there was some hold-up and we were stuck in a queue that was going nowhere for the best part of an hour, baking in the ferocious sun, until we thought 'fuck this' and left to get a beer and something to eat, but not far from the Vatican is this castle, and I loved this place. My glamorous other half wasn't so keen, though.

It was originally Hadrian's mausoleum, but it was later fortified and turned into a castle. It's a big, round building, with lots of spiral staircases. The main courtyard has a sculpture of St. Michael by Raphael in it (left) , and a lot of the other courtyards have cannons and other military ephemera in there. Also in there was a mini art gallery, which, whilst we were there, had a collection of the creepiest paintings I've ever seen. You know, kinda like Heironymous Bosch, but shit. Also in there was a museum of old military uniforms and swords and pistols and stuff (luckily, no Mussolini-era fascist togs; that would've given out the wrong message), I love looking at stuff like that, as I'm fascinated by wars. Wouldn't like to be in one, however. As you go up the castle, you get great views of Rome, and the view from the very top of the place is supposed to be amazing, but I didn't get to see it as my girlfriend got an attack of vertigo, so we had to get lower down fairly sharpish. I did get to see the top of the castle when we went to see Angels And Demons with Heather's parents, as the castle featured fairly prominently in the movie. Luckily, there weren't any antimatter bombs there when we were there, or any of the other far-fetched shite from that ridiculous movie. I mean, a bloody parachuting priest jumping out of an antimatter-induced exploding helicopter. What a load of old bollocks. Still more believable than Ewan McGregor's Oirish accent, though.

Basilica di San Pietro


Or St. Peter's, to you and me. Like I've said, I'm not religious at all, but this place is impressive. The Piazza outside, with all the columns and the statues of the saints and the obelisk is an amazing spectacle.

We went inside and it was heaving. A big chunk of the basilica was cordoned off. Marching through it was lots of Germans in lederhosen and other traditional dress blowing trombones and tubas and playing various musical instruments and waving the German tricolour flag about with lots of other banners all with very long words and lots of umlauts. I thought it might be a world record attempt for the biggest oompah-oompah band, because it went on for ages, but then I thought that was a stupid idea, as St. Peter's isn't really the place for that kind of thing. But then, it also seems odd that Germany, probably the most Protestant country in the world, had a delegation marching through the Vatican. Maybe I wonder about these things too much. Anyway, because of this event, a lot of the basilica was off-limits, but a lot of what I did see was beautiful. Like Michaelangelo's Pieta, for example. It's behind glass, so you can't look at it properly, but it is a beautiful sculpture, and apparently, it's the only work of his that he signed, and that was only because people refused to believe that an artist that young could achieve such a masterpiece. I still had a cob on with the Catholic church for nicking all that marble, though.

All around St. Pete's are loads of monuments to different saints and prominent churchmen and martyrs and suchlike. I got into a little bit of trouble when I asked my girlfriend 'where's the monument for all the buggered schoolboys?' she told me this wasn't the time or place for such crude humour. I argued that all those poor boys who martyred their bumholes for the Catholic church should get some kind of recognition, especially since the current Pope has done his best to sweep all reports of abuse under the carpet. But I got that look that means 'shut up' and I stayed quiet until I saw an american lad walking around with a T-shirt on that said 'I AM AN ATHEIST' on it in big letters. I want one of those. I thought I was being a bit cool wearing a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt (seeing as the band is named after the things they stuck Jesus to the cross with) but that shirt was ace. Anyway, after having a good mooch, we decided not to go further into the Vatican, as it would've cost us something like ninety quid to go and have a look around, and as it was near the end of our holiday, we didn't have much money to spend. It's a shame, I would have liked to have seen the Sistine chapel and the crypt and all the other stuff, but it wasn't to be. Maybe next time.

What was weird was all the stalls just outside. There tends to be more stuff for sale with the last Pope, John Paul II, on than there is with the new one. I wanted to get my kids the lollipops they were selling. You should've seen them, they were brilliant. They had lollipops with photos of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI on them. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to lick a dead Pope's face, then this is how you find out. I was talked out of buying my kids the lollies by my girlfriend, who said they were in bad taste, and at seven euros each, they were expensive. After I got back and I told my daughters about it, they told me they would've loved the lollies, as they've inherited my sick sense of humour. Maybe next time.

Villa Borghese/Bioparco

Bioparco is a zoo. It's inside the Villa Borghese park, which is a lovely park, a little oasis of calm in the chaos that is the city of Rome. It has little paths in it all named after the world's famous authors, and these paths have statues of the titular authors by the side of them. It's so big you can hire pushbikes or segways, or them mad tandem things with roofs on that they had in The Prisoner to get around it in. (At one point, when we'd stopped for a breather, we saw a dwarf hunchback get off one of these tandems to have a look at Victor Hugo's statue. I thought it was strange, anyway.) We went to the Villa Borghese to have a look at the Museo e Galleria Borghese, which is an art gallery housed in a 17th-century villa, but when we got there, we found out that you had to book tickets in advance, and we hadn't, so that was the end of that. Just down the road from the museum was the Bioparco, so we decided to go in. I wish we hadn't. It was extremely busy, with seemingly thousands of children screaming in it, and because it was so hot, all the animals were either hiding or just lying there, asleep. Heather was particularly disappointed by the so-called 'Valley Of The Bears', which should have been renamed 'A Ditch With One Comatose Bear In It'. The best bit, however was the seals. Not because of the animals, as they were mostly just clinging to the bottom of their pools because it was so hot and coming up for a breath or two every five minutes or so. It was because the Italian for seal is 'foca' and that sounds rude in English. It is funny, though, seeing an Italian dad pointing out the seals to his kids and shouting 'fucker'. It livened up a horrible afternoon, anyway.

Trastevere

This place was supposed to be all bohemian and a cool place to hang out. It wasn't. It was a shithole.

Piazza di Spagna

We didn't really see the Spanish steps. They were there, and so were we, but every available step was occupied by a sitting tourist. I couldn't really see what the fuss was about. We did however, buy some tacky gifts from there, for a laugh. I bought my brothers some penis-shaped pasta and we bought Heather's Mom and Dad some tastefully rude kitchen aprons. Oh, and I was coerced into buying a rose for my girlfriend by a street peddler.

That's pretty much it. I could tell you about some of the restaurants we went to and all that shit, but I can't be arsed. I'm fed up of typing about Italy now. I'd love to go there again one day, but I've had enough of writing about it! I'll soon get back to writing about bodily functions, comics, football and all the usual shite soon.

Still Alive.

Blimey, the gaps between posts are getting longer and longer. Michael Jackson was still warming up for his O2 gigs last time I posted anything, and Farrah Fawcett, Karl Malden and Mollie Sugden were similarly all still breathing. It's been mental around here lately, mostly because of my girlfriend getting swine flu. This meant I couldn't go onto the internet because this disease is so contagious and deadly that anyone reading my blog would die almost straight away (yes, I have been reading the hysterical national press.) and I didn't want the death of those three people on my conscience. Anyway, my other half's okay now (mostly) , so, unless I contract the pig flu myself, expect more regular posts soon. I'll wrap up the Rome stuff soon, so keep popping by!

Roman Holiday part two: Colosseum.

This was the only way Aston Villa were going to get to the venue of the Champions League final. Actually, I'm cheating a little bit; this pic was taken on a different day to the one I'm writing about.

For our first full day in the Eternal City, we decided to go to the Colosseum. So after Heather had opened her cards and prezzies (it was her birthday, after all) and we'd eaten our breakfast of weird bread with ham and and even weirder cheese, we left the hotel and went to Ciampino train station via the hotel's shuttle service, which is basically a pissed-off elderly Italian driving a people carrier.

We got on the train, which was a double-decker ( why don't we have those here in Blighty? I'm sick of paying through the nose for train tickets only to stand up all the way there. I better stop before I go off on one about public transport again!) and off we went into Rome.

As you go into Rome on the train, you notice three things. One, there's history all over the place. You'll see an apartment block, then a bit of ancient aquaduct, a football pitch, then a bit of ruined castle. The town planners have just built around what's left of Ancient Rome, whereas here, if we discover some Ancient Briton burial site, we'll let some archaeologists dig for a couple of weeks and then tell them to piss off and put a multi-storey car-park on top of it.

Two, there's loads of graffiti. All the bits that aren't ancient have got some toerag's tag on it. I'm used to seeing graffiti here in Brum, but it's everywhere in Rome. Then again, 'graffiti' is an Italian word, isn't it? I suppose it's not surprising then, if you think about it. There was an interesting piece of graffiti at the Colosseum, but I'll tell you about that in due course.

Three, it's fucking sweltering. Apparently, we'd arrived during a heatwave, and even the local Romans were moaning about the heat. There was a digital display on the train that tells you what the temperature was, and it was just shy of thirty-five degrees Celsius. I'm not good when it's too hot. I'm not a big fan of sweating. I'm also not a big fan of other people's sweat, especially when the train was as humid and as smelly as the inside of a Chelmsley Wood postman's sock on giro day.

After about twenty minutes in the sweatbox, we got off at Rome's Termini station and because the receptionist at the hotel told us isn't wasn't far, we decided to walk to the Colosseum. To be fair to the receptionist, she had given us a map, and it's not that far really. But to us, who don't know our way around and are very hot indeed, it seemed a fair old distance. Another thing about the inhabitants of Rome, is that they like to dawdle along. Put them on the road, in a vehicle, they go mental, but if you take them out of their car or off their Vespas and put them on a pavement and make them walk, they just saunter along. That's if there is a pavement, of course.

Anyway, after about half an hour of frequent stops to look at the map, and trying to navigate around five dawdling Italians walking side-by-side, we found the Colosseum. It's pretty hard to miss, actually. It is a very impressive building. I'm always amazed when I see something I've only ever seen in films or on telly with my own eyes. When you're there by the Colosseum, you're also surrounded by ancient arches and the remains of the Forum, and you do really get a sense of what ancient Rome must've been like.

Outside of the Colosseum, there's shitloads of tour groups, usually led by someone holding up a stick with a flag on it, there's also loads of blokes dressed up as gladiators or Roman centurions that charge you if you want your picture taken with them. Spoiling the effect, however, is the fact that most of these 'gladiators' are about sixty and smoking a roll-up. There's also quite a few market stalls, selling the usual shite you get at any tourist trap. I'm normally against giving any of these arseholes my money, but Heather talked me into going round the Colosseum with a tour guide, and I'm glad we did because our tour guide was a headcase.

So we sign up for a guided tour and we get given a little blue sticker to show that we've paid, and we join the rest of the punters who have also signed up for the tour. Along comes our guide, who looked a little bit like a younger Fabio Capello, holding what appeared to be a children's picture book about the Colosseum. Because our group wasn't as big as he'd like, he starts waffling on about any old shite to kill time while the group gets bigger.

He was an Italian, and a proud Roman. He began by asking us where we all came from. It was like a word association game for him. One of our group was from New Zealand (which didn't surprise me as looked exactly like Bret McKenzie from Flight Of The Conchords. We asked him about it later on and he said 'we all look alike in New Zealand, probably because we're all related.') When finding where he was from, the tour guide said 'Russell Crowe! Gladiator!'

When he found out where we were from, he replied 'Fish and chips!' and on he went, shouting out the national dish or footballers or film stars relating to the answer of the punter he'd just asked, until he came to one guy who was Dutch, and he was stymied, and decided to start the history lesson.

He started off telling us what it was like in Ancient Rome. About food, and orgies and slaves and the Vestal Virgins and about how badly women were treated. In fact, every time he mentioned any misogynistic acts the Romans did, he high-fived a man in the group in celebration. He then went on to tell us how clean the Romans were and are. He looked at us and said 'We Romans are so clean, when we invade your Breetan, we name a 'ole city 'Bath'! Not like French. French are Steenky, like skoonks!'

Then he told us that the films Ben-Hur and Gladiator are full of mistakes, most notably, both of those films show chariots being used in the Colosseum, which was never the case, as it was too small for any chariots. If you wanted chariots, you had to go the Circus Maximus, a much bigger venue down the road. (we had a look at the Circus Maximus later in the week, and it's just a vast green field these days, but you do realise how massive it must've been.)

For all his casual xenophobia and sexism, though, he knew his stuff and told us lost of interesting facts. For example, two million people were killed at the Colosseum. And of those two million, guess how many were Christians? Just one, Saint Ignatius. Apparently, persecution was big business, so all the Christians were murdered at the Circus Maximus instead, where there was a bigger audience to see it, as it had a capacity for 120,000 spectators. In fact, they set fire to Christians and used them as human torches so the spectators could see where they were going.

Also, the word Colosseum is an English name, coined by the Venerable Bede in the 9th Century. It's proper name is the Flavian Amphitheatre.

Another interesting fact is that the number four being represented by 'IV' in Roman numerals, came along after the empire became Christian, to save space and chiseller's carpal tunnels because it was 'IIII' when the Colosseum was built, as you can see when you look at the numbers above the gates into it.

Every time he gave us an interesting fact, he would back it up by showing us a picture from the children's book he was holding. At one point, he roped in one of the blokes dressed as a gladiator to help him. He looked authentic until his mobile phone went off. He fished it out of a little drawstring bag and proceeded to have a little chat. When he finished, he pointed to his phone and said 'Cleopatra'.

Anyway, after about half an hour of this, he'd got enough people for his group, and after a free photo-op with the gladiator, which I declined ,as he was far too tanned and good looking, and I'm always nervous around people holding swords, but lots of the other members of the group had their pictures taken with him, we were off into the Colosseum.

The first thing he pointed out to us after we got through the gates was a bit of ancient graffiti. An ancient Roman had carved a big phallus into one of the walls. 'See the penis?' he shouted. 'Look at the penis! Take picture of penis!' I hope he was referring to the graffiti, anyway. I'd hate to think he had a fetish for getting tourists to take a snap of his pudendum.

There was a middle-aged American couple in front of Heather and I, and the husband asked the tour guide 'Why's it so small?' The tour guide smiled and gave him a high-five.

You get an eerie feeling when you walk around the place, which isn't surprising, considering the amount of people killed there. This feeling was abated a little bit by the tour guide pointing out ancient bidets and saying ' Look! Arse-washers!'

So, we walk around for another forty minutes or so, looking around the place in the stifling heat, until we get down to where the fights actually took place. There's not much left of the floor now, but you can see where they had the lifts that elevated lions and other ferocious beasts into the arena. The tour guide pointed to a picture of a lion in his book, in case we'd all forgotten what the king of the jungle looked like. 'Lions are bastards,' he said. 'Capisce? BASTARDS!' and then he went on to explain how they had archers on standby should the lions decide to attack and eat the spectators. It was alright to eat the gladiator, but not the punters.

He then told us about the big crucifix that's there now, put there by some pope or other who came and blessed the place and prayed for the two million or so who died there. Like that's going to help them, seeing as all but one of them were pagans.

Afterwards, he took us to meet the other tour guide, who was taking us around the Palatine hills, but I won't dwell on her as she was informative, but a bit dull, but the area is lovely, and we came away, having looked, amongst other things, at the remains of the forum, well educated about ancient Rome, but also very sunburnt. And we'd been walking for miles. As soon as we got out, we headed for a pizza and a beer in a restaurant overlooking the Colosseum, and despite there being a whole boiled egg in the pizza, it had been a good day.

Roman Holiday, part one; Getting There.

It's been a while since I last posted, I know, but I've got a good excuse this time, as my girlfriend and I were in Italy for a good part of my hiatus. This was my first proper holiday in God knows how long, my girlfriend and I were going to celebrate our Birthdays in Rome (yep, our birthdays are in the same week. Weird, huh?) and I was looking forward to it immensely, but the main problem about Rome is the fact that it's abroad and you have to get on an aeroplane to get there. And you can't get there directly from Birmingham International Airport, either, you have to go to Heathrow, which is nearly a hundred miles away.

I'm not a big fan of flying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of it; I quite like the bit when you're actually up in the sky. I love looking down at the world from above, seeing coastlines and the tops of mountains and the topside of clouds. It's just a pity I can't sit in a window seat because I'm poor and can only afford to travel economy and therefore end up with my knees around my earholes because I have the audacity to be taller than six feet. Anyway, as I said, I enjoy the actual flying. What I don't enjoy is all the rigmarole you have to go through before you can actually get on the plane. All the checking in and security checks and putting all your bottles in plastic bags and all the general fucking about really gives me a cob-on. (That's a Brummie phrase meaning 'in a bit of a mood')

When you get on a bus or a train, do they ask you to take off your belt first? No. And recent events tell us that buses and trains are just as likely to get blown up by terrorists as planes are. The stuff they won't let people take on, either; Tweezers, for example. If anyone ever mounted a successful hijack armed with just a pair of tweezers, then they deserve the fucking plane, if you ask me. (Not that I had a pair of tweezers, by the way. Anyone who knows me well enough to inspect my eyebrows can testify to the fact that I don't use them!) Don't get me wrong, I know we need security, but there's a difference between security and paranoid hysteria.

So, anyway, we flew from the new Terminal Five, which looks like something out of Flash Gordon, but unfortunately without a bellowing Brian Blessed. Actually, it'd be cool to have him do the Tannoy announcements. You certainly wouldn't ignore them. Typically, as this is England, our flight was delayed for an hour and a bit, but after we got on, it was all fairly plain sailing. Or Plane-flying, if you will.

Two and a half hours later, we land at Fiumicino Airport, and I knew for sure we were in Rome as the woman who checked my passport looked like a Vogue model and I was surrounded by loads of nuns.(Sounds like a dream I once had.) These nuns weren't your normal, boring, black-and-white penguin types, these ones were all in white, except for their wimples, which were navy blue. I suspect these nuns were Tottenham supporters. (if they were indeed Spurs fans, I bet their faith has been sorely tested lately!) Anyway, I get through passport control with a minimum of fuss as I'm from the EU. My girlfriend, however, with her American passport, had to queue for ages with the rest of non-EU undesirables. However, this just meant I had to go and get our luggage, which, as is usual for me, were the penultimate bags to come out onto the belt.

We were picked up by an elderly taxi driver and taken on a half-hour walk to where his car was parked. We were staying in a hotel which was on the other side of Rome, in a town called Ciampino. The taxi driver couldn't find it, and spent a lot of the journey talking and swearing to himself in Italian. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Rome, but one of the things about the place is that everyone there drives like an absolute nutcase. The speed limit is seen as just a rough guide and stuff like traffic lights and roadsigns are just there to make the roadside look a bit more interesting. It's like Death Race 2000. (RIP David Carradine, by the way. Surely, he should've learned from Kill Bill that the palm technique was dangerous?) The village we were staying in didn't have the big roads Rome does, it just had single-lane roads and dirt tracks and roads that share space with train tracks and no pavements, so sitting in the back of a taxi with a swearing taxi driver who's lost whilst everyone else is doing their level best to collide with you was a bit worrying.
Anyway, after a while, and probably more through luck than judgment, we got to where we were staying, and it was a lovely-looking place. It was an old farmhouse which had been converted into a few apartments. We checked in, dumped our bags and went for a night-time al-fresco dinner. I normally struggle to make any kind of decision, especially when picking from a menu, but the hotel's menu helped me on this score as it only had three dishes to choose from on it. Chicken, beef, or a plate of cheeses. A vegan would be fucked, basically. Anyway, I had the beef, Heather had the chicken and afterwards we drank and looked out over the lights of Rome in the distance. It wasn't the best meal we've ever had, but it was just what we needed.

(Right. I seem to have been typing for ages, and we've only just got there! Serves me right for going off on one about air travel. There's another five days of this shit yet, so I've decided to do it in episodes. Next one soon!)

Vote Septic!

Last weekend I was supposed to be at the Bristol Comic Expo but I never made it. Without going into too much detail, my girlfriend and I got to New Street station nice and early, but I had to get back earlier that night than originally planned, so I wanted to change the return train ticket. We found out that it would've cost seventy-five quid for both of us to get back a couple of hours earlier so we decided not to go, as seventy-five quid is a hell of a lot of money.
It's a shame, as it would've been nice to catch up with my old friends and collaborators, such as Andy Winter. Andy tells me that our book Septic Isle was his biggest seller over the weekend, which is nice to hear.

While we're on the subject of Septic Isle, it's that time of year when the Eagle Awards are looking for nominees. It's abit late this year, the results are normally announced at the Bristol Expo, and as that didn't happen, I thought they weren't going to happen at all this year, but they are, so it'd be nice if all of you went to the site (click on the link, or if that doesn't work, go to http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/) and nominated our book in the 'Favourite Black & White Comicbook - British' section. If you also wanted to nominate me (that's Mick Trimble, in case you'd forgotten!) as Favourite Newcomer Artist, and Andy Winter as favourite writer, then please be my guest.

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've put some subtle hints and dotted them around this post to help you make up your mind as to who to vote for. Hope it helps! Hurry up, though, you've only got until May 22nd (that's my birthday! All cards and prezzies gratefully received!) to get your nominations in. Cheers.

X Men Origins: Wiping Your Arse With Claws.

Last Saturday, my glamorous other half and I went to the pictures to see the new Wolverine movie. In the queue with us was a guy dressed as Wolverine. He had the hairstyle and the vest and some leather fingerless gloves with the claws built in. I would've called him a sad fucker but he might eviscerate me with said appendages. Why is it only comic-book movies that attract these people? (Actually, come to think of it, which I do, that's not true; people dress up as nuns when they go and see The Sound Of Music, don't they?) You don't see people turning up at, let's say, The Reader, dressed as a death camp commandant. I did once think that a load of people dressed up and acting like zombies were queing up to see Day Of The Dead, but I was mistaken, it's just what any queue at a Broad Street cinema looks like.
The film itself was okay, nothing special. They whizz through Wolvie's early life showing us snippets of what could've been a more interesting film than the one that was made. For example, they don't tell us how he got the name Logan, but they do tell us how he got his leather jacket. Some of the CGI was very shoddy, too. Despite a few interesting ideas and a standout action set-piece involving Logan fighting a helicopter, this film was generally a wasted opportunity.
However, my girlfriend thought it was great, as she's in love with Hugh Jackman, and as it is basically two hours of him running around with no shirt on, she was in movie heaven. (I've no issue with that, I do, however, have issues with Jackman's hair in this film; he no longer has that 'pointy ears' haircut that his comic book equivalent has, he's got some kind of long curtains thing going on. It just looks rubbish. I know it's supposed to be set in the seventies, but Logan has never struck me as being a fashion slave. They should've given him a pair of flares and a belted cardigan to complete the look.)

After the movie, as usual, my bladder was the size of a space hopper, so I went to the toilets, and in there was the guy dressed as Wolverine drying his hands under the hot air dryer. He still had the claws on. So, he must've had a wee with them on. That's taking a risk, if you ask me. It's a good job he didn't go for a number two. Imagine wiping yourself with those things on!

Anyway, if this movie is an indication of what the summer blockbusters are going to be like, it's going to be a dull summer.

Heather's going to see again on Monday with the girls from work. I'm obviously not the film's target audience.

Drawing, Vomiting, Woking.

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Memorabilia.

Last weekend, our good friends Jamie and Theresa travelled up from Southend-On-Sea to come and stay at our home here in The People's Republic Of The West Midlands. (If you read my blog regularly, you'll know Jamie, as he's the only one who leaves me any comments!)

It was Jamie's birthday on the Saturday (and might I say, he doesn't look bad for fifty! Only kidding, Jamie!), and after he opened his cards and presents, and still feeling the effects of the alcohol and Moroccan cuisine from the night before, Jamie and I headed out to the National Exhibition Centre for the Memorabilia show. His other half decided her time would be better spent mooching around Brum's shops, whilst my other half was at the theatre watching His Dark Materials with my eldest daughter.

We went to the NEC by train from the lovely, awe-inspiring New St. station, mostly because it's probably the quickest way of getting there, as it's only one stop, and the fact that parking at the NEC would cost at least eight quid. The problem with going to the NEC by train is that after you get off at Birmingham International, you think you're nearly there, but you're not. You're in a building that says it's the NEC, but it's a bloody long walk to the exhibition halls. You go up escalators, down escalators, down endless corridors, along several moving walkways until, about a week later (okay, I'm exaggerating slightly) you get to the exhibition halls. But that's not the end. The Memorabilia show was in hall 12, we were outside hall one, so we walk for another three days (I exaggerate again) until we get to our destination. If we weren't sure if it was the right place, the shitloads of blokes dressed up as stormtroopers and a couple of Jedi outside confirmed that this was indeed the Memorabilia show.

After being allowed to jump the queue because we were paying for our tickets with cash (Ten quid! Each! Bloody Nora!) we went into what was frankly a massive room stuffed to the gills with all sorts of cool stuff. One of the first things we saw was a toy stall, selling lots of stuff similar to the things I had as a kid for shocking amounts of money. All of it was still boxed, and you weren't allowed to pick any of it up. I might've mentioned before that I collect models of the Batmobile (I know, it's a sickness, but they make the windowsill in my sketching room look a lot cooler) and I saw a Batmobile I'd quite like. It was from the 70s, made by the Mego company for their 7" action figures of Batman and Robin (not included) to sit in. We asked how much it was, because none of the items had prices on them. Probably because a little sticky price tag might damage the precious packaging. Anyway, the stallholder gets out a little folder that had all the prices in it, looks it up and then tells us that the batmobile would cost me £195. That was about £190 over my limit, so we thanked him and moved along.

We also saw, from the side looking in, Robert Vaughn doing a Q&A session, and he's a lot smaller than I thought he would be. Quite old, too. It's amazing, though, how he's kept his hair colour even though he's well into his seventies. More on him later.

One of the things that bugs me about this kind of event (comics conventions included), and it's only a recent phenomena, is the amount of cosplayers that turn up. I hate cosplayers. I know they're essentially harmless and they're only having a bit of fun but they do my head in. I reckon they give the rest of us nerds a bad name. People look at them and think 'what a bunch of sad bastards', and think all of us geeks are like that. There was a group of about ten teenage boys all dressed up as Doctor Who. All of them were the David Tennant Doctor, except for one who must have read the email incorrectly and turned up as William Hartnell. A fat, Asian, William Hartnell. Still, at least he was the only one who stood out. I saw all those young lads, with their brown full length coats, brown suits, Converse trainers and their hair all spiked up and I was reminded of the crowd scene from Life Of Brian; "Yes, we're ALL individual!"

There were also quite a few very young teenage girls dressed in not much, including one girl of about fifteen wearing a revealing corset, and this kind of thing brings out the dad in me. I say things like 'I bet her dad doesn't know she's wearing that' and 'there's no way any of my kids are going out looking like that!' even though I know, deep down, that if my girls did want to go out like that, there's not really that much I could do to stop them. There is such a thing as freedom of expression in this country, despite all of my objections!

Also, it's very stupid going to these things dressing up as the thing you love. If you're dressed up as Anakin Skywalker, a Star Wars memorabilia dealer knows he can charge you a bit more because he know's you're a Star Wars nut and you'll pay it. I bet all the dealers with Doctor Who stuff rubbed their hands with glee the moment they saw the ten Tennants approaching them. Only under tens and the Fathers 4 Justice and those people who are paid to walk around these conventions dressed up are allowed to wear superhero or sci-fi costumes (I might make allowances for people press-ganged into going to a fancy dress party. I'm not a big fan of those, either!) the rest of you should stop. Really. Especially the ones that make their own costume out of bits of egg boxes and Lego. Honestly, it's like Paris Fashion Week for the blind and stupid.

Rant over.

The amount of stuff available here was amazing. If spare cash and spare space wasn't a problem I would've come home with shitloads of geeky stuff. Honestly, if you're a nerd like me, you would have had a field day looking at this cool stuff. There was some crappy junk as well, but it was mostly cool. Less cool, however, was the 'celebrities' charging you at least fifteen pounds for an autograph. Some of them are people the non-nerd has heard of (Stephanie Beacham, Robert Vaughn, Richard Briers-who was a bit of a weird choice, I can't really see loads of obsessed cosplaying fans turning up dressed in tweed and kilts asking him to sign their VHS copies of Monarch of The Glen, can you?) but a lot of them were 'third alien on the left' types from Star Wars and I don't think having the autograph from the guy who was 'Yak-Face' is worth fifteen quid, frankly. I'm not really sure whether these are actually who they say they are, anyway, considering that these people spent their moment of fame under shitloads of prosthetics. He could be lying and pretending he was Yak-Face, for all I know, just to get his hands on fifteen quid from a Star Wars freak who really should be old enough to know better.
Don't get me wrong, there were people there I would have liked to get autographs from. There were a few Bond alumni there, for example. There was Richard Kiel, the man mountain who played Jaws, who is absolutely fucking huge- he's probably wider across the shoulders than I am tall. It was sad to see his mobility scooter, though. I also would've liked Guy Hamilton's signature, as he directed Goldfinger, the quintessential 007 movie. (Interesting fact about Guy Hamilton: In the movie The Third Man, that famous shot where you see Harry Lime's shadow running away, that shadow actually belongs to Hamilton- who was Carol Reed's assistant director, because Orson Welles didn't bother showing up for filming that day, because he was a notorious pain in the arse and probably because the only running Welles ever did was away from the salad counter.) The thing is, if you ever happened to bump into these people in the pub, they'd probably give you an autograph for free (although it's unlikely Jaws ever drinks in Moseley, there are a few Yak-faces, though.) and that's the main reason I refuse to pay for it. The other main reason is I don't have that many spare fifteen quids at the moment! I was going to get George Lazenby to sign my picture (see last post) but he wasn't there, so stuff the lot of them.
Saying that, one of us did pay for an autograph, and it wasn't me. Jamie saw the bloke who plays PC Stamp from The Bill walk past us, and had a brainstorm. His dad is a big fan of the show, apparently, so Jamie thought it would be nice if he could get PC Stamp (don't know his real name, and I can't be arsed to Google it, either) to talk to his dad on the phone. Which he did, fair play to him, but the trouble is, he might be a well-known face on British TV, but he doesn't really have a distinctive voice like, for instance, Sean Connery, John Hurt or Michael Caine does. Jamie's dad didn't have a clue who it was that had phoned him up so the first five minutes of that phone call were really awkward. I don't know what was said on the other end, but I can imagine it was along the lines of 'Who the fuck is this?'
Anyway, when Jamie's dad realised who it was, the conversation went a bit more smoothly, but at one point, PC Stamp said to Jamie's dad something along the lines of 'Well, your son is going to buy you a nice signed photo for you' and from that moment on, Jamie felt obliged to buy a signed photo of a bloke from The Bill for fifteen pounds. He didn't really mind, it was a nice gift for his old man, after all, but I think Jamie, being a rabid Star Wars fan, would rather have spent that money on Yak-Face's autograph. I think I upset PC Stamp though, he asked if I'd got everything I'd came for, if I was enjoying it, the usual smalltalk, then for some reason, he sort of accused me of being a cosplayer. Probably on the basis that I was wearing a Silver Surfer T-shirt. Not only did he accuse me of being one of the things I hate most in the world, he suggested that I probably dress up as a superhero when I'm having sex with my girlfriend. I know he was only trying to be blokey and have a joke, but fucking hell, that's a bit much isn't it? I replied by asking him whether they let him keep his uniform (for sexual purposes) when he left The Bill.
"I haven't left, actually, but thanks for paying attention."
And that was the end of that conversation. Next to him was the German guy from Raiders Of The Lost Ark (another favourite movie of mine, but surely it's a favourite movie of everyone's.)whose face melted at the end, and I wanted to ask him about his appearance in the Ferrero Rocher 'Ambassador, you are spoiling us' advert, but I didn't have the courage so we went away and watched some wrestling instead.
Well, I say wrestling. It was a bit like wrestling. There was a ring, a referee and wrestlers, but it was all a bit, well, rubbish. For some reason, the wrestlers kept trying to get the crowd to clap along, but they didn't seem to realise that us Brummies don't really do audience participation. We have the attitude of 'I paid ten quid of my hard-earned cash to get in here, and you want me
to do your job for you? You entertain me! I don't ask you to come to my factory and polish my power press, do I?'
So there wasn't much clapping. Anyone who did clap along were either children, idiots or interlopers from beyond the Black Country. It was a bit like like wrestling used to be when I was a nipper- you know, World Of Sport and Kendo Nagasaki and Johnny Two Rivers and fat blokes with a woman's bathing costume on worn back to front, before we got slick, polished American wrestling shows imported to show us how it could be done if we could be bothered to put the effort in. To be fair, they were going for the American style of wrestling, the 'good guy' wrestlers had washboard stomachs and muscles (something the World Of Sport bunch couldn't be arsed with, they just bounced off ropes and belly-barged into someone with their beer guts) but the 'bad guy' was a bit weedy-looking and the actual bouts were unconvincing. I know wrestling is fixed, but you don't make it obvious. They were stamping on the floor when they 'punched' someone, for God's sake! I wanted one of them to slash his face with a razor, Mickey Rourke-style, that'd be cool, and it would really freak out all the five year olds watching. To be fair to them, though, they did throw themselves around with gusto, and their backs looked all red and sore, so it must hurt, and it's something I'd never do (probably because the sight of me running around in swimming trunks and bright green knee-high boots would turn the Memorabilia Show into the Projectile Vomit-Con 2009) so, my hat goes off to them. If I ever wore one. Which I don't.
At the end of the show, Jamie went up to one of the guys who organises the show and congratulated him on how good it was (Despite all my moaning above, I did have a good time. Moaning's just what I do.) and on the table in front of him was a load of large glossy prints of various people sitting next to Robert Vaughn. They apparently had a scheme where you pay to have your picture taken with the former Man from U.N.C.L.E. and you pick it up at the end, like you do when you get off a rollercoaster at Alton Towers. The weird thing was that the ex-Napoleon Solo (another intersting fact- Ian Fleming came up with that name. Also, my dad was such a big fan of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that I was nearly given the name Napoleon Trimble. I'm glad he saw sense) had exactly the same facial expression in all of them. They might as well have taken one picture of him and photoshopped him next to all of those other people.
(Actually, I read in the Birmingham Mail the other day, that the next series of Hustle is being filmed up here in Brum, and that Robert Vaughn is looking for an apartment in this very city. Hopefully I'll bump into him and get an autograph and save myself twenty quid!)
And so, after about three hours of looking at cool stuff, and after trying and failing to get our picture taken with a bloke dressed as Iron Man, Jamie and I headed on the long, long walk back to the train station with our freshly-bought junk weighing us down. I got a few books and a few more batmobiles (one of which Jamie bought for me, bless him) and we'd had a good time. I'd definitely go again. It's a good laugh.

Oh, and the guy who plays PC Stamp's name is Graham Cole, apparently.

I've been expecting you, Mister Bond, but you didn't bloody show up!

Like I said before, I've not been posting much because I've been drawing. None of it is paid work, but I'm trying to build up a portfolio of new stuff. I've nearly finished page three of a self-penned strip which will be a four or five pager eventually, I'll show you that stuff when it's all done. I've also spent some of my time doing the picture below, as I was going to the Memorabilia show at the NEC and I heard George Lazenby was going to be there, and I was going to get him to sign it and it would've been a nice geeky thing to add to my collection of Bond stuff. He wasn't there. He might've been hiding (he is a master spy, after all) but I don't think he was there. Anyway, I'll let you know what else was at the show in another post (when I've got time!), but I wanted to share the On Her Majesty's Secrety Service pic with you, because I'm quite proud of it. Here it is (click on it for a larger image):

MICK TRIMBLE WILL RETURN IN

'A FOUL MOOD'