The poster I’m standing next to just lit up, right now. Oh. It’s gone out. Hmm. Because it isn’t dark yet? Oh, no it’s on.. Ah. It’s broken.

…

Next time I sound so much like Alanis, you have full permission to slap me. I started this new ‘n’ shiny weblog with the intention of it being free of the usual self-pitying drivel one finds in 99% of blogs these days (and so it always was and shall be, until the Goths dance their slow, comical dances under the dying sun, Amen).

So.

Someone I’ve known since they were 12 years old was killed in a car crash on Monday night. Just swerved into the front of a lorry, died instantly. He was 19.

I’m 26, I am cheerfully developing wrinkles and I’ve nothing to complain about.

I haven’t posted for a while. I’ve not wanted you to know what I’m thinking. I’m tired all the time, and I’m cold most of the time, and I’m sad for no reason half the time, and I’m happy half the time for good reason, and I’m working, and I’m lazy, and I’m inspired, and I’m blocked.

I want. I have.

I just saw a taxi painted like a Tunnock’s wafer. Swear to god!

Apparently, Supermouse and Pol are married. Married!

I don’t care if you don’t know who they are, why didn’t anyone tell me before?

So. I got a phone call on Friday.

“Hi, it’s Simon,” – Simon’s Australian, and he wants to make films of my scripts, so we like Simon – “Listen, I’m meeting this guy, a director, his name’s Chris Noonan. You remember Babe?”

“Yuh-huh,” because I did. Talking pigs, all that stuff. I have to say I thought it was George ‘Mad Max’ Miller, but that was just the screenplay it turns out.

“Anyway, I’d like to pitch him Maskerade,” Maskerade being the script I’ve already done, not the script I’m working on a treatment for. “Do you have a treatment for Maskerade?”

“Ooh, er..” No. “I don’t think so.” No. “No.”

“Do you think you can get one together for my meeting with him on Monday?”

Stop. You’re all aware of the time difference, yes? This is Friday. Monday is not far away. And Simon’s not going to want it for Monday morning. Sunday would be nice. That, to me, is Saturday night.

“I’ll try.”

I needed to write a treatment from scratch in just over a day. Aha. Ahahaa.

Well, I did it. Without the need to blackout the windows and consume a ton of mescalin, I sat in a bedroom and did it all. 5 pages, okay, you’re thinking not a lot, but trust me, that’s not easy stuff. I’ve been working on the other treatment for months, and I still can’t get it. Luckily, I know this script backwards and, well… Look, I did it, okay? And I got Sunday off, to take advantage of London Open House and we went for a trip round the Hoover Building which is simply gorgeous. I’ve been an admirer of that building for years, and the chance to see round… Woo, cool.

Arr! Me hearties! Ye Landlubbers should know it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Me timbers are shiverin’ at the thought o’ it!

Just seen Alien the director’s cut on the big screen. Wow. So timeless, so terrifying, so beautiful. Like the alien of the title. I admire its purity.

On the subject of terrifying movies, Ring. Or Ringu, if you want to make it sound like a play-doh penguin. First time through, you want to see what the victims see when they die.. And yet, when you see that, you really wish you hadn’t. Cool as. I don’t know why I thought of that, but I figured I’d share.

Well, I added a (hopefully functional) link to the Sanctuary blog archive at the bottom, so if you get down to the last post and are still itching for more, you’re frankly amazingly thick-skinned. Just don’t expect anything good, or even coherent, okay?

I will, I promise, get round to making this a full site. The index page will be more than a goddamn picture of Link in his boat – cute and awesome though this image may be. The full works, when I get to it. You know. Blog, writing, reviews, links, a picture here and there. Maybe.

So, anyway, I’m losing another collaborator, and, dammit, a friend, one of the few I still have any contact with these days. I dunno, I think I repel people I can work with. There is a small – vanishingly small – number of human persons I can comfortably bounce ideas off, and I’ve lost touch with all except one, and he’s now off to the US. Well, good luck to you, old boy. I hope, I really do, that it goes well, because, let’s face it, cool.

Two years since even the usually callous and flippant Sanctuary was blackened as a mark of shocked respect. Seems longer, funnily enough. Think I have to observe the minute’s silence, since, well, it would seem a bit odd not to. You know? The essentials of the event which so affected me are unchanged, regardless of the actions of the US since. It was a horrible thing, and remains so. How long this reverence will remain is an open question…

In a totally different vein of nostalgia, Radio 1 just played Theme From S’Express. Jesus. I almost expoded, inner child outwards.