artist Jason Hoelscher at the original Korova Milk Bar, Lower East Side, NYC

lines and stripes on Brooklyn Bridge, NYC
taken the day we went to see Noisegate at the Brooklyn Anchorage [reviewed years later, here]

I think maybe only a handful will get the (old, dated) in-jokes here,
Winston-Salem, South Carolina

Old Salem's giant coffee pot, South Carolina

The Gaffney Peach, South Carolina

Mr Magoo as BDSM fan. Who knew? First day in Los Angeles, on Melrose.

Going to Disneyland fulfilled a childhood dream I'd had since I was about six.
The amount of vintage stuff still there was a wonderful surprise.

More pics to come in another post.

There's been quite a lot of sarcasm about London's inability to cope with a bit of snow, the same way there always is whenever there's any kind of extreme weather, be it snow or heatwaves or whatever. Of course, compared to places in North America, or Scandinavia etc. London's inevitable shut-down in the face of extreme weather must seem very pathetic indeed. What you have to understand though, is that places which experience heavy snowfall in winter or high temperatures in summer tend to have coping mechanisms built right into the infrastructure. Building those kinds of contingencies — snow ploughs, air conditioning units etc. — cost public money, and if you don't experience them every year, why pay out the money on it when that money could go on resurfacing the roads?

If you only experience those weather extremes once in a blue moon, it's going to come as a shock on the rare occasions that they occur. So when a city experiences the kind of weather they only see once every 15 years or so — or even only once every five years or so — that city is going to shut down in a panic. So, please stop pointing your fingers and laughing at us, okay? (It's all right if we're laughing at ourselves but outsiders laughing at us just grates on the nerves and causes offence.)

That being said, I had a great time on Monday. Whenever it snows I'm always reminded how lucky I am to live so close to Hampstead Heath (though I don't make nearly enough use of it when it's not covered in snow, bad me). When I left the house at midday it was still snowing, and had been going hard enough to cover any evidence that anyone else had even left the house, giving me this gorgeous, virgin vision as I left my front door (the prints you can see at the bottom were left by a neighbourhood fox):

Up on the Heath, it was quite busy but not as horrendously overcrowded as it has been when it snowed before, although the top of Parliament Hill was very busy, and very noisy (and very litter-strewn, which is not so nice).

I think the fact that it was still snowing meant people were staying indoors, so I had plenty of virgin snowdrifts to claim as my own. I am such a kid when it comes to pure white snow — every time I see a clean new patch, I have to walk across it to make sure I am the first to do so. Typical destructive human that I am. True, but it also means that I find myself in quiet, secluded areas that no one else has ventured into, which is glorious.

Usually, even on Hampstead Heath, it's hard to completely blot out any sound of nearby humanity as there is always someone walking their dog, or talking on their phone, or helicopters going over, or cars on a nearby road. On a snowy day, much of that peripheral noise isn't there, or is at least muffled by the snow, and you can get a real sense of peace that is usually impossible to find in central London. There were several moments when I had entire fields to myself, and I alternated between stopping for a while, just to breathe in the clean air and enjoy the placid quiet, and jumping like a loon into high drifts of snow, just because I could.

The trouble with jumping into snow, or even just yomping through it for a couple of hours, is that the moisture will slowly work its way up your legs, making you look a bit like you've wet yourself even when you haven't. Some of it was pretty deep. But wet jeans seems like a small price to pay for all the quiet moments.

Well, it's been a quiet couple of weeks, after that somewhat crazy week of events and parties. I had a birthday. That was exceedingly quiet, because I didn't mention it to many people. They always forget anyway, because they get wrapped up in worrying about Christmas, so I decided to avoid the disappointment of people forgetting by just not mentioning it in the first place. I did have a nice cake, though.

Christmas itself was also quiet (except for El Tim's extremely loud video games, oh ow, my head), and New Year's Eve was so quiet that I spent it in bed, finishing a trashy Len Deighton novel. I checked the clock when I finished it, and by incredible timing it was exactly 11:59pm, so I watched the digits tick over to the new year and went to sleep.

I'm not big on celebrating New Year's anyway, and I'm certainly not one to make resolutions. It seems like such a weird time to make them, in the middle of winter when most sensible mammals are hibernating. It's the time of year when you're more inclined to curl up with hot chocolate under a duvet, and eat lots of stodgy food, because spring is still a couple of months away and there's not enough daylight or fresh fruit and veg to start a whole new regime. At least, if you're trying to eat seasonally, anyway, which I try to do. And even if you're not, there's still the weather to contend with. I don't know about you, but monochrome grey skies are the biggest demotivator I face.

Springtime is a much better time to make new year's resolutions: in the natural world everything is starting over and fresh, which seems like a great subconscious encouragement to starting over and fresh oneself. Dead of winter? That just seems daft, especially when January first is really such an arbitrary date. Who chose it? And why then? I have a feeling this is something I once knew, but I've forgotten it now.

by Thomas Nast [via]

Father Christmas Tree by Saul Steinberg, who is also the subject of an exhibition on in London, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until February 15th. (I've not been to that one yet, either, but I'm looking forward to seeing it.)

I think that's your lot for today. Something smells reeeeally good here, and I think dinner is about to be served. Om nom nom. HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

In terms of enjoyment of the con, it probably didn't help that I missed all of the panels I had any interest in attending, due to travel and seeing friends. Seeing those people was actually the highlight of my weekend, so I didn't really mind missing the panels, but it did mean that paying £16 for a weekend pass was a steep price to pay just to go into a couple of rooms and look at some comics on some tables (especially as one of the BICS organisers told me I could have got a free pass if he'd known I was going — not that he reimbursed me, mind you). It was also the first time that I've ever come home without having bought a single comic at all. There was nothing which screamed that I must buy it right now, and that was pretty disappointing. Maybe I've just got higher standards than I used to have — in some ways, I'd like to think so, given that I've been to about 25 comics conventions in the last eight years, and have bought an awful lot of dross in that time. That's a more cheery thought than the notion that comics are all shit right now — and I really don't think that's true! Eesh, I hope not, anyway.

My highlight of the weekend was nothing to do with BICS or comics at all. I always like going to these events to see the people, anyway, and it was fantastic to catch up with friends I hadn't seen for ages. I hadn't seen Pete for about a year, and it was even longer since I'd seen Olulabelle and Mix, and it was lovely to meet their two boys for the first time, as well.

We had brunch at the Kitchen Garden Cafe (the food took a bloody long time to reach us, but it was yummy, and they did knock half the items off the bill to make up for the slow service), and then we went to look at piles of rice in an old warehouse in the jewellery district.

That was actually way more interesting than it sounds, and not just because Birmingham's jewellery district is a really interesting place historically and visually. The piles of rice formed an exhibition called Of All The People In All The World, aka thericeshow. You might not think that seeing piles of rice would be interesting, but each pile represented a fascinating statistic, many of which challenged our preconceptions and prejudices in a way that really got us thinking and talking. Some of them were very poignant, some filled me with disgust, some were admirable, and some were just plain silly. We were encouraged to take photos, so you can see some of the more interesting statistics in this photoset.

One in particular made us laugh, the one about John William Gott being the last man in the UK to be jailed for blasphemy after comparing Jesus to a clown. Not that this is intrinsically funny in itself (although it is ironic that his surname means "god" in German — God thought Jesus was a clown!), but because earlier, outside the warehouse, we'd spotted a figure stencilled on a wall, with a face on its chest, and we couldn't work out if the face was supposed to be Jesus or Charles Manson (which is quite a difference, I think you'll agree!). Maybe Charles Manson was really just a stand-up comic. He's certainly as self-obsessed as most stand-up comedians.

The exhibition is worth checking out if you get a chance. It's moving to Barcelona, and then continues to tour the world, so it might show up in your hometown eventually.