_tonylee_

• 10:25 Went to NOW SHOW taping last night, ended up being an audience extra for Jack Dee sitcom. Most surreal... #
• 14:57 @antonyjohnston - the British shall win the fight for sartorial elegance! #
• 14:58 @jimmyaquino - no table, but I set down Tuesday night. Will be camped out in the Hyatt bar most nights... #
• 15:30 @jimmyaquino - Marriott Coronado, the other side of the bay. It's all we could get. :-) #
• 23:45 @ivanbrandon - We don't have them in the UK - are they as bad as they sound? #
• 23:50 Editing the lettered pages for Doctor Who: The Forgotten. Am now incredibly excited - Pia's work is incredible and makes me look good. #

perspexavenger

~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
cpu             : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
clock           : 3192.000000MHz
revision        : 16.0 (pvr 0070 1000)

processor       : 1
cpu             : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
clock           : 3192.000000MHz
revision        : 16.0 (pvr 0070 1000)

timebase        : 79800000
platform        : PS3

_tonylee_

...The website is finally updated. Now get of my back, minions.

_tonylee_

Yesterday was a long one.

The day? Passable, did writing, worked on a few things, worked on San Diego stuff, worked on the column. Then, around 3.30pm I drove down to London to meet up with budgie_uk and the delectable belle_fille1982 - found Budgie in Charlotte Street after parking up following a surprisingly stress free journey and we found Trace closer to the Recording Theatre.

Now together, we joined the queue for the Now Show taping for tonight (July 4th).

I won't give away spoilers but it wasn't one of their best although they did have several laugh out loud moments. And, with the show taking an hour and a half and now needing to be shrunk to 25 minutes, it'll probably suddenly become a whole lot better. It was good to see it all though and Punt and Dennis were on form as ever.

Once that was over we were all invited to stay another 45 minutes to be 'audience extras' in a scene for an episode of Jack Dee's second series of his sitcom Lead Balloon, where he's on a Radio 4 quizshow. Jack came out at the start and did a small routine while the crew set up and then we pretended to be much more highbrow than we really were! And you might even see us in the audience!

From there it was off to the London Creators drinkup only to find that at just past ten there were no London Creators - obviously we in Birmingham are far more hardcore than they are - and Budgie left for home around 11pm.

Trace and I wandered to a more quiet and empty pub so we could get at least an hour together and then I dropped her at Tottenham Court Road just before midnight and walked to my car.

And then the day got a little bit crapper.

The A40 is notorious for delays at the moment due to bridge works, but we sailed through those. I was actually making good time and then we hit another set of, well, something - they'd closed the A40 at the Hanger Lane underpass, we had to come off and then come back on for a further mile of one lane traffic. Which meant that travelling up to Hanger Lane? We had to drop from three lanes to one.

Suffice to say that the three hundred yards it took to get to Park Royal from the first '300 yards'  sign? Took me an hour. And once past, we were still crawling. And Hanger Lane? I saw no roadwords being done whatsoever!

In the end I got in around 2.45am, utterly shattered. But even though it was a shitty journey, it was worth it. A quick check of emails before bed and -

Oh, wait.

IDW had sent me the Doctor Who: The Forgotten #1 proofs to read through. And this included art I'd not seen before. So I had to read it. And then I realised that the letters had been done from an earlier draft and needed to be altered here and there, so I had to email IDW and let them know. And by the time I'd done?

Around 3.30am...

Still I'm up and writing and I'm going to the gym in a moment to wake myself up properly, as it'll be a late one for me work wise. It's July 4th in the US so I don't expect the comic to be re-lettered today, but even with the proof alterations to be done, it's an incredible read. With Pia's art, I was having goosebumps - and I wrote the bloody thing!

_tonylee_

• 09:28 @neilkleid - Any particular one of them? We do Second Cousins in a two for one deal... #
• 09:46 @steverolston - Don't worry, you can get those Ninja Hordes tomorrow... #

_tonylee_

diffrentcolours

While NASA is having success searching for signs of 'life on Mars,' American TV viewers could have a tougher time finding the U.S. version of the similarly titled BBC detective show. The classic Brit production featured John Simm as a Manchester detective. After being hit by a car in 2006, he wakes up in 1973 and must take up his police work then and there until he can figure out how to get back to his own time.

With a strong fan base, an Emmy and a BAFTA to its credit, ABC took notice and set up a U.S. remake written and produced by David E. Kelley (Boston Legal, Ally McBeal, etc.). The show was originally held back and almost halted completely by the writers strike. But, Kelley did pen and produce a pilot episode. When that script and scenes from the production hit the web, the reception was uniformly brutal.

Now, ABC trashed the pilot, and Kelley is off the show. It's being rewritten, moved from a Los Angeles setting to New York, and recast from scratch. It's all part of a last-ditch effort to save a series ABC had high hopes for when it worked out the remake rights.

_tonylee_

So. Last night I was a 'Special Guest Presenter' on the Destiny Radio Network's Sci Fi Guys show, at www.dtrn.co.uk. The indubitable Stuart Claw of London Expo and the Anime Network (to name but a couple) fame held the fort while I joined him on a variety of subjects. Was I in the studio? No. By the wizzy wozzy magic of telephonic communications, I did the show pretty much like this.

The show started at 8pm and Stuart promised me that with no solid format or show to follow it, usually the show was an hour, hour and a half max, going out live across the world. I could do that, I felt. And the phone's battery wouldn't die within an hour.

No, it wouldn't - but it would however die twice in the three hours that the show ended up running for - I ended up having to run downstairs while on the radio and swap phones during a recorded spot, and then return to the original, slightly recharged phone during the final recorded piece. But apparently I didn't sound too bad, considering that I didn't have an earthly clue what was going on.

Luckily I was able to hold my own in the movies / TV discussion, standing up for Mark Millar and (surprisingly for many) actually arguing that Russell T Davis is a good writer, citing shows like Casanova and The Second Coming. We talked about Doctor Who, there were spoilers, and of course I talked about Hope Falls, Shotgun Samurai, Rough Trade (and the TV show Burn Notice) and Doctor Who: The Forgotten, possibly my most candid interview yet on the subject. People I know emailed in and I was forced to explain about Rollerblade Rabbit and Cattitude Cat amongst other things.

But a three hour (technically) phone conversation later, it was over. I had a blast, guys. Always happy to do that again. I don't think the show's on the archive yet, but for people who missed it live? As soon as I hear it's up, I'll let you know.

And so today. Following working until 11pm yesterday I've taken it easy so far - but I'm going to do some scripting, some of Monday's groundbreaking column and then this afternoon I'm off to London to meet up with belle_fille1982 and the oh, so lovely budgie_uk who, for my birthday has got us all tickets to the recording of Friday's The Now Show. Huzzah! And then after that I may make the London Comic Creators drink, but it's all in the air and dependant on how long the radio taping lasts.

Because lets face it - Yesterday? That radio taping went on for much longer than expected... :-)