And on the subject of friends...
Sorry, you may have thousands of people sending you this, but
Diana Wynne Jones wonders if her own wizardry influenced J. K. Rowling, in the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-623182,00.html
There again, last time I thought thousands of people would be telling you something and so didn't myself, it was that the fire on Brighton's modern pier actually started on the ghost train, which is why the train is no longer there.
I also had a question: when writing Neverwhere, did you come across any interesting books on the history of the Tube? I have acquired some curiosity about it since starting to use it every day, but there are a lot of books out there and many are probably dull, and I would trust your recommendation above those of most other people.
Thanks for the daily thoughts, always entertaining.
Paul
My favourite book on the world beneath London is called LONDON UNDER LONDON, and it has stuff on the Tube in it. It's still in print, after many editions, and one day I shall tell the story of how the brass bed got into the sewers. Beyond that, there were several stodgy books on the history of the Tube (many of which I bought from the London Transport shop) which all appear to be out of print. On the other hand I notice several books on the abandoned and disused underground stations are now up on Amazon.co.uk that I would have killed for in 1993...
Lovely interview with Diana Wynne Jones, although it's obvious that one off-handed reply by her has been made the lead paragraph and theme of the article, which is a pity, although if it tells readers who like J.K. Rowling that Diana was doing it first and, to my mind, better, then that can't be a bad thing.
Lovely part one of an interview with Alan Moore at http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=532. I was fascinated by the copyright notice at the bottom of the interview, which seemed to me to be a way of having your ideological cake and eating it too "Please note that while Ninth Art generally endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware, the author of this article wishes to reserve all rights, and the article may not be reproduced without the author's express written permission."
Hmm. Please note that while Neilgaiman.com vigorously endorses the principle of copyright, the author of this journal is perfectly happy for people to borrow, reprint, put up on their blogs, livejournals or moveable type wossnames, copy things into diaries or commonplace books, or even print out and stick to fridge doors anything on this journal that strikes your fancy. You can do anything except make money from it, really, and even if you managed to do that in an amusing and indirect sort of way I can't imagine I'd grumble.