Journal

Monday, September 15, 2003

University Challenge (post-Bambi)

You lot are remarkable. Dozens of people let me know about tube map umbrellas. For example:

I read your journal via the LiveJournal RSS feed and just saw a question about the London Underground umbrella. My guess was that if anyone sold them it would be the London Transport Museum.
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/

Indeed, they do sell umbrellas with the underground map on them; http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/cgi-bin/shop.cgi?cmd=product&product_id=128
--Peter Radcliffe.


And someone sent me a link to a DVD intervew/review of Neverwhere at http://www.captaincomics.us/weeklycolumn.htm. Meanwhile, over at The Dreaming, Lucy Anne has accumulated dozens of reviews and interviews and quotes and links -- it's much more sensible to send the curious over to www.holycow.com/dreaming than for me to repost them all here

...

The phone just rang.

Roz said, "I just want you know that you were just a question on University Challenge."

Me: sputtering noises.

Roz: The question was "Neil Gaiman's erudite tales of the Sandman is a work in which medium"?

Me: Sputtering noises continue.

and as I'm still holding the phone and sputtering the messages start to come in:

Hi Neil!

First of all, a little news thingy: you were a question on University Challenge just now on BBC2! well, the question was something like "what medium did writer Neil Gaiman use to tell his Sandman stories in?" or something like that. The team in question got it right ("graphic novels," though Jeremy Paxman said he'd also have accepted "Comic Strip").

Anyway, a question: I bought Midnight Days last week, and greatly enjoyed it. However, I'm now wondering (big Hellblazer fan that I am) if we will ever see your story about John Constantine's fridge in print...

That's it, except for the fact that I'd like to point out that A&E's Neverwhere boxset appears to be region code free, as it not only plays on my regioncode free dvd player but also in my European Playstation 2. So everybody can enjoy your very nice commentary. Well, consider that pointed out now.

Cheers,

Sean


I wonder if there's still a copy of it around. I don't think it was very good, to be honest.

And that's really interesting. I've got an all region DVD player, so can't check this -- can anyone else confirm or deny whether the Neverwhere box set will play on other regions?

Okay. Sputtering attack over.

...

I am preparing a presentation for our sci-fi/fantasy lovers club about the advantages of the comic book/graphic novel medium(This is voluntary, there is no money involved). I would like to know if scanning certain pages out of your works and using them as slides would be an infringement of copyright laws. And if not, would it be acceptable for me to ask friends to e-mail me certain frames out of works I don't own?

I think it counts as "fair use", and I wouldn't worry if I were you.

Sweden! Thanks to the messageboard I�ve been reached by the news that Mr Neil Gaiman will be at the Sci-fi bookstore in Stockholm Oct 4 at 2pm - I�ll be in Stockholm at the time so the timing is perfect. I hope this information will be confirmed at this website?

Happy signing!! / Anneli

www.anneli.rr.nu
(with the worst painting yet: "The two polka-connected clowns with the long throuts")


You know more than I do, Anneli, but that sounds right. (I'm currently asking my agents to get me the information on what I'm doing where on the European trip, and I'm not sure what's holding it up.)

...

Another real life superhero.... http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_819416.html?menu=news.quirkies. An article on female Robots. (What dimension are we in, again?)

...

Hello-

If the Space Elevator article caught your attention, then you might be interested in finding more info at the project website, which I don't believe was mentioned in the Guardian article - http://www.isr.us/SEHome.asp?m=1 The downloads section contains some papers written by the head scientist (Dr. Edwards) that serve as a pretty interesting overview to the whole project, including the approximately 80 page final feasibility report to NASA.

I realize I'm probably spending a lot of time to respond to a one sentence link in the journal but I actually worked on this project for a while (awhile?) and have a great affinity for it.

Thank you

Matthew



Not a problem. Consider it posted. And this last is from Ginger, who is my agent Merrilee's right hand lady:


Hi, Neil. I thought that if you had empty space on an upcoming journal post and wanted to do something altruistic, you might want to send readers here:

http://www.tomatonation.com/finddon.shtml

Sars is one of the geniuses behind Television Without Pity, who is looking for the stranger who was kind to her on that fateful date 2 years ago. I indentify with her desire to find Don intensely, because on 9/11/01 a very nice woman on my N train handed me Kleenex and tried to keep me calm when I saw the Towers burning and realized my father could be up there. (He worked on the 98th Floor of Tower 1---he's fine, thank God, but for an hour that AM I thought he was in danger or...). I've always wanted to thank her for her kindness, but I have even less to go on than Sars. She's now putting her readers to the test, but I think you get many more daily hits than she does.

Anyway, if you have some space sometime soon. Thank you.

Best,

Ginger