In stone were these words first hewn...

Hey Blogniks,

Since this is Monday, and I have resolved not to buy books more than once a week, I did another shopping expedition into London to raid the bookshops.

On my travels I picked up another Invisibles trade paperback at this natty little basement comics shop. While in there I had a cool conversation about Grant Morrison's writing style, Simon Bisley's artwork (Simon Bisley did the covers for another Morrison title, Doom Patrol), whether The Matrix was a blatant plagiarism of The Invisibles and a Rolling Stone article about Larry Wachowski.

Neato.

The Comic Shop Dudes disagreed with my assertion that The Invisibles was influenced by The A-Team but I think they appreciated my lateral thinking.

Then I wandered down Charing Cross road to check the seesion times for Underworld II, just to see if I could squeeze in seeing it and still be home in time for Life on Mars. Nope, next session 1920, no way I would be home in time.

Speaking of movies, last night I also wanted to see Underworld II, but by the time I got into Leicester Square (it wasn't playing at Stratford, I checked) the next session would have had me exiting after tubes stopped running, or very close.

So instead I went to see The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

D'oh!

My sister had said it was lousy, some internet dude has described it as Thrill Sucking Crap, but I had to see it for myself.

Sure, for the most part it looked great, and there were moments of shivers.

But by and large I found myself bored, listless and wishing I could reach through the fourth wall and slap some of the main characters.

Edmund especially. I'm not a happy advocate of child abuse, but that kid really deserved a beating.

Furthermore, it has been a lot of years since I read the book, but I am pretty sure that Aslan, not Santa Claus gave the children their weapons.

The movie did succeed in showing me another way to look at a story I already knew.

Unfortunately that other way was 'Hells Bells, did I ever think this Schmaltz was good?'

Elea, I should have listened to your warnings.

Back to today:

After checking the cinemas, I wandered down to the Charing Cross Library and was surprised to find that it was a tiny little hole-in-a-wall compared to the Stratford and Walthamstow libraries. How does that work?

Although what it lost in size it made up for in the quality of it's selection. It was the first time I'd been there, but I reckon I'll be back.

On the backswing I read in a backstreet bookshop window that they were looking for a Tarot Card reader, and entertained the thought of inventing an East European ex-gypsy for the part.

I also stopped in at a stylish stationary shop to buy some magazine racks before hitting Blackwells and buying a Robin Hobb novel, the first of the Farseer Trilogy (I needed something to wash the taste of the Narnia Chronicles out of my head).

Reading some of the first chapter on the tube home, I think I made a good decision.

Here something unrelated: checking the wikipedia entry about Iain M Banks, it says that he writes his novels in three months and then spend nine months off, travelling and recording rock music.

I think I've found a new hero.

Gotta go, getting thrown out and Life on Mars calls.

Gotta assemble these magazine racks.

J