Neil Gaiman's Blog, page 51

drive-by blogging

Catching up on things, so this is just me nipping on to say that the sold-out SPIN Housing Works me&amandapalmer event on June 3rd has posted a handful of front row tickets that they are auctioning off, ten in all.

Housing Works is a good cause ( see http://www.housingworks.org/social-enterprise/).

You get a front row side table for two at the event, a signed poster and complementary drinks. You can bid for the five front row tables at http://www.shophousingworks.com/auction.cfm?stor

The #StemCellResearch Post and Her Majesty's Armoured Novelists

This one is, I think, important:

Hello, Neil. I intern at a lab that deals with stem cell research, and recently was forwarded the following attached message from the head of our lab. The document linked will explain everything, but the gist of it is that there is currently some regulatory legislation in the works to replace the repealed guidelines on embryonic stem cell research from the Bush administration. The National Institutes of Health are currently running an online comment

One Blustery Day With Stamps

Good morning. It's a bright, blustery, suprisingly chilly day out there, the view from the kitchen window is filled with cold, fluffed-up orioles and hummingbirds and indigo buntings, and I have been disappointed in the quantity of asparagus that has grown since I attacked the overgrown asparagus crop and made asparagus soup on my return home, and so I  had rhubarb and yogurt and honey for breakfast instead. (I have a Maddy fast asleep upstairs because you Do Not Wake Teenagers Up

The Littlest Beekeeper

 
 
A beautiful Spring day. I worked on things that I'm late on, including an introduction that got away from me, and then went out with Lorraine and Maddy and checked the bees (four hives, all brightly coloured. Three hives still to go.) Then I took a few more photos, mostly of the gazebo and of bookshelves and, seeing she was there, Maddy.
Looking at the finished phots was of those odd, heart-stopping moments for a father, when you realise that your little girl has started to wear t

ants and screencracks

Somehow in my sleep last night (fell asleep while working, on the sofa) I cracked my notebook computer's screen, and yesterday afternoon the new posh slick black internet router was discovered to contain an Ant's nest, when I picked it up to try and work out why the internet was so very, very slow, upsetting a very large number of little black ants in the process, most of whom ran off, carrying their eggs and grumbling about me in Ant.
What an odd world.
Let' s see: interview with yo

Entitlement issues...

I am home. My dog is happy to see me. The world is a good place and I am behind on work because American Airlines doesn't have proper power points in International first class like, er, all the other airlines I've flown on in the last few years. (They offered to sell me an adapter for $150 to plug in the battery-dead computer, and I probably should have said yes to keep working, but was so outraged, and had decided not to fly American in future, so it would never have been used aga

347 years older...

So three generations of my family wandered down to Covent Garden to celebrate Mr Punch's birthday.

It's celebrated on the nearest Sunday to May 9th, because in 1662, Sam Pepys wrote in his diary that, he went

into Covent Garden to an alehouse, to see a picture that hangs there, which is offered for 20s., and I offered fourteen—but it is worth much more money—but did not buy it, I having no mind to break my oath. Thence to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, wh

Quick ones...

It's been a long week, and I keep waiting for down time to do a proper blog entry in, to catch up. I have photos and everything.

This is just a very short one to say that

1) I'll be on the Jonathan Ross radio show on Radio 2 this morning. In a couple of hours.

2) I'll be on Blue Peter on Tuesday (already filmed, me and Henry Selick on the sofa).

Spent yesterday catching up with old friends. Right now I look wild-haired and bleary-eyed, and I will be extremely pleased when all this is o

City of amazing croissants and vanishing laundry

Dear Blog,

I still love you. I have not deserted you for Twitter, even if she does now have her own page at http://tweets.neilgaiman.com/. Yes, she is always there, but soon I will get tired of her hundred and forty characters and 335,000 followers, and I will return to you, my sweet patient good-natured blog.

Am in a lovely French hotel suite of the kind I only ever stay in when I am doing film junketty things, which means I am in Paris until this evening to be interviewed about and

Quick signing reminders, Paris and New York.

A quick one -- I'll be signing on Monday in Paris, at the Fnac in Saint-Lazare at 5:30pm. Or to put it another way,

Neil Gaiman sera à la Fnac Saint-Lazare, à Paris, le lundi 4 mai 2009, à partir de 17 h 30.

(And if you're in the New York area, I'm being interviewed on Saturday May 2 at 1:00pm...http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/3237/prmID/1832 -- tickets should be available at the location. Come for the day.)

Also, next week there will be strange appearances of me all over UK m