Tuesday, 9 August 2011

TV

The Hour
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Pointless
4x44 (4/8/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Torchwood: First Born by James Goss
Pages 41-127

As the quarter-way point (p.66) approaches, the novel begins to clarify What's Going On In Rawbone… as if we hadn't guessed most of it from the blurb. But why? How? And what's it got to do with Torchwood? Thankfully, as the tale reaches its one-third point (p.86) there's some proper mystery and intrigue creeping in, and by halfway (p.127) it's getting nicely sinister, building to a cliffhanger-y almost-revelation. This all seems to have given the story the kickstart I felt it needed; it's rattling along quite decently now, much better than the early plod.

One thing, though: don't write bits of your novel in French assuming the reader will be able to understand. That was fine 150 years ago, but nowadays, not so much. Thanks.

Articles

British film distributors left reeling by financial impact of Sony/PIAS warehouse fire by Henry Barnes & Andrew Pulver
(from guardian.co.uk)
Attacked and burnt down last night during the London riots, the Sony distribution centre in Enfield held a lot of stock for most/all of the UK's independent film and music labels. Whilst it's largely insured, the time to restock and find new distribution models could have a hugely detrimental effect on these already-struggling companies. Not good. Bleeding Cool have a suggestion for how to help.

Will DC Comics Drop Their UK Print Prices To Match Digital? by Rich Johnston
(from Bleeding Cool)
The UK release of US comics has always felt like it must be a bit of an afterthought to me -- understandably, really, as these are US publishing companies and the UK must be a much smaller market -- but it feels like our significance is increasing (or, I suppose, that I underestimated it) of late. For instance, the only reason we're not getting midnight sales of the New 52 launch (which they're holding in the US) is that there's a Bank Holiday in the way. And now, they're talking about putting a fixed UK price on the covers of the books (something that doesn't currently happen, obviously) and bringing the price down too (so that it's in line with digital). Great for consumers, but not necessarily so great for comic shops, would could be losing a significant percentage of profit on each book, potentially. Interesting times.