Went in to HarperCollins today and signed the 666 book plates for the UK Waterstones limited edition of "Demon Thief". Took me a bit more than 2 hours. As before, I wrote in all the numbers too. Most of the books will just carry my signature and the number, but a few have little messages as well -- it's pure luck as to who winds up with those!!!!

Went to see "Land of the Dead" when I was finished signing. It was OK. Had its good parts, but plenty of dud bits too. Still, as zombie flicks go, it's far from the worst!! After that, I had dinner with Bas and Maiko (Mexican grub, at the Texas Embassy near Trafalgar Square), then went to see "Les Miserables". It's the 4th time I've seen it, and it never ceases to amaze me. It's easily the best play in London, as far as I'm concerned -- great story, brilliant songs, perfectly paces, and wonderfully staged. (I preffered it in its previous theatre, since there was a much bigger stage, but that's a minor gripe.) The guy playing Thenardier (who gets to sing my favourite song of the show, "Master of the House") wasn't very strong this time, but the rest of the cast were top-notch. If you're in London, or coming there soon, and haven't seen "Les Mis" yet -- GO!!!!! You won't find many better ways to pass a few hours in this life!!!

My Japanese agent, Maiko, came over to meet Bas and me at our flat in London this morning. After showing me lots of recent articles about my books from Japan, we went for a stroll along the Thames, from Tower Bridge up to the Tate Modern, where we had a quick look around. That's one of my favourite walks in London (though I usually continue on to the West End, as I'm normally on my way to a movie when I do it!). All the cool stuff in on the south side of the river, but I prefer walking along the north, as you can see everything better that way!!

We went to see the show of "The Lion King" after the Tate Modern. It was my first time seeing it. The costumes, and the way they recreate the look and movement of the animals, are amazing. The singing and music are first-rate too. But it didn't affect me as much as the movie. I had the same problem when I saw "Beauty and the Beast" in New York a couple of years ago -- I just don't think a real life show can improve on a brilliantly animated film. I enjoyed the play, certainly, but the film was much better (and shorter!!). Having said that, Maiko, who hasn't seen the film, was blown away by it all and said that she couldn't imagine a film improving on the play -- so maybe it's just a matter of which you see first ...

Went for a delicious meal at Cecconi's after that. I shouldn't really have eaten most of what I ate, still being on the Atkins diet, but I decided to allow myself a bit of leeway this weekend -- YUM!!!!!

A day of almost non-stop watching! I flew over to London from Limerick yesterday, to meet up with my Japanese agent who's in town for a few days -- she's become a friend, so it'll be pleasure, not work. Finished "Raven's Gate" by Anthony Horowitz on the plane over. I liked it. Not as good as his Alex Rider books, in my opinion, but fast-paced and with plenty of action. My favourite bit was set in the National History Museum, when a load of dinosaur skeletons come aloive -- a fab idea!!! Started to read "Hard Freeze" by Dan Simmons after that. Simmons is a writer I've been following for a long time, ever since "Carrion Comfort" (an amazing book) came out years ago. He's written all sorts of books -- horror, sci-fi, thrillers, etc. His work is variable, but his best work is brilliant -- his 4 "Hyperion" books are modern sci-fi classics.

Today I saw 2 films and a play. First up was "Howl's Moving Castle", a weird, wild fantasy adventure from Japan. Beautifully animated, with all sorts of imaginative and suprising touches. It lost me a little bit towards the very end, and I wish they'd shown more of the inside of the fabulous castle, but it;s certainly original and impossible to predict. Recommended! After that I saw "Me and You and Everyone we Know", a quirky film about family, relationships, childhood, online chat rooms and a whole lot more. I really liked it, though I certainly wouldn't say it was suitable for children!!! Finally, after a quick dinner at Wagamama's with my brother and his girlfriend, I went to see "A Few Good Men" in the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Rob Lowe is the main draw, and there were lots of admiring gasps from many of the ladies in the audience when he first came on! To be honest, I thought he was a bit stiff and weak. I liked Lowe in "The Stand", and think he's perfectly cast in "The West Wing", but he wasn't animated enough, I felt, for this role. Also, he botched the big "I want the truth!" scene near the end!!! He wasn't awful by any means -- just not great. Most of the rest of the cast were better, and overall it moved along neatly and was fairly enjoyable. But I preferred the film!!!

Wrote 10 pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata". This was a key scene, when one of the major characters of the series ... but no, that might be giving too much away!! I'll be taking a break from it over the next few days, because I'm going to London, but I'll get stuck back in next Wednesday.

Saw the original film of "The Invisible Man" again tonight. I've seen that film LOTS of times over the years, and it never fails to impress. The effects are great, even 70+ years later, and it has a nice savage sense of humour. I've got a boxed set, with several of the sequels, which I'll probably watch over the next week or two.

I've also been watching the first series of "Angel" this week. I have to say I was very disappointed with the first handful of episodes. It feels very awkward and forced, nowhere near as much fun as "Buffy", or as vibrant. I'm hoping it will improve over the course of the series, but so far I've seen nothing to make me want to watch series two ...

I posted details of my November/December UK tour on my Message Board today, which you can access from my web site. They're in the NEWS forum.

Wrote 9 pages of Book 8 today. Again, lots of action and description, so even though I worked the same number of hours as usual, I came up a page short. I could have pressed on, but I was at the end of a chapter and it's almost nice to end the day at a chapter's end.

Wrote 9 pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata" today. It was virtually all action scenes, and they can sometimes take a lot of time to write, because you have to describe so much of what's going on. So even though I didn't make my 10 page quota, I was happy with my output, and probably put more into those 9 than I would into an "ordinary" 10!!!

Also finished editing "Koyasan", my World Book Day novelette. I pushed myself hard to wrap it up -- it was nearly 22.00 when I stopped! My editor wanted it by the end of Wednesday, and though there was no great urgency to get it in by then, I've never missed a deadline yet, and don't want to start now!! I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow, which will take a big chunk out of my day (I have to drive into Limerick city, and then there's a couple of shops I need to go to), so I knew if I didn't do it tonight, I'd run late.

I was supposed to go out with my uncle to a pub, to see Spurs play Grimsby in the second round of the Carling Cup. He cancelled, which I was pleased of, because it meant I could work on "Koyasan". I'm even more delighted now, because the useless shower LOST!!! To a second divison side!! i.e. a side 3 divisions below us!!!!!! If I'd watched that debacle I'd be in a right miserable mood -- but, having chosen to give it a miss, I can at least count my blessings on that score! Football!!! Just when you think you might be turning the corner, along comes a shambolic result to remind you of reality!

Wrote 10 pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata" yesterday -- the action has hotted up to boiling point!! I also edited the first third (20 pages) of "Koyasan", my World Book Day novelette. I was going to do more of that later, but we had a power cut! Part of the drawbacks of living in rural Ireland is that we get power cuts quite often. You can never tell how long they're going to last. This one lasted about two and a half hours, wrecking my night-time editing plans. In the end Bas and I went to see my Granny and Grandad, and a few other relatives, and passed a pleasant enough night in half-light. It came on again about 10.30, so we were able to watch the end of the movie we'd been viewing when it went off earlier -- "Sahara", the Matthew McConaughey adventure movie. It was better than I thought -- absolutely ridiculous, but shot in lovely settings and fast moving. Ideal for when you want just simple entertainment.

By the way, in response to a comment -- when I talk about pages, I mean A4 pages. My average page is about 300 words.

I said in an earlier Blog entry that I almost never get hangovers. Well, today I had the mother of all hangovers!!! I think it's because of the Atkins diet -- since I've no bread or potatos or anything like that in my system, I think alcohol hits me harder than it normally does. I was out on Saturday night, first to watch Spurs play Aston Villa (a 1-1 draw), then with family and friends. I didn't drink any more than usual (even a bit less than I sometimes do when I go to football matches), but this morning I was a mess! My head was pounding, I was sick, my legs were trembling. I had to rest on the couch in my TV room for a few hours, and though I improved over the course of the day, I still don't feel 100 per cent. I'll have to be more careful over the next week. If this actually is a result of the Atkins diet, I certainly won't be staying on it much longer!!!!!   :-)

Yesterday, my copies of the UK hardback edition of "Cirque Du Freak" arrived. It looks lovely, much more impressive than its onscreen cover on my site suggests. But there was another package too -- 40 copies of "Sons of Destiny"!!!! I was extremely puzzled -- I hadn't ordered them. When I studied the invoice I realized they were actually 40 books which I'd ordered, and which had been sent to me, in October 2004!!!!! This was back during my Destiny tour last year, and when the books didn't turn up, I had the publishers send me replacements, as I lost all faith in the delivery crew -- they said they'd tried to deliver on three different occasions, but had for some reason never actually done so!! I assumed the books had been returned to the warehouse, but yesterday, out of the blue, for no good reason, they turned up here! Straaaaaange ...

Wrote 10 pages of Book 8 today, which I was delighted with because I only worked on the book in the afternoon. I was having a barbeque tonight to celebrate the first birthday of one of my uncle's kids, so I had to get ready for that, which meant I couldn't squeeze in a full day's work. I thought I'd maybe get 5 or 6 pages written, but I stormed at it in the early afternoon, after lunch, and managed to whizz through a nice, sharp 10 pages -- excellent!!!!!

Was busy cooking for the BBQ. I had two sets going at once, and I was the only chef, so I was darting from one to the other, turning pieces of meat like mad, trying to stop everything from burning. Found it quite enjoyable actually. Although running 2 was definitely harder than 1, I was able to cook twice as much meat, so finished in half the time it would normally have taken. Even so, BBQs are certainly a lot more fun when somebody else is doing all the hard work!!!!

Had a small panic attack early in the day. I started on the Atkins Diet on Monday, just the 2 week induction course, to lose a few pounds -- I'm a bit chubbier than I'd like to be, and I'll probably gain some weight on my American tour next month (lots of travel and eating, very little exercise!), so I wanted to lose a bit beforehand, so I didn't spiral completely out of control!!! I've always been a bit (sometimes a lot!) on the chubby side. I don't worry about that these days, though I didn't like being considered fat when I was younger. But I do like to be reasonably healthy and able to climb a flight of stairs without having to stop to catch a breath -- hence the diet!!

Anyway, the panic attack was that I realised I couldn't drink beer because of the diet, and, quite frankly, I can't really enjoy a BBQ without a few beers, especially if I'm cooking! (I'm by no means a heavy drinker, but I do like a few bottles at social occasions.) Thankfully, Bas discovered low carb beer, which the diet allows me to drink, and suddenly all was well with my world again!!!!!   :-)   It didn't taste that bad either, which was a bonus!