Venue: Empire, Leicester Square

Superheroes who are forced to live normal lives. If you've read the Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, or Astro City, then this concept will not be new to you.

Brad Bird, writer and director, has managed to give it a most amusing slant. I especially like Bob Parr (AKA Mr Incredible) continuing to fight evil, battling against the injustices of the insurance company he works for. Bird also voices Edna 'E' Mode, the superhero costume designer. I think he purposefully gave her the funniest lines.

Holly Hunter's easily recognisable Georgian accent voice is perfect for Elastigirl. She is patently the star of the show. Jason Lee voices Syndrome, the nemesis, with his usual smarmy genius. Good to see him trying non-Kevin Smith projects. Craig Nelson, who I always think of as Coach Hayden Fox, voices Mr Incredible - I've never heard him so calm. Wallace Shawn voices Bob Parr's boss with his trademark nasal uppitiness. Samuel L Jackson plays his usual character, who doesn't appear too often and is somewhat superfluous.

Not forgetting John Ratzenberger, who makes his obligatory Pixar appearance near the end of the film: "I declare war on peace and happiness!"

An impressive voice line-up, a fun story, great animation (how do they make the hair look so real?), timed for Christmas, with matching videogames; I don't see how they can possibly lose money.

To do my part, I bought the special snack package with plastic Mr & Mrs Incredible and free cup.

I was driving back from London tonight quite late, when I noticed the car in front slow down.

The speed limit soon changed from 50mph to 60mph, and the police car levelled out at 55mph. The car in front was reluctant to overtake the police car, who was obviously trying to slow traffic on a Saturday night for safety reasons.

I could see no reason to remain behind the police car. Travelling at 60mph, I calmly overtook him. Looking back, there was a line of cars unwilling to overtake the police car, which was still travelling below the speed limit.

I suppose the deterrent does work, but if you're not speeding then why should you be concerned?

E.B. White, author of Charlotte's Web, collaborates with Strunk, his erstwhile lecturer, to create this small gem which should be read by everyone.

It is full of common sense tips on how to write. I particularly liked the sections on commonly misused words and phrases, and White's addition: An Approach to Style.

The entry for "care less" was one of my favourites. "I couldn't care less" often mistakenly becomes "I could care less". This error jars me whenever I encounter it. Apparently, people try to shorten the phrase without understanding how.

The book is helpful for all breeds of writer including bloggers, emailers, newsgroupers, and nanowrimoers. If you plan on writing anything, this guide is indispensible.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2004

The exhibition was quite busy today. This was the first time I've had to queue up to get in. I felt this year's entries surpassed last year's. There were more digital entries this year, including the winning entry: Bronze Whalers Charging a Baitball - shot with a Canon D60. My picks for this year:

1. Curious Bison - I love the detail of the eyes and nose.
2. Bearded Pig - reminded me of the Pigs in .
3. Arctic Fox Pouncing on Prey - fabulous aerial acrobatics. This postcard has been sold out for the past month.
4. Gentoo Penguin Family - perhaps my Linux tendencies influenced this one.
5. Herald of Spring - magical shot.
6. Clown Nudibranch Laying Eggs - I was amazed by the rosette egg-laying.
7. Green Turtle Soup - very sad photo, but happy ending.
8. White Ibis Shadows - I enjoyed working this one out before reading the description.
9. Coyote in a Snowscape - just caught before he dashed off.
10. Ethiopian Wolves - rare beautiful creatures.

It's that time of year again when I get to upgrade my phone to the latest model. Unfortunately, Nokia have decided to discontinue their superb business phone series: 6210, 6310.

I requested a 6310, because I know they had some in stock. I was informed that the last one they had in stock was sold that morning. The cynic in me was going to make a comment, but let it slide. I was advised the closest phone is the 6230. Despite my reluctance to have a camera on a phone, I finally acceded to the 6230.

I had to return the one I received because it wouldn't vibrate. I received the replacement this morning. Yes, I need that buzz. Things I have found out about the 6230:

• Transfering contacts is as painful as ever. For some reason it creates a separate contact for each separate phone number when you tranfer to the SIM. Yet no easy way to reintegrate them at the other end.
• Back cover can be tricky to get off without a SAK: how I do it.
• Shorter than the business phone series. I prefer a full-sized phone.
• Colour screen with screensaver. Does this mean my battery life will suffer?
• Music player. Download music onto a 32MB card. My iPod had better look out or it could get completely replaced...
• Radio. I like this addition. However, it needs the headset (as an aerial) to function.
• Headset is a stereo affair. You have to wear it like a necklace. Great for radio, silly otherwise.
• Chess Puzzles. At last, a cerebral game on a phone.
• Loudspeaker. Not sure about the quality at other end, but useful for when you're on hold.
• Camera. Well the quality sucks and I'm highly unlikely to use it for anything except faces next to names.
• Photo & video messaging. These are services I doubt I will ever use.
• Polyphonic ringtones. I usually set my phone to ring, but these are growing on me. I'm even thinking about buying one.

Despite my absence, I have not been working on nanowrimo. I'm sure you were all expecting a dramatic post stating my completion of nanowrimo in record time. Sadly, I must dissapoint you.

Perhaps vim wasn't the most conducive text editor to use. Perhaps I prefer writing out my stories by hand. I tried to come up with some plots, but they were all rather dark. I didn't feel like writing 50,000 words on something quite dark and unlikely to have much humour.

Instead, I have been using the time to prepare Christmas cards, and a few birthday cards. All I needed was a Parker Vector with a selection of calligraphy nibs, a bottle of Private Reserve Sherwood Green, Bristol Board, coloured paper, scissors, and glue. Obviously, years of Blue Peter instruction helped too.

If anyone would like to receive a card, then please contact me before the weekend.

I went to donate blood today. The hall was quite empty: maybe many donors have a cold.

The nurse, who reminded me of a kindly friend of mine (Maya), checked my blood for iron - no problems to give blood. I was soon whisked off to a bed and a needle was put in my arm. They had this fancy LED indicator to show how much you have donated which flashes red when you're done.

Each nurse I spoke to tried to hoist a key ring, with my blood group, on me. Thanks for me giving blood again. I only took the one. All was good until I tried to leave the bed. I got out of the bed rather swiftly, and just wanted to check I was okay before proceeding. A nearby nurse spotted me and made me lie down again. Another two nurses appeared out of nowhere and elevated my legs. Another brought me a cup of water and a straw. I was there for another five minutes or so.

Then I toodled off to have a drink and a biscuit. I was quietly munching away, when two elderly ladies, who were not nurses, mentioned that I looked a little pale. A nurse came over and checked my forehead - yes I was hot, because it was a warm hall and I was wearing a jumper!

Well that was enough for another group of these magic nurses to produce a bed, a fan, and have me horizontal within seconds. Despite my protestations that I was fine, they made me lie down for another five minutes. I made my escape soon after, otherwise I would have been there all day!

Total time: about an hour.

For anyone who doesn't know: Mozilla Firefox 1.0 got released today. Please be patient if you can't get it right away. Unsurprisingly, it is rather popular.

For blog readers, please check the lower-right hand corner of your browser when you are visiting your favourite blogs, or any site with some sort of feed. I've started shifting from news aggregators to using Live Bookmarks for certain sites. It's just faster.

Note: They have changed the tab jumping key from CTRL+n to ALT+n. Luckily, there are helpful peeps on the IRC channel. Useful Extensions:

• Link Toolbar - site navigation
• Webmail Compose - makes mailto links go to your webmail composer, eg. gmail

We think it's very funny so do watch it if you're at all likely to agree. --- David Mitchell (Mark)

Dave just mailed a bunch of us to tell us Peep Show returns for a second series on Friday 12th November 2004 at 10pm on C4.

If you missed the first series (which you can get on DVD soon), it's a "narrative comedy show." You can hear what the characters are really thinking as they get into the most bizarre straits. Watch it!

A squared pocket Moleskine arrived this morning from Mojo London. Inside the cellophane was a sheet of nine stickers with quotes from people like Picasso, to Plinius. According to the back of the sticker sheet:

Each notebook and set of 3 journals contains 9 stamps or 9 labels or 1 postcard, for sending signals, exchanging messages, collecting ideas. Send your quote about writing to info@modoemodo.com. They will be published in the next reprints of stamps and postcards.

First time I've seen this. Not really sure what they expect people to do with the stickers. Maybe if they were prettier stickers with some pictures on them too...

National Novel Writing Month started on November 1st and ends on the 30th.

I'm going to give this a go with no plan at all. I'm making it all up as I go along. So that should produce a quality bit of work eh? My word count is currently up to 573 and I've been writing for about an hour and a quarter. Only another 48427 words to go...

(via Ana and Alicia)

If you were able to vote in the up coming US election, who would you vote for?

BetaVote.com makes for interesting reading. Let's hope the people of the USA work it out too. Good luck to us all.

• Globalvote 2004

Sharrow is on the run. She has to find the last Lazy Gun before the Huhsz find her. Her combat team soon reforms to help her and capers ensue.

Banks effortlessly manages to create a rich universe filled with his unique ideas: Lazy Guns, sial races, etc. No sign of Minds, SCUs, or GSVs anywhere! Instead of the utopian Culture, we see a capitalist society with lawyers and taxes. Don't worry, you don't meet many lawyers in the book.

I kept comparing it to Consider Phlebas. Perhaps because they both revolve more around teams than his other books. I found the group dynamic was much improved from his debut effort. The story was much more coherent too.

Strangely, I felt this was a reasonably light-hearted Banks novel. Action, fun, and intrigue. If you don't usually delve into Banks' non-Culture efforts, then I urge you to try.