Couple of years ago, I wrote something before the Bristol Comic Expo that year, revamping, expanding and updating something I'd written previously for my column at Going Cheep. What I wrote was the con report before I attended the con.

It seemed rather popular when I wrote it, and Neil Gaiman mentioned it in his journal. As a result (and I'm not pretending that people stumble across it many other ways) every so often, someone who's been to Neil's journal will come to mine and either leave a message or email me.

acciochocolate did so today, and so I thought it was about time I reminded people of it, especially since there's been a fair number of new readers in the past couple of years.

Hey, Neil called it "every-con-report-you-need-to-read", and who am I to disagree?

every-con-report-you-need-to-read

It's been reported that both Mollie Sugden and Karl Malden have died, at the ages of 86 and 97 respectively.

Though I'm far less surprised at either of the deaths than I was at Michael Jackson's, I'm far more saddened.

I'm not sure why, since they both had long and successful careers in their chosen fields, and they certainly didn't die "before their time" or somesuch nonsense.

I think it's because they never seemed to age that much, particularly Sugden. Although she was better known as Mrs Slocombe in Are You Being Served, I much preferred her in The Liver Birds, but Served and The Streets of San Francisco were on telly all the time when I was growing up and I remember them clearly.

I can't remember the last time I saw Mollie Sugden in anything, but I saw Malden do a rather wonderful guest spot in The West Wing, and in the few minutes he was in the show, he acted Martin Sheen off the screen, something that few people did in that show, certainly in the first couple of series.