Somehow I've ended up agreeing to be in a play... I thought I'd given all that up. But it's a Tom Stoppard, and although I'd really love to play Henry Carr in Travesties, I've ended up as the blithering fool, Ivor, in Rough Crossing. I'm hoping it will be fun - the play is funny.

Definitely turning out to be fun is being in a band again, playing bass. This is something else I enjoyed a break from, but now feel ready to take up once more. We rehearse in the Old Court House which is a marvellous place to make lots of noise in.

Hope I'm not taking on too much...

Took a nice little break up to Staffordshire (Travelodge deal, £5 a night!) to look around places my family came from. I found the house my mother was born in, 5 Breadmarket Street in Lichfield (first photo), which also turns out to be the birthplace of Elias Ashmole (1617), the botanist, alchemist, magician and astrologer who founded the first public museum in Britain (the Old Ashmolean in Oxford). Just a couple of doors further down is the birthplace of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709), the biographer and dictionary compiler. My mum was born in 1941 during an air raid on the city, they lived upstairs and the ground floor is now a solicitor's. So, a thought for my mum close to Mother's Day.

Another visit to Lichfield Cathedral reminded me that it always looks like some glorious alien spacecraft has descended and landed in a little park in the town, taking root over the centuries (middle photo from the side of the cathedral). We also went round Uttoxeter where one of the first signs we saw on a house said 'No Hawkers!' - exactly the main trade my Victorian ancestors had in the town. Our final day saw a visit to Newtown Linford and the ruins of Lady Jane Grey's childhood manor amidst a beautiful landscape that opens out after passing the sentinel gnarled old trees that line the pathway (third photo).

Finished the Sea Dog strip. A bit rushed, but because of the rush to finish it came that freedom of not worrying too much about getting every little thing right. I particularly cheated on many of the backgrounds (rough, abstract even), something I'm usually more meticulous about as I like a good sense of environment.

So, fast and loose, but completed.

Too much work at the computer this week has resulted in my right eye getting an annoying twitch. Last time this happened was because I read all six issues of Simon Perrins' most excellent 'Hope For the Future' comic on CD-ROM (I couldn't stop reading it, it was too enthralling). Work hasn't been going too well this week.

I had to rest my eyes from the computer screen so decided to take a break and watch a DVD I received at Christmas, but hadn't yet had the time to watch, Kurosawa's 'Red Beard'. Apart from it being lovely just to take a break and relax, the film was utterly wonderful. I don't think I've ever seen a film that had me in tears from the tragic stories one minute then laughing like an idiot the very next. And not laughing because of comedy necessarily, but just at the joyous bits.

It really is remarkable, Kurosawa, yet again, doesn't disappoint. As Alex Cox explains on the DVD extra, 'Red Beard' was the last of Kurosawa's recognised greats (1965), pretty much until 'Kagemusha' in 1980. I don't agree with Cox when he suggests the film reveals Kurosawa's sexism though. The female characters from this film are not unlikeable, they do have character, and despite what he says, not all the patients at the clinic (around which the film is centred) are female - two of the main patient-characters are male. The female characters are memorable and dominate parts of the film. Seek this film out if you can, but don't expect another 'Seven Samurai'. There's one fight sequence (brilliantly done, of course) in the entire two hours fifty-two minutes. A very positive film whose message seems to say that goodness of being can get results.