So Neil Gaiman recently pointed out to me that the incredible fantasy Old Harry's Game is available -- not from American sources, but from Amazon UK. I yearn to put cash in creator Andy Hamilton's pocket, so buying used copies available via the resale market in America is not the option I'm looking for. But how do you go about this sort of international purchase? (I know, I know, everyone else has been doing it for years -- but I'm new to this.)

Old Harry's Game aired on BBC Radio between 1995 and 2005 and had a total of 30 half-hour episodes (four six-episode series, one four-episode series, and a two-episode Christmas-New Year's special). The concept is that two men are killed in a traffic accident caused by one of them, and both end up in Hell, to suffer eternal torment at the hands of Satan and his demons. One of the men (Thomas Quentin Crimp) is one of the most evil men who ever lived; the other (Professor Richard Whittingham) is one of the best. And the pair intrigue Satan, who tries to convince the professor that mankind is inherently evil, while the professor tries to convince Satan that mankind is inherently good.

Deep? Well, writer Andy Hamilton (who also plays Satan) is not one to pass by a cheap joke, and little of the content is politically (or religiously) correct. But my first hearing found it to be both funny and thought-provoking, and I've sought ever since for commercial releases of the award-winning radio show. Now (thank you, Neil!) I find BBC CDs at Amazon UK:

Volume One has half of the episodes of the first two seasons.
Volume Two has half of the episodes of the second two seasons.
Old Harry's Game Christmas Special is the two-parter.
Series Five has the complete fifth season of four episodes (and a photo of Hamilton as Satan)

And, hey! It says there's a Series Six that will be released Nov. 5.

So has anyone out there bought items from Amazon UK? Is it just a matter of giving a U.S. credit card number? What sort of crippling shipping costs are involved in CD purchases? Radio drama and comedy still live in England, and I'm guessing this is the only way I can support them.

I finally posted at the primary CBGXtra site, which brought my total there to 1,000. Woo (as they say) hoo!

And it's with regard to the film biography of Harlan Ellison: Dreams with Sharp Teeth. Check it out (and, if you're in the Cleveland area Sept. 21, you should grab the opportunity to attend the event at the Cleveland Public Library).

OK, here's the deal.

The United States Postal Service has two sizes of its "Flat Rate Box." Price is now $8.95, and the package goes Priority Mail regardless of weight or U.S. destination. One size is (pardon the clumsy fractions; fancy tiny figures could mess up the display) 11 x 8 1/2 x 5 1/2". The other is 11 7/8 x 3 3/8 x 13 5/8".

Now to fill one and send it on its way.

In promotional material (copyright 2007 BBC Worldwide) for the new series Torchwood , creator, lead writer, and executive producer Russell T Davies provided this view [reproduced here as provided] of the series, which will begin Sept. 8 on BBC America:

The Torchwood team is a small group of cops and investigators who use alien technology in a very real world. All the bits of future technology that fall to Earth are captured, scavenged, plundered by the Government, and Torchwood finds ways to use them. A very British operation, away from the prying eyes of America and the UN.

Everyone who works for Torchwood is young, under 35. Some say that's because it's a new science. Others say it's because they die young.

It's bleak, brutally funny, full of all the sex and swearing that usually gets cut from sci-fi. And the sci-fi is very 'real'. Few alien creatures in themselves - though if they appear, they're not the Moxx of Balhoon, they're nightmarish and savage and profoundly strange.

There's minimal CGI, with the occasional blow-out to take people by surprise. But it should feel different to the usual sci-fi stuff - this show doesn't need gorgeous spaceships, it needs to manipulate the texture of the picture, as Jacob's Ladder once did, to frighten in all sorts of new ways.

The whole show picks up that feel - rough, wild, with a hefty dose of Shameless. And with that show's sense of humor! Reflected in the scripts as well - The X Files meets This Life.

The series consists of one-off stories - using alien tech to investigate human crimes; to investigate alien happenings amongst ordinary people; and to research new alien devices in themselves. But stories about the central characters are continuous throughout - affairs between team members, traitors, sinister bosses, the misuse of their powers, and then even more affairs - so that the 13 episodes have a shape and an arc.

The Torchwood team first appear in Doctor Who, and spin off into this series - though the link isn't too heavy, since this is for a very different audience.

A dark, clever, wild, crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop-show. What else is television for?!

Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Ill., Aug. 22 in 1920, and he became one of the earliest modern literary figures to pay tribute to comic books as a legitimate art form. When E.C. comics began to adapt his stories into comic-book form without acknowledging their source, he responded with a cheery letter of support as he reminded the publisher that he was owed royalties.

There followed issues in which Bradbury's name was featured on the cover in a cross-promotion that led comics fans to magazine science fiction and science-fiction fans to comic books.

A happy tip of the Thompson topper to Ray Bradbury -- with many thanks!

E.B. White wrote more than Charlotte's Web and an updating of William Strunk's Elements of Style. He was a brilliant writer and was a vital part of the sparkling magazine that was The New Yorker. At the moment, I'm on the lookout for a cheap (read beat-up, since ordinary copies fetch $60 or more) copy of his Ho Hum, New Yorker fillers that displayed his keen eye for absurdity and the problems inherent in clumsy phrasing.

In the meantime, I've been dipping into a copy of the Rebecca M. Dale-edited Writings from The New Yorker 1927-1976 by White and came across the following, published March 4, 1944, in response to a statement by George Seldes in Saturday Review that he "has never known of an editorial writer who wrote as he pleased." White said, "This makes us a kept man. We often wonder about our life in our bordello, whether such an existence erodes one's character or builds it."

White said he'd evolved "a system for the smooth operation of a literary bordello."

"The system is this: We write as we please, and the magazine publishes as it pleases. When the two pleasures coincide, something gets into print. When they don't, the reader draws a blank. It is a system we recommend -- the only one, in fact, under which we are willing to be kept."

White did note that it depended on a publication's aims. "As far as we have been able to discover, the keepers of this house have two aims: the first is to make money, the second is to make sense. We have watched for other motives, but we have never turned up any. That makes for good working conditions, and we write this as a sort of small, delayed tribute to our house."

What he said strikes me as providing insight into the business of much publishing in general. Fans should keep in mind that the first aim of publishers who want to stay in business is to make money. And making sense? Well, making no sense is seldom a good plan for an ongoing publisher. The point here is that it's my guess that the majority of comic-book publishers probably have these goals in mind -- and that it's a good idea to keep those aims in mind when evaluating what they produce.