ALAN MOORE

Northampton is a strange town. Caught half way between wicker-man-style inbred country wierdness and cosmopolitan pretentiousness, with a bohemian underbelly that sings beautiful folk music if you tickle it the right way.

Yesterday I was in Sainsbury's and who did I walk past but Alan Moore, creator of the graphic novels that spawned movies like "From Hell" and "V For Vendetta" (which I thought was a lot better than Moore allowed). You can't mistake Alan, though I know somebody who did. He's large, extremely hairy, and he has the world's most lugubrious face.

Well, I kind of wanted to say hello to him, just hello you understand...I'd feel the urge to say hello to Stan Lee if I saw him in Sainsbury's too (and if I'd met a living Jack Kirby I would have wet my pants). But I didn't. I don't want people saying hello to me when I'm just out trying to get my peanut butter and my wine, unless the person saying hello is a good looking woman who's going to invite me back to hers for coffee. (And you know how often that happens!)

Meeting famous people is usually disappointing anyway. I've noticed it as a magazine editor. Every poet with a half way large reputation turns into an opera diva when you give him or her too much time and attention. As if they're the only ones who ever wrote an immortal line or two (when most of 'em haven't written one).

I favour the attitude of the Chink in "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" when the Clock People come to him looking for him to be their leader:

"Shove it up your butts," he says." I have taught you nothing."