WEATHER: S'NO JOKE

Sorry about that painful pun but I just couldn't resist.

The weather has been absolutely horrendous since last Thursday as wave after wave of snow has fallen across the area to pile up enough to make life here distinctly difficult and it's getting worse. I couldn't guess how much snow has fallen since it started but there's at least 6 inches on top of my flat garage roof and this is snow which, part from the top layers, is compressed with at least an inch or two of ice on the bottom.

Today has been the worst so far. This morning I decided to go swimming as common sense had overruled me on Friday. I couldn't take the van as the driver side windscreen wiper was currently lying useless across the dashboard, so I took Susan's car. Now the street is a narrow cul-de-sac and we live halfway up. None of this would have made any difference if the car had been pointed downwards but I had to drive to the top and do a three point turn to get it pointing the right way.

It should have been easy. Instead I got stuck. I tried shoving thick paper under a rear wheel to get extra traction. Didn't work. Probably because the car has front wheel drive, unlike the van which doesn't. Thankfully a couple of neighbours came out and gave me advice and a push. Driving to the Raich Carter Leisure Centre was slow so when I came out, rather than go back the way I came, I headed into town so I knew I'd been driving along passable roads. I had been intending to go to Sainsbury's to pick up donated food and to the post office to post a couple of parcels -one book and a DVD box set I'd sold on Amazon Marketplace. I didn't bother.

When I got back I grovelled to Susan and declared us snowbound. Actually I did walk to the post office later but there's no way I was going to do any driving. On the way there I met Phil, one of our charity's dog rescuers, who'd taken the van believing it might be better in the snow than his car. He'd got stuck and needed a push. No, it wasn't any better than the car.

On the other hand, some of my cats are having fun.

An Amazon 5-star review.

Get yourself fit the DC way.

Simply buy a copy of this book but don't remove it from its case. Now, with the book flat on the ground, slide your hands underneath until the full width of the book is flat against your arms. Now lift until the book is on a level with your chest and hold the position until your arms feel as if they're about to drop off -trust me, it won't take long. Repeat until you realise there is a much better use for this book, open the case, now enjoy the wonderful contents.

There has never been a book like this about the comics industry and probably won't be again, at least not for a long time (unless Marvel, not untypically, follow DC). It is huge -not a coffee table book, a dinner-table-for-eight book- and extremely heavy. Whatever you do, don't drop it on your foot or you could easily break a toe. This is not a joke as the size and weight of it makes it impossible to hold on your lap. The production values (publisher Taschen is known for this) and the contents are magnificent. It is, obviously, an authorised (and no doubt sanitised) history of DC comics but that's fair enough. Although the copious and beautifully reprinted illustrations almost swamp the text, a reviewer at Amazon.com reckoned the word count to be around 100,000 (a conservative estimate?) so there is plenty of text to read.

Although expensive, and the most expensive book I've ever bought, it's worth every penny to anyone interested in DC Comics or the history of comics in general. I've read that some people consider this to be an investment as it's bound to be a collector's item once it goes out of print; which is something I've considered. If you're thinking of buying it for that alone, here's a word of warning. It is almost impossible to open the case the first time without damaging it slightly and the case is also easy to scuff. Bearing that in mind, I suggest ordering two copies, one to enjoy and the other to keep in pristine condition. (Sorry, this is what's called winding up the opportunists).

Gorgous book. I love it. Comics-related book of the Decade, no question.

MUSIC: SANDY DENNY

 It's here at last and here, below, is my Amazon review.

Review title: Perfection.
Rating: 5 stars

Stating the obvious, this is for the die-hard Sandy Denny fan with a hundred and fifty quid to spare. To you, gentlepersons (and to me), it's worth every penny. Denny was simply the finest British female singer in any musical genre ever and she remains unsurpassed. But I'm not going to spend much time on the music. You know what it's like without me telling you because you are interested enough to read a review of a hugely expensive box set. And if, by chance, you aren't familiar with Sandy, then go buy one of the several compilations that are available. Musically, from the very first track, it's superbly reproduced with total clarity. And from that very first track it's clear that the singer is so very special.

Now let's have a look at the presentation.

Working backward from the CDs themselves, each disc is housed within a plastic wallet for added protection with a gatefold card case. On the inside page is a photo of Sandy and on the facing page the track listing. On the back cover, for the first 11 discs, are mini reproductions of the original album covers.

As for the much vaunted extras, well... The large hardback book is nicely produced with a brief introduction to Sandy, lots of photographs, plenty of information about the various tracks on a CD by CD basis, plus comments about her by people who knew her well. This latter reminded me of the previously definitive and excellent A Boxful Of Treasures and the accompanying booklet to that is better than this more lavish production if only for the extensive biography. The rest is basically ephemera, all of which can be fitted in the accompanying folder. These bits and bobs are nice to have but they don't add a great deal. The large box itself could have been half as thin by organising the CDs within differently. Okay, I'm carping a little but for the price I've paid I'm entitled. Obviously I don't regret buying this for a second. I've been a fan of Sandy's since a friend played me the Fotheringay album which is still my all time favourite record.

Apart from the minor carping, I do have one niggle. Despite all the information about the tracks, there's no timing. Maybe it's me but I always like to see the track times included.

Never mind, for all us Sandy fans, this is the box set we've been waiting all our lives for. That's it. Go add it to your basket. Love it.

Post Script.

I rarely ever play CDs these days. As soon as I get one I copy it to Itunes on my pc and then onto my Ipod. A couple of anomalies happened when I did this with the box set. About a third of the way through Disc 2 (The Strawbs material), Itunes suddenly shut down and it did this a second time when I tried again. Today, a day later, I tried it and it copied perfectly. Disc 13 (the second of the previously unreleased matterial) was another matter. Itunes couldn't locate any discographical information about either the title or the contents. Why this should be I don't know but I will keep trying. It may be an error on record label's part or it may a flaw on the disc itself. I'm hoping it's the first because that can be easily corrected. If it's the latter then we're all screwed.

ANIMAL RESCUE: SHIT SATURDAY

I've been doing a lot of cat rescuing and other animal-related stuff lately and I've been feeling stressed and irritable (see previous somewhat intemperate post for an idea of my mood) and in need of a few days break, plus I had some personal paperwork stuff to sort out before the end of the month. So I decided to take a break for five days starting Saturday just gone.

So of course Susan has me loading the van in the pouring rain to fill it with stuff that's been hanging around for a while to take to Barnardo's in the city centre where I then unload it in the pouring rain. After that I went home for coffee and a nap and switched off my phone.

The landline phone woke me from a doze at one point but I ignored it. Shortly after that Susan arrived and told me that Carole had an emergency with a cat and, as all the vets were close, I had to take it to the PSDA emergency vet service at Heworth.

I went over and Carole was quite worked up, saying she'd never seen anything like it and got me to touch the side of the cat's head.

"It's an abscess," I said, a burst and very large abscess. Carole said the cat was only two years old and had been told that by its former owner. 

Half an hour later and I was with the vet and it was apparent that there was more wrong with it than just the abscess. The abscess itself was enormous and hadn't just appeared overnight. The vet said it was also affecting its inner ear. The ears themselves were speckled dark black. The long haired ginger cat's coat was heavily matted, a sign of stress, and the cat itself was very thin. And, far from being two years old, the vet told me it was a geriatric cat in which case the weight loss was a sure sign of a cat on the way out.

"Am I being horrible if I ask you to put him to sleep?" I asked the vet.

She said, "No, I think it's the best thing."

He didn't react at all when part of his leg was shaved or when the needle was inserted and his breathing stopped before even the last drop had been injected into him.

I called in at the shop on the way back to tell Susan and Andrea what had happened and then went home thinking that was that for the day. Sadly, not. Teatime and Susan had gone to visit her mother in the home when Little Bob started crying. I thought it was just him psyching himself up to do a poo but the crying went on. I picked him up and saw that his right eye had swollen up and his lower inner eyelid had also swollen and covered his eyeball. Little Bob was distressed and in pain. I rang Susan and told her to come home as we needed to take him to the emergency vets. 

In the end, Susan was too stressed so I just took Little Bob on my own. Just as well as there were a number of idiotic drivers driving far too fast in the dark on wet dual carriageways which meant trying to change lanes was a nightmare. Poor Little Bob was screaming his head off the whole time, though he calmed down once we got there. The same receptionist was on duty and we had a bit of a problem because they couldn't find Animal Krackers account, head office was closed, and her boss was off . This had happened earlier as well but this time they needed a deposit from me to cover both sessions -luckily I had my wallet with me as I had to pay £110.00 on my Visa card. The cost of the poor ginger cat alone was over £200.00.

The vet was reassuring when she checked the kitten over. It was probably caused by a cat scratch on the eye and the swelling can go down quite quickly. Unless it was an abscess behind the eye in which case the eye itself would have to be removed. Given the way Little Bob and Daisy play fight then a scratch is definitely the most likely. I hope. The vet gave him an antibiotic injection and an anti-inflammatory to reduce the pain and swelling. Then back down wet dual carriageways with lunatics driving far too fast and home.

Thirty six hours later and Bob isn't complaining, though his eye is still swollen and I'm about to take him to our vets to be checked out.

It would be nice to think that that's the only animal-related activity I'll be doing this week other than looking after my own cats but I am taking one cat to his new fosterer and hopefully permanent new owner this teatime and I'll be very surprised  if other things don't crop up.

If I suddenly stop blogging, it's because I've cracked up through stress and I am stress and anxiety-prone so that isn't really a joke.

SOCIETY: WAKE ME WHEN ITS OVER

(Caution: this post contains foul language and highly intolerant and abusive remarks.  On the other hand, at least it's short. But that's because I really don't want to spend any more time than is neccessary commenting on a bunch of parasitic wastes of space.)

Another post on a topic which rarely ever features on this blog, in this case, that boring bunch of fuckers collectively known as the royal family (which I refuse to capitalise). A royal wedding, the announcement of which has been saturating the media and will continue to do so for the next several months to the exclusion of more interesting and more important news.

I've also read that although Daddy will be paying for the wedding, the enormous cost of security will , however, be paid by me. And you as well, assuming you're a British taxpayer. 

I feel like projectile vomiting when I read stuff like 'The whole world is celebrating!' which I sincerely doubt, and reading stuff in the Mail Online "Whatsisname is marrying a woman who looks like his nanny," which she doesn't it's just something else royal to get people to read. The amount of utter shitbollockswank material around at moment is appalling and it's only going to get worse. 

I may spend the day of the wedding checking the Net for royal pornalikes. There's bound to be some.

Oh fuck it, wake me when it's over.

PS. In a non-related matter, the BNP (British National Party) is changing its name to more accurately reflect its membership.* As of today is to be called BRIMP -Braindead Racist Ignorant Moron Party.

* This is a lie, unfortunately.

SPORT: A FOOTBALL RESULT

Now this is probably the one and only time you will ever see SPORT  as a heading to a posting in this blog but what happened this afternoon was simply amazing.

Sunderland were playing away against Chelsea, the Premiership leaders and favourites for the title. The most optimistic Sunderland supporter would probably have gone for 0 - 0, a no score draw but would probably be relieved by a one-nil defeat. Instead, Sunderland played brilliantly and got what is one of the club's best ever results in its history.

Chelsea 0 - 3 Sunderland

Amazing, and it certainly trumps Newcastle's one-nil away win at Arsenal last week. There's nowt like a little bit of local pride.

DVD:VIDEO NASTIES THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE

 

Back in the 80's when the Nasties furore was at its height, I was a regular borrower of videos from one of those corner shop video libraries. However, what I wasn't, still believing myself to overly squeamish, was a fan of gory horror movies. I remember fellow SF fan Harry Bell describing lurid details from Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Ian Penman insisting that I'd enjoy Evil Dead 2. Oh yeah, sure, like hell. I'd seen enough to clips and trailer of them and similar films for me to realise that I'd run a mile rather than see them. Of course I've now seen DotD several times and The Evil Dead (which I've just bought on Blu-ray) and ED2 are two of my favourite horror movies.

The point I'm leading up to is that at the time while being aware of the moves to ban the Video Nasties, my actual memory of the events surrounding them are vague in the extreme. I have, however, become more familiar with the details through reading various books about horror movies. And now along comes this DVD on the subject.

The focus of the DVD is Jake West's 60 minute documentary about the subject which features original contemporary footage and specially shot current interviews with a variety of horror experts and people who had been involved with the Nasties at the time. One is a smug ex-MP (Tory, unsurprisingly) who hasn't changed his views and another is Martin Barker the writer, then one of the few dissenting voices of reason opposing the witch hunt. West reveals an uncontrollable hysteria in which certain horror movies were put under the blanket Video Nasty label and anyone involved with them could find htemselves prosecuted and imprisoned. The VN's became the source of all the ills and evils in society and banning them was the cure. Barker accurately points out that this resembles the 50's persecution of horror comics, a persecution that was just as pointless and ill-informed. The media (in particular my old friend The Daily Mail -see many previous posts- always the bastion of ignorance and middle-class hysteria) seemed to wage war on these Nasties, prominently publishing the results of spurious surveys one of which claimed 40% of under 7's had watched one. An academic named Cumberbatch (any relation to the actor?) did his own survey which proved that kids would say anything that they thought adults would want to hear and happily claimed to have seen films whihc didn't exist. But watch the DVD for yourself, it's a fascinating revelation of how censorship can creep in through the back door before it even has the legitimacy of legality and is founded on sheer ignorance.

On disc 2 is a compilation of all the trailers to the 39 nasties which were successefully prosecuted and on disc 3, the 33 which were later acquitted. Each trailer has introduction (sometimes extensive, sometimes brief, all interesting) by a variety of writers and academics who can legitimately claim some expertise in the field. There's the usual suspects -Kim Newman, Alan Jones, and Allen Bryce- plus the lesser known but excellent Stephen Thrower. Director West has his mate Emily Booth do a few and she reads lasciviously from a cue card in the same manner she introduces horror movies on the Horror Channel (or Zone Horror or whatever it's called today). There are also a few academics and directors, most notably Dr Patricia McCormack, an Aussie Goth lecturing at a British university. She's very good but her appearance, particularly the nose ring, is a bit of a distraction from what she's saying. It's all good stuff and the sort of thing to be dipped into rather than watched all the way through.

Ironically, over 20 years later, most of these films have been released uncut on DVD and very few remain banned outright and those mostly for scenes of animal cruelty which is something I find hard to argue about. One of them- Contamination, which I've seen- is now, uncut, rated only 15. What we are presented with is an enormously diverse range of films from cheap trash to something approach Art, from exploitation to moral explorations. This set of 3 discs is packed with food for thought and debate -would I Spit On Your Grave have caused the same controversy if released under its original title Day of the Woman? I honestly can't make up my mind if it's sexist or feminist polemic or what.

DVD: CREATURE FEATURE: TEENAGE CAVEMAN

In 1958 the big reveal was that the past was actually the future.

In 2002 this is obvious from the outset.

After pissing off their tribe our six teenage caveboys and cavegirls set off on a journey and find the ruins of a city. They also find a teen couple who turn out to be over a hundred years old who were genetically engineered to survive the apocalypse. Neil, who unsurprisingly turns out to be the baddie, is one of the most irritating characters I have ever come across in a movie and the actor, Richard Hillman, ought to be shot as prances, gyrates, screams, sneers, and jibbers maniacally the entire time he is on the screen.

Anyway, he and his partner Judith (a stunning looking woman of Asian extraction despite her name) introduce our band (with the exception of the hero and heroine, see DVD sleeve above for their names) into the joys of drink, drugs, and sex (which goes some way to explaining the 18 rating when the other films in the series only managed a 15). Teeny problem: sex with either Neil or Judith infects their partner with the same virus they have only it doesn't always take and results in exploding organs. And if the sex doesn't kill them, Neil, bonkers from the start, will.

A strange little movie directed by Larry Clark (of controversial Kids fame) and written by Christos Gage (who has since, and probably wisely, gotten regular gigs writing comics for Marvel and other comic companies). Apart from me wanting to put Richard Hillman's head in a blender, the film had its moments and the attractive cast were often naked which made up for some of the annoyances and there was an adequate amount of gore. But, to be honest, it really was a pretty dumb movie.

DVD: CREATURE FEATURE: THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED

In 1955 they meant it literally.

In 2001 it's a metaphor.

 

Despite co-billing with Randy Quaid, Kinski is the main character along with Bobby Edner as the isolated and bullied psychic kid Ben. The strong core cast also includes Harry Groener (previously the jolly and totally evil mayor of Sunnydale in Buffy) and Stephen Toblowsky a well known character actor.

Kinski as a school shrink from NY arrives at the sort of small town where everybody stares at you, stop talking when you enter a room/bar, and have dark secrets. She befriends the disturbed Ben, though his doctor adopted father (Quaid) isn't happy about it. Ben is totally into Science Fiction (books, comics, movies) and is convinced that his father is an alien who will come to take him back to his home planet. His mother is dead. As he begins to remember things about his past an alien arrives and starts to kill people. Curiously it resembles an alien in an old b/w movie he sees on tv.

Major spoiler! I'm going to give away the film's big reveal now so if you have any intention of watching this DVD, don't continue reading. 

The alien is killing the people that Ben's subconscious knows were involved with the murder of his mother because they believed she was a dangerous psychic. While they knew Ben also had powers they couldn't bring themselves to kill a kid. The alien is a physical creation of Ben's subconscious.

So, not a bad little movie, well cast and acted, with a neat little revelation. This series of tv movies has been an enjoyable diversion. There's only one to go which I'll be watching soon and it's the worst reviewed of the lot. Could be fun.

SOCIETY: DOWN

It's sometimes chastening to remember that less than four hundred yards from my house there are people living in deprivation -financial, emotional, cultural deprivation.

Wednesday teatime and I got a call from Carol who looks after the cats for our rescue charity Animal Krackers. She wanted me to collect a cat from a woman who was going to a woman's refuge and her partner had threatened to kill the cat after she'd gone. I went, but not before first telling Carol that if there was any chance of violence directed at me then I'd be off like a shot. Hell, I'm five foot five and 62 years old. What would you do? I help animals, I'm not a hero.

The woman lived in a street that bordered a railway line -one side houses, the other side a high brick wall hiding a steep embankment. Some of the houses are divided into flats owned by landlords who are only a little above slum landlords and the woman lived in one such. To my relief I saw a police car parked outside and was ushered into the flat by a young (and, it must be said, attractive) policewoman. The cat owner's violent husband had been told by the police to stay away for at least an hour while the policewoman and her male counterpart sorted things out. The couple were known to the police, particularly the husband, and it seemed that this was the culmination of long periods of abuse.


The woman herself was small, thin, straggly haired, and with a wrinkled face. She might not have been much more than forty though she looked nearly twenty years older. Clearly agitated, her voice was quiet but her words stumbling and repetitive. I reassured her that the cat would be well looked after and I'd done this many times (not under these particular circumstances perhaps). Once she had got herself sorted in a new life, the cat would be returned to her.

The cat was somewhere in a small cluttered bedroom consisting of two single beds, a rickety thin-panelled wardrobe which looked as if it might fall over at any time, a well worn leather armchair, an inflatable and inflated armchair, and a floor littered with a variety of items including cassettes and an ash tray overflowing with the tab ends of dozens of rollups. Now all I had to do was find the cat and get it into the cat carrier.

First off, I closed the door to the hall and the double glass-panelled doors to the living room. Then I got on my knees and looked under the twin beds which had a 6 inch gap between frame and floor. I saw the black and white cat but when I tried to touch it it moved quickly and disappeared. Unless you've actually had a cat, you'd be surprised how easily they can hide themselves in the smallest of spaces, places you would think it impossible for them to fit. It took me ten minutes before I finally trapped it in a corner, moving the leather armchair agains the wall so that the cat couldn't go anywhere except towards me.

He was fat and healthy and, once I had hold of him and was stroking him, relatively amenable. With only a little effort, I managed to get him in the cat carrier. And that's when things got awkward.

The woman -I can't remember her name, let's call her Mary- Mary said abruptly, "I'm not leaving him. I love him, he's my best friend, I love him."

The policewoman said, "Mary, we've been through all this. You can't take him into the refuge and you can't stay here."

"I don't care. I'm not leaving him and if you take him I'll kill myself."

I said, "It's only for a little while. You'll get him back when you've got you life in order. He'll be fine with us."

She got more agitated. "It doesn't matter, you're not taking him. I know what you're saying but you're not taking him. You're a lovely man and I know you'll do what you say but you're not having him."

"Look, if you stay here with the cat, you're putting yourself and the cat at risk and you said he hit him."

"Just the once. He gets under the bed clothes when I'm in bed and cuddles up to me every night. I love him."

Variations of this conversation went on between Mary -who had become almost completely irrational, aware that her actions were self-defeating but, focussing solely on the cat to the exclusion of everything else, refused to change her mind-   myself and the two officers for about twenty minutes before the policewoman pretty much gave up. She asked if I'd hang around in the van a few minutes longer while they made a last attempt to salvage the situation. Mary gave me a hug before I left and thanked me profusely and I let the cat out of the carrier. I talked briefly to the policewoman at the door, giving her my phone number and address if they needed me back later.

(I want to state very clearly, that the two officers behaved with compassion and patience throughout and they impressed me a lot.)

I wish I could say that they did get in touch but they didn't. I'm assuming that Mary and the cat stayed in the flat and waited for the return of her abusive husband. What happened then, I don't know. We (that is me, Susan, and Andrea) know a lady three doors down whom we've helped with a dog she rescued and Andrea will contact her to see if she knows of any developments.

As I said, the couple are known to the police, particularly the husband who gets violent when he gets drunk, which is often. How genuine the risk to the cat is I don't know but I suspect the risk to her is far greater and my disappointment at the end result is not about failing to save the cat but failing to save Mary.

(This is also being published in my cat rescuing blog.)

DVD: BEAST OF BLOOD

 

I'm not going to waste too much time on this as it's easily the weakest of the series, though it opens well minutes after the end of Mad Doctor of Blood Island. The monster is on board the boat and kills lots of people. the boat explodes, the monster ends up back on Blood Island and months later John Ashley (the only survivor) is on his way back to Blood Island with a new leading lady.

The Mad Doctor has survived but is now played by Eddie Garcia and he orders the kidnap of leading lady Celeste Yarnall and the rescue mission takes up most of the rest of the movie. The nubile daughter of the chief removes her top to seduce our hero but he has the hots for the (white) leading lady. The monster who can survive having his head and body separate doesn't play much part. There's a fair bit of splatter but it has little impact despite what it says on the DVD sleeve above. Considering this was written/produced/directed by Eddie Romero it's a big disappointment with none of the creaky charm of the previous films.

DVD: CREATURE FEATURE: HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER

In 1958 they did it with latex-

 

In 2001 it was computers-

Desperate for a hit game, a company hires three experts -the nerd with low self esteem, the cool black guy with too much, and Tyler Mane as the aggressive one to create a pants-wetting video game. They pretty much get locked in a room with the idealistic intern (Clea Duvall), and the cynical manager (Steven Culp) and proceed to get on each others nerves. There are extended cameos by executive producer Colleen Camp as the top bitch company boss and B-movie actress Julie Strain playing a B-Movie actress called "Julie Strain" who gets her kit off to wear a motion-capture suit. Pay attention, that was important.

After the usual fuckups, the computer decides to play the game for real with each of our 5 protagonists representing a game 'life' and the motion capture suit as the game's monster. The suit does this by killing off our heroes and attaching bits of them to itself until it finally looks like the game monster.

Given that there is only a small cast and a small location, there's plenty going on to hold the interest  such as the sexual tension/clash of views between Duvall and Culp which has an interesting resolution and not the one you expect. This keeps going along nicely until the film finally turns into a gory stalk and slash until there's only one 'life' left.

Duvall is good, Strain (who should have been in longer) is fun, and Tyler Mane proves he can act rather than just growl or shout insults (cf X-Men).

The weakest of the three to date but still fun despite the dated computer graphics.

CULTURE: HALLOWEEN PARTS 1 & 2

1.  HALLOWEEN HELL.

Sport is something you are highly unlikely to read about in this blog simply because I have less than 0.000recurring01% interest in it. The 000recurring01% of interest I do have is restricted to lerning how well my local football team, Sunderland, is doing and to a lesser extent the fortunes of other local teams.

Now it happens that this Halloween was a Newcastle-Sunderland derby when feelings run high but the game usually turns out to be a disappointment for both sides. The recent form of both teams is not too dissimilar with Sunderland having the slightly better run by virtue of only losing one match, winning two, and drawing the rest. Newcastle is a bit more inconsistent. I expected a goalless draw or maybe a one goal win for Sunderland.

So how the holy fuck did those Geordie bastards put 5 past our goalkeeper and we could only manage 1 in reply!

2.  WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HALLOWEEN?

Childless adults can do either one of two things on Halloween night. Like my sister in law, you can draw the curtains, turn all the lights off, and pretend you're not in. Or, like me, you can lay razor wire at a height of 6 inches across the front path and for any kids who get over that you can open the door and remove your front teeth which, in my case, serves to emphasise my pointed canine teeth, and then scream loudly. Trick or treat, little bastards.

Only kidding. Ho ho ho. Nah, I went to Lidl and, among other stuff, picked up a few bags of sweets to hand out to the little angels.

So, it's 5.30 and dark outside and I'm expecting a knock on the door any moment. Susan is at the Animal Krackers shop so I've settled down with the new Ken Follett novel ("Unputdownable", "Novel of the year", Freethinking magazine) and the tv on in the background. 5.45 and there's a knock at the door. Two kids and their mother and I pass over a handful of sweets. Half an hour later and Susan has returned. No more knocking on the door. 7.00 and there's a knock but it's Susan's brother and they're off to see their mother.  I pick up the Ken Follett book. Susan is back by eight and there have been no knocks on the door and there won't be for the rest of the night.

So: what the hell happened to Halloween because it didn't happen in Weldon Avenue, Sunderland.