Goth Girls' Detective Club

I know I posted this last year, but it's awesome so here it is again. What is this freaky Christmas visitation? The Lord our saviour? The Grim Reaper? Gandalf? Or Vigo the Carpathian? What do you reckon? I would like to wish you all the very merriest of Christmases and wish each and every one of you joy, love, success and splendour for 2011. I'm off slap some rock 'n' roll on the old record player, watch Die Hard  and try to stop the kittens destroying the Christmas tree and opening all the presents before tomorrow. I shall see you all very soon, when I've recovered from my very special Christmas whiskey hangover.

Tod and Me: A Very Personal Retrospective or A Self-Obsessed Reflection on Misunderstood Genius and Why Me and Tod Rule and The World Simply Wasn’t Ready For Us Because It Sucks. About a hundred years ago when radios were called wirelesses, CDs were considered witchcraft and Jesus was still in short robes, I went to drama school and studied the noble craft of acting. Any actor worth their fancy trousers will tell you that there is a book that is the actor’s Bible and they also tell you that that book is ‘An Actor Prepares’ by Constantin Stanislavski. ‘An Actor Prepares’ was first published in 1936 and is the first volume of translations of Stanislavski’s books on acting , it is intended to be a learning tool that indirectly teaches the aspiring thespian by example. It is constructed as a fictional diary of a naïve young drama student named Kostya and charts his progress through his first year of training in Stanislavski’s ‘system’. Predominantly the book is concerned with the...

I’m from Newcastle. For those of you that don’t know, Newcastle, or ‘The Toon’, is a city in the North East of England predominantly famous for: I’m sorry about most of those things. I’m very fond of Newcastle. After much travelling I made a conscious decision to return here because I missed it, and while, in the current season of bone aching cold* and bitter winds and relentless rain, I quite often wonder what the hell I was thinking I do still love it and just the sight of Tyne Bridge on my way home every night makes me warm inside, even when I can’t actually feel my extremities anymore because its so bloody horrifically cold. (*Note on cold for any non –Newcastle residents or other aliens: People from Newcastle do not feel the cold, they are just that damn hard. In Newcastle, irrespective of the temperature outside, it is forbidden to wear a coat/jacket/any manner of protection against the elements. One must only wear a t shirt if male or a very small piece of fabric th...