In the Twilight zone: the vampire bites back – Times Online

While a stake through the heart or a shaft of sunlight should be enough to kill cinema’s most determined vampires, the one thing that is guaranteed to reanimate the undead is the scent of box-office success. Right now, audiences are hungry for blood: the vampire is back.

Anticipation about Twilight, the movie adaptation of the first book in Stephenie Meyer’s hugely successful series of vampire romantic novels, has the internet fan base frothing at their keyboards. The high-school love story between a new girl in town and a beautiful, troubled vampire boy has seduced an ever-growing, mostly female readership and, although the film is not released here until January, according to the influential IMDB website it has been in and around the top ten most popular searches for the past five months or so.

In the Twilight zone: the vampire bites back – Times Online.

NO2ID:newsletter 104

NO2ID News No. 104

14 August 2008

++ NO2ID AT THE PARTY CONFERENCES ++

Once again NO2ID will be holding fringe meetings at the party conferences taking place this year, which will take place in September/October. We will be holding a TUC fringe meeting in Brighton on Monday 8th September at the Brighthelm Centre, chaired by our Union Liaison Christina Zaba. We have a presence at the Green conference and our General Secretary, Guy Herbert, will be speaking at fringe meetings at the Liberal Democrat and UKIP conferences, both in Bournemouth. At the Conservative conference in Birmingham we have a stall (highly prized, now the Conservatives are widely seen as winners by lobbyists) on the Home Affairs day, and we will be at the Labour conference in Manchester.

Volunteers for all these events are needed. If you are available to help at one or other English Party conference please contact office@no2id.net or the relevant NO2ID local group. If you can help at Scottish Party conferences please contact NO2ID Scotland (scotland@no2id.net), and we would be delighted to hear from people involved in Welsh or Irish politics (particularly the latter where our contacts need developing) – email (office@no2id.net).

NO2ID:newsletter 104.

Bigfoot or Huge Hoax?

My money is on the latter.

US hunters claim to have found Bigfoot – Times Online.

[UPDATE.]

Elvis and Priscilla.

Regular readers will know that I’m something of an Elvis fan. Okay, I don’t avidly collect his records and memorabilia like some sideburned, sixty-year-old plumber from Barnsley (not that I have anything against sixty-year-old plumber’s from Barnsley, you understand!), and I’m probably not about to make a pilgrimage to Graceland any time soon — but I have been listening to his music for most of my life and it still does the job it’s supposed to.

So, with the 31st anniversary of his death only a couple of days away, I was a little puzzled to read on the BBC website that the dolls below are being sold in Memphis as part of a weeklong event marking the anniversary.

As a little as I like Priscilla (she’s a Scientologist, for heaven’s sake — need I say more?), the juxtaposition between their marriage and his death seems rather unfortunate… okay, I’ll fess up. I am chuckling just a little bit. The irony really appeals to me.

Do you think the marketing boys and girls at Elvis Presley Enterprises got there anniversaries mixed up? Or maybe they have a bored Englishman working for them who wanted to, you know, have a bit of a laugh? 😉

Episode Two of “The Genius of Charles Darwin.”

Part Two.

Part Three.

Part Four.

Part Five.

[Episode one can be seen here.]