Christmas 2013

[Johnlprobert]

Dec 25, 2013 19:10:53 GMT dem said:

It is to be hoped the award-winning evil genius responsible for Daffodil Bitch Killer steps forward to take a well-deserved bow.

Is it late enough for me to do that, do you think? 

Thanks to everyone who dared to brave the first (?only) episode of Daffodil and found it entertaining. It was, of course, a tribute to the quite remarkable alter-ego of one of my favourite writers. Probably the best news I've received this Christmas is that there's going to be a book of new Mark Samuels stories due out from Egaeus Press next year. Which has made me very happy indeed. It would be lovely to see him back on the Vault as well.

As for Mr Ab-Staines, who knows when or if he may return? 

[dem]

Dec 25, 2013 21:38:13 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Is it late enough for me to do that, do you think? 

Thanks to everyone who dared to brave the first (?only) episode of Daffodil and found it entertaining. It was, of course, a tribute to the quite remarkable alter-ego of one of my favourite writers. Probably the best news I've received this Christmas is that there's going to be a book of new Mark Samuels stories due out from Egaeus Press next year. Which has made me very happy indeed. It would be lovely to see him back on the Vault as well.

As for Mr Ab-Staines, who knows when or if he may return? 

If Daffodil Bitch Killer isn't rewarded with a dishonourable mention in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year: Volume 6, there is no justice in the world is all i'm saying.

[jamesdoig]

Dec 25, 2013 21:38:13 GMT Johnlprobert said:

there's going to be a book of new Mark Samuels stories due out from Egaeus Press next year.

That's great news - The White Hands is the only Tartarus Press book I've two copies of. I had thought he was laying low because of your boys fine performance in the Ashes

[valdemar]

I have spent the Festering season at work, at night, and I must say, it has been bliss. No TV, no screeching kids, no sodding decorations or carols. I HAVE done the proper seasonal things - watching Doctor Who, on Boxing day morning, via i-player: [heartbreaking to see Matt Smith's Doctor aging like that - I didn't want him to go, although I KNOW Peter Capaldi will be great, and, at the end, the vision of the long-dead Amy Pond appeared and called the Doctor 'Raggedy Man', I got something in my eyes, as it were], and enjoying Mark Gatiss' MR James documentary, and his excellent adaptation of 'The Tractate Middoth'.On BBC Radio 4 Extra, I enjoyed Ian McDiarmid's reading of Sheridan LeFanu's 'Schalken The Painter', and am enjoying Christopher Lee's 'Fireside Tales', and some lovely readings of MR James' ghost stories. I was also greatly entertained by a[quite surreal] Radio 4 show called 'The Secret World', which is various impressionists performing sketches of famous people going about their lives when the eyes of the world are not on them. For example, former Archbishop Of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, getting the urge to play 'Knock Down Ginger'[for those unfamiliar with this term, it is simply ringing somebody's doorbell and running away before they can answer]. This created such a gleeful mental image, I laughed out loud. I was most taken, however, by the skit where John Lydon meets Anthony Hopkins in a garden centre, and Lydon shows an astonishing knowledge of stone paving. I'm not making this up, honestly. I had christmas dinner for breakfast on Boxing day, and enjoyed it tremendously. And that is what christmas, for a long-time [41 years] christmas hater is all about. Happy New Year!

[dem]

Chrissie

By way of a Vault post-Christmas cracker, here's the standout spine -chiller from the excellent Shout! Spooky Stories freebie, premise vaguely reminiscent of Lord P.'s achingly sad Asphyx In Glass (The Faculty Of Terror).

Attachments:

A GHOST HAUNTED OUR PHOTOS.pdf (59.77 KB)