Although a historical novel, The Little Stranger veers away from the genre Sarah Waters is often cited for. This isn’t lesbian fiction, but like lesbian fiction it focuses on a complex network of relationships which land firmly outside the status quo for the time. It’s also a ghost story, and a good one. There’s ...
It’s Hallowe’en, a magical day characterized by Trick or Treating and masked personas, a practice that hails from the medieval custom of souling, when poor people would go door to door for food in return for prayers for the dead. We lavish in ghostly tales and watch gory movies about satanic clowns from the sixth ...
I have to confess. I don’t understand Hallowe’en. What little I know about Halloween, I got from movies I watched. I don’t understand the holiday because, for the larger part of my life, I never celebrated it. When I was 15-years-old and moved outside of my country of birth, I celebrated Hallowe’en for the first ...
Tomorrow is Hallowe’en. When the sun sets your neighbours will be transformed into ghosts and goblins. It can be scary. What is a ghoul to do?
It’s getting round to that evening in the year when Mrs Lobster and I dim the lights, turn the TV volume down, and slouch below window level on the couch as the neighbourhood’s youngsters trawl the streets on Hallowe’en. Fortunately for us, this year we happen to be going away on holiday a few days ...
With Hallowe’en quickly approaching many of us are frantically searching for unique costume ideas. For Calgary school children their costumes must not only be creative, but promote community values. However, no one seems to know what this means. According to the regulations of Colonel Walker and Ramsay schools, costumes can not include masks, weapons, or ...
Is your Hallowe’en costume offensive? You might want to take another look before you head out. A group of enterprising young students from Ohio University has banded together to create an awareness campaign about racist Hallowe’en costumes. With the ragline “We’re a culture, not a costume,” a person holds up a picture of the offensive ...
Childbirth. Despite having what a shop assistant once described as “splendid childbearing hips,” I don’t know much about it. Even with my lack of maternal knowledge, there were a few things I took as fact. –It takes about nine months to grow a baby. –There is a lot of kicking from within the bump. –There’s ...
Generation Y seems to have developed a passionate love affair with zombies, an amour that is much more serious than the casual romp we share with their monstrous cousin, the vampire. Our book shelves are stocked with Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide and the postmortem adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice and ...
Come on everyone! Let’s have a giggle about anorexia! Clearly all of the girls that die every year deserve to be mocked in a costume that pokes fun at their disease. Well, obviously not. But, this is apparently what the creator of “Anna Rexia,” the Halloween costume that is skin tight and features a painted ...
So, we’re having this baby. It’s due in a few weeks and we’re trying to get organized with all...
I recently heard about what is claimed to be the rising phenomenon of Japanese men remaining virgins for longer...
Ladders. Patriarchal conspiracy. I’ll explain… This week I climbed a ladder. I was trying to reach a loft space,...
Dear Madame X, My boyfriend needs to look at porn while we have sex. It bothers me because I...
Mrs. Dalloway is yet another feminist classic that I had to grow into. Wrapped up in Woolf’s instantly recognizable...
Last week saw a Big Thing come to our soggy little island. Well, it was a Big Thing for...
Last weekend I was entertaining a guest, you know, the sort I was planning to have lots and lots...
All little girls want to be princesses… right?! It’s bad enough that toy aisles are separated out by what...
