The Grandstand Option: X&HT At The Paralympics

Readership. I have a dream. A dream in which we all come together, regardless of age, race, creed or ability, and celebrate the enduring tenacity of the human spirit. I came a little closer to that dream yesterday, and I can only hope that we all realise that we are on the brink of a whole new relationship with sport. 

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Original Pirate Material: DocoBanksy at the Portobello Film Festival

“What do you mean, I have to introduce the film?”

Here we are, in my front room. DocoBanksy, calmly sipping on a cup of my finest espresso. Next to him, Lady Dem, his soulmate, muse and sounding board. She looks at me sympathetically, but she knows the score as well as I. What Doco wants, Doco gets. It turns out Doco doesn’t want to introduce his own damn film at the opening night of the Portobello Film Festival. Which can only mean one thing.

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Learn To Love Again: The Foo Fighters and The Reading Festival 2012

It’s the end of the 2012 Reading Festival. Past midnight, after an epic 2-and-a-half hour show by the Foo Fighters that was one of the finest gigs I had ever seen. We (for the purposes of clarity, we are TLC, DocoDom, new chum Groovy Geoff and yr. humble author) are backstage, sipping cocktails and hanging with the band.

An old Talking Heads song passes unbidden through my head as Geoff jumps up to get a picture with Dave Grohl and Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs. I ask myself; well, how did I get here?

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Reading The Signs At The Reading Festival

The August Bank Holiday weekend offers up an almost unrivalled set of distractions and attractions for the discerning punter, and always presents yr. humble writer with something of a dilemma. London offers both the UK’s biggest free festival, the Notting Hill Carnival, and the country’s largest gathering of horror fans, Frightfest (more on this from our embedded correspondents on the ground, fear fans). 

And then there’s the Reading and Leeds Festival, the climax of the music, mud and over-priced lager season. For the first time in three years, X&HT will be on site. 

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The Word is Out On Frightfest From The Gruesome Twosome

This weekend is one of the most important in the horror calendar. The August Bank Holiday is home to Frightfest, the five-day smorgasbord of shivers, the feast of fear, the cornucopia of chills that sits at the bleeding heart of London’s Leicester Square.  

Frightfest the 13th is bigger than ever, with nearly 100 films spread over five days and three screens. So the question is, how by all the nether gods do you navigate all that? What’s your gameplan, pilgrim?

Fret not, fear fan. There is a way.

Continue reading The Word is Out On Frightfest From The Gruesome Twosome