Sheridan La Fanu Honoured on Google

“But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.”

― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “Carmilla”

I am delighted to see that Google has decided to celebrate the 200^th birthday of the Irish author, Sheridan Le Fanu, today. Le Fanu was a prolific writer who is best remembered for his mystery and horror fiction. Unlike other several other Gothic writers of the 19^th century, such as Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, Le Fanu was totally dedicated to a career in writing. He studied law at Trinity College, Dublin and was called to the bar in 1839, but already had his mind on journalism. A year previously his first ghost story, “The Ghost and the Bone Setter” signposted where Le Fanu’s literary influence would lie. From 1840 he would become the owner of several newspapers and would go on to write many books and short stories. 

Remembering Extreme World Warfare Part II

 

It was October 1998 and I was stood dressed in a pirate costume complete with a polka-dotted handkerchief wrapped around my head and a live macaw on my shoulder. The business of supplying and training animals for the entertainment industry is a rocky ride with varying highs and lows. Some days you can be enjoying the company of the world's most celebrated stars. My father has been personally summoned to Prince Rainier's palace, John Cleese's London apartment and many other places to receive recognition for his work with the most dangerous and beautiful animals on the planet. Other times you are sitting on the set of a basement level budget production with a box full of moths. That night in October, I and two female employees of my parents had been booked to appear at the 21st birthday party of a millionaire's daughter. Under a huge marquee an elaborate pirate party had been put together. The entrance to the event was off the end of a life-size replica ship, overhead there were fire-breathing entertainers on top of a specially constructed bridge and on the ground level paid actors walked amongst guests dressed as pirates and around tables decorated with "treasure chests." We were the parrot handlers, paid to walk around dressed like seafaring scallywags off a Christmas pantomime.

My mind wandered back to another time. Just two weeks ago my creation, "Dead Souls", the world's first Gothic martial arts act, had debuted in front of a shocked professional wrestling audience. Amid an array of lighting effects and pounding music, I, under the guise of the Spirit of Instinct, had done battle with The Gatekeeper in a routine that looked part ritual part fantasy performance with clashing blades, spinning high kicks and tumbling tricks. Nothing like this production had been presented before to a professional wrestling audience and certainly not a British one. It had become the climax of two exciting months of realising old dreams. My emotionally destructive relationship with my longest running girlfriend at the time had also been given its death stroke. I felt free and ready to explode with ideas and enthusiasm. The excitement of producing a show was over, but I, along with the wrestler, Stuart Allen, knew that there was a fantastic world out there to discover.

Then, just when I felt my soul being transported back to the cheering crowds and coloured lights, a voice broke through the haze. "Fetch me another ashtray." One of the many guests at the birthday party had mistaken me for being an elaborately dressed waiter. Keeping what little dignity I felt at the time I politely explained that I wasn't what she thought I was. At that very moment I was aware of a warm sensation creeping down my shoulder. The parrot had shit on me.

Remembering 'Extreme World Warfare' Part I

It seems very strange now looking back on the relatively brief time I was co-promoter of an extreme professional wrestling outfit. My life now is so different, that although I can see me back there and feel the energy I had then it just seems like another life altogether. What seems even stranger still was the path that led me there. Tell anyone now who either knows me through my work as a self-protection/martial arts coach or even through my current connections to showbusiness, that I was once a Gothic sword wielding wrestling manager that had a penchant for wearing red contact lenses, getting cut up with razor blades and barbed wire, and spewing Kensington Gore all over the place they are likely to ask “Is this the same Jamie Clubb we are talking about”. It’s no secret. I appeared in Combat martial arts magazine on the front cover with an eight page feature, covered in corpse paint and did the best I could to court media attention. And yet, years later I find myself training in an MMA gym in Birmingham and one of the receptionist starts teasing me as if this part of my history was comparable to being closet transvestite. A friend of mine pretty much summed up the incredulity of those that have known me since my days running a pro wrestling promotion are over: “Why Jamie? Why?”

Faust creates Satan - a review of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

Plot:

Arctic adventurer Captain Robert Walton happens across a desperate man who he rescues and takes on board his ship. The man, a one Victor Frankenstein, befriends the explorer who he feels an almost immediate kinship with. Hearing of Walton’s ambitions to reach the North Pole he feels moved to tell the story of how he came to be in such a dire situation hoping it will serve as a cautionary tale for the driven captain.