The vampire fad of late

So, unless you've been trapped under a rock somewhere you have probably noticed vampires are in fashion. There's the Twilight madness and the Trublood thing happening as well as Brad Pitt jumping on the band wagon with talks of Vlad. Now vampires aren't a new sort of fad, people love vampire stories and have done forever (ok, forever is probably a lie) but suddenly it's a little different. There are vampires everywhere and everyone in the media world is grabbing hold of the vampire whirlwind, especially with Twilight doing so well (did I mention the madness).
I am a massive vampire fan, dating pre Robert Pattinson. Even dating pre Buffy but that was obviously the best vampire moment anyone has ever created. This being said I am enjoying all the vampire themes flying around, it means I have lots of choice over what I get to watch. It means I get to indulge in the sex, blood and passion of vampire stories, but it also leaves me a little worried. I am scared that with all the pushing of the vampire genre they are going to push it straight out the door. There is a pretty good chance they are just going to kill it and move on. And sure, the media couldn't care less if this is what happens, they'll just pick up another fad to tell everyone to like, do to death, and then move on from that too. But I don't want vampires ruined. I love vampires. I've loved vampires since I was four years old and walked in on my big sister watching a horror movie I didn't get shoo'd away from, where I got to see a sexy woman bite a fat man in a hospital and him running around scared and bleeding into public telephones attached to the wall, which had been cut off (if anyone has any idea what film this was I will love you infinite amounts).
I remember reading about Elizabeth Bathory for the first time sat in the library and getting an insane amount of excited at a 'real life vampire'. And then having that excitement rekindled reading Tales Of The Slayer where there's a short story about her (and a slayer... it was a Buffy book).
I was about to go on and tell you about all my exciting vampire connected memories, but I'm going to stop. I really am worried about the future of vampire stories, but I know that even if Hollywood kills vampires, it can't last for long. Maybe just a generation at most, but that wont really affect me. I'll always have Buffy as well as all the other great vampire shows/films around. Though I have to say, I had real issues with 30 days of night. Partly because the vampires were ugly, but mostly because humans could out run vampires occasionally. And the vampires couldn't always smell the people. It's like they were just picking and choosing when to follow rules. And this isn't about them changing rules, it's them picking rules for the film and not even succeeding in following those ones for the duration.

Rrrants In Camden

Last night I performed at the Rrrants gig at the Camden Eye. It was an amazing night, the best Rrrants night I have been to in fact. There was opportunity for open mic before all the poets who are part of the collective got up and did their thing. Rhthmical Ravings and Rants is a poetry collective and this year, have collected over 40 poets plus a whole bunch of musicians as well as getting an anthology out. To see any of the products they have on offer check out the online shop: www.rrrants.com/Shop.htm


We all went up and did two 5 minute (ish) slots in a friendly and relaxed environment. I performed Eye for Eye and Prince Charming first, which went down well. I was a little scared I wouldn't remember Prince Charming, seeing as I've only performed it in front of people once before. Trying to perform poetry when you can't breathe and your throat hurts is not a fun time - I'm just going to throw that one out there. Winter is not my friend.
Last night also saw the likes of The Anti Poet, Mat Lloyd, Rob Auton as well as a whole bunch of others who you can check out on the rrrants page: www.rrrants.com


I got to see some people I have never seen before, which is always nice! Next year hopes to be even bigger and even better with the introduction of BardAid - a charity created to get contemporary poetry books into schools. I think this is a brilliant idea! I know most people's reactions to being invited to a poetry night just screams "GROSS!" and/or "BORING" so giving kids a chance to grow up reading poetry other than Shakespeare has got to help the poetry scene's reputation a little bit.

For now, I'll just keep plugging away in hopes of drumming up support the old fashioned way. But infiltrating young minds while they're at school is definitely the way to do it. That's how they mould society, by what they teach the kids at school.

Gordon Brown invites What's-her-name over

I'm not a news blogger, I just found this a little funny. I don't know if you remember Gordon Brown getting the name of a soldier wrong not that long ago causing all sorts of upset, well he's only gone and done it again. But don't worry, this time wasn't the same sort of upset, telling MPs: “I’m very grateful that Renée Witherspoon is leading this campaign. She spoke movingly at the funeral of Anthony Minghella and I welcome her to the House today.”


Anyone heard of Renée Witherspoon? It was actually Renée Zellweger who spoke at Minghella's funeral. Reese Witherspoon was the one to pay a visit to Parliament yesterday.... 


Brown keeps falling into these embarrassing situations, I guess he's just getting on a bit. But saying that, he's a 58 year old man - should we really expect him to know the name of the lead actress in Legally Blonde? Maybe it's ok that he didn't know the name of the women he was inviting over, he's got to fill his head with all the worries of the UK as it crumbles around him. So long as he can do something productive in his attempts to save us, who really cares if he has a hard time remembering the names of certain people? 

My 50 Poems In A Day Project

On the 13th December I will be attempting to write 50 poems. I've never done the speed writing thing before and was inspired by a guy called Tim Clare who wrote 100 on the 26th November (100poemsinaday.blogspot.com). I don't think my first attempt at speed writing should be so grand, so I'm aiming for a semi-spectacular feat of 50 instead.
Normally with poetry the title is the very last thing to come, it's something that reflects the poem, but with speed writing you need a direction otherwise you'll just get lost in the sea of possibilities and never get anywhere. You need to be specific to get things written quickly, so I am compiling a list of titles and will be posting on Twitter as I go along so people can play along if they want =]

Follow the adventure: Twitter

I'll post the creations up on a blog (either on this one or I'll create a separate one and link to it).

I don't expect to create 50 pieces of gold, but let's see what I come up with.

Because I had never tried the speed writing thing before I gave it ago yesterday and rolled out three poems. The first two of which I actually really like and will probably do something with and the third of which I actually deleted. From this experience I have a feeling that the 50 poems may get increasingly worse as the day goes on...

I imagine I probably need to do some sort of math and work out how long I can allow myself to spend on each poem and give leeway for toilet breaks and snacks. I'll do the coffee thing so I'm awake and not hungry to save time on the cooking and the eating.
I think if I wake up at 10 (I am not a morning person...) I'd leave my self 15 minutes a poem until 11pm. This allows for me to go over if need be in the last stretch to midnight. So if I aim for 10-13 minutes a poem that should allow for the little breaks here and there.
I just hope I wake up....

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day and the media is red all over the place, so I'm going to share some facts I picked up from the World AIDS Day website.

In the last ten years the number of people living with HIV in the UK has trebled. Three times as many people in ten years! How could we have let this happen? We're an advanced society and we have access to a world of information yet somehow people just don't know much about it.

When people think of HIV or AIDS, normally they either think of people in Africa or the gays. AIDS is just one of those far off things that doesn't affect you... only we can't all be so blasé about it anymore. We need to spread the word, so at least everyone knows what we're even talking about. HIV is a virus that attacks the bodies immune system, it destroys the bodies defence against things we otherwise would have been able to cope with. The difference between HIV and AIDS is its development; someone is considered to have AIDS when the immune system is so weak it can't fight off the diseases humans can normally handle. Imagine an everyday cold escalating into something dangerous, all because your immune system has been shot to pieces.

HIV can be passed on through blood, semen, vaginal fluids or breast milk if infected. The most common ways it can be transmitted are, 1) sex without a condom, 2) shared needles/syringes and 3) From a HIV+ mother to her child during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding.

This is something that is affecting more and more people and has no cure. Now days we have pretty effective treatment for HIV to keep the immune system healthy but if left too late that's not going to be all that useful.

Let's all try to raise awareness. That's what World AIDS day is all about, along with raising money, fighting prejudice and increasing education. And if you want to do more check out the link below for ways to help raise money or for events.

Worldaidsday.org

HIV is a threat to men, women and children all over the world and shouldn't just be dismissed as something that could never affect you. There is a lot of stigma around HIV/AIDS, either down to peoples own fear or ideas on what it must mean about a persons lifestyle if they have the disease. This stigma often fuels other prejudices, such as homophobic behaviour. A lot of the time prejudices are the result of little or no real understanding on a subject. People fear what they don't understand. So let's take a stand to tackle this stigma and to try to help the people affected.