Alternative Bring and Buy

A good chance to find those weird little unusual yutelide presents.
This Sunday is the last one for 2010.


http://www.alternativebringandbuy.co.uk

BEASTS ROYAL

The show BEASTS ROYAL runs until the 28th January at Viktor Wynd little shop of horror and museum at 11 Mare Street E8 4RP
For The Last Tuesday Society’s winter show Alice Herrick & Viktor Wynd, will transform the gallery into a Rousseauesque jungle filled with a wondrous selection of perfect stocking fillers - photography, paintings, drawings and prints representing a contemporary Bestiary...regal beasts, enchanted forests, curious creatures and bejewelled nature. The centre of the gallery will be filled with a menagerie of taxidermied animals, from giraffes and polar bears to lion and tiger skeletons, with cabinets by Gunn, Roland Ward, Gerard & Walter Potter amongst lush tropical foliage, orchids and ferns, as Mr.Wynd empties out his apartment and prepares to emigrate to warmer climes in January
http://viktorwyndfineart.co.uk/beastsroyal.html

As well as the usual interesting talks and balls taking place
Coming talks:
3rd December 2010
High Society with Mike Jay

8th December 2010
Tim Knox on the Strange Genius of Sir John Soane

9th December 2010
An Erotic Magic Lantern Show with Professor Mervyn Heard

10th December 2010
Talking Canaries and the Voices of the Dead with Sarah Angliss

14th December 2010
Nicholas Royle on the Uncanny

http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/index.html

Cryptmas

A free alternative Christmas art experience, for all ages, created inside an underground grotto. The venue is a dark church crypt, with alcoves and arched ceilings, the fantastic setting and atmosphere, for an alternative Christmas experience.
Once inside this unusual historical subterranean labyrinth, guests can explore the festive grotto.
A grand opening night kicks off the event on 2nd December, which will consist of the full grotto experience, with illuminating art works by individual artists and Illumini's Santa. During the course of the evening, there will be performers all working with light, including fire performances, illuminating juggling, dancers, singers, light shows, ice carving.
http://www.illuminievent.co.uk/cryptmas-2010/cryptmas-2010-main.html

THE VENUE.
The Crypt, St Pancras Church Euston Rd/ Duke's Rd, London, NW1 2BA
2nd Decemeber– 22nd December 2010
Open Daily 11am-7pm Free
Opening Night
Thursday 2nd December 5pm – 9pm .Free Admission . Please arrive early to avoid disappointment.

The Moot With No Name (Nov/Dec)

3 November - PSYCHIC CAFE - Murray Langham - Chocolate and Relationships
This experiential mini workshop uses chocolate flavours and shapes to help you to understand your true personality, how you communicate in relationships with partners and friends. Each shape and flavour has a different language - what is yours?
Murray Langham, is co-director of Schoc Chocolates in New Zealand, a therapist, counsellor, facilitator and author of Chocolate Therapy and Hot Chocolate.
Please note, Psychic Cafe events are £5 and start at 7.30

10 November - ANDREW MERCER - Ghosts!
Andy Mercer has filmed and recorded them for years and has many a true tale to tell...

17 November PAOLO CORTUCCI - Multidimensional Astrology
A lightweight look at astrology and some of its layers and levels through the charts of people (famous or otherwise) and events. The presentation will focus on the most intriguing and significant factors highlighted by these charts. We will also see how they can provide meaning and guidance. The charts will be used to expand participants
knowledge of astrology. Participants are welcome to provide their charts for discussion. A basic knowledge of astrology would be helpful.
Paolo Cortucci is a Diploma holder of the Faculty of Astrological Studies. He is the Facultys Head Tutor and serves on its Council. Paolo runs an astrological practice and is currently studying horary astrology.

24 November JOYCE FROOME & KERRIANN GODWIN The Pendle Witches
The Pendle Witchcraft case is a compelling human story which provides a dramatic insight into the importance of magic in the lives of our ancestors. Joyces recently published work on the Pendle Witches will also be available this evening.

1 December CROWLEYMASS!

The Atlantis Bookshop presents The Moot With No Name
Every Wednesday. £5/£3. 7:30 for 8pm start.
Opposite the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand (near Aldwych) is a Tudor-style pub, the George. The Devereux is down the alley next to this. Contact The Atlantis Bookshop for further information
www.theatlantisbookshop.com

HALLOWEEN BOAT RIDE INTO HAUNTED TUNNEL

HALLOWEEN BOAT RIDE INTO HAUNTED TUNNEL
Saturday 30th – Sunday 31st October 2010
Canal Museum
12-13 New Wharf Road
London N1 9RT

The Annual Halloween boat ride is a unique trip through the haunted Islington Tunnel on board one of London's community narrow boats specially decorated for the occasion with a friendly witch amongst the crew. Be prepared for some surprise sights in the darkness of the 191 year old tunnel! You may also meet a witch on your journey or before or after it!

Places are limited on each trip. Babies are counted even if they are carried in arms. The Canal Museum Trust sells boat trip tickets as agent for the Camden Canals and Narrow boat Association. You are advised to be at the museum at least 15 minutes before your trip - the boat cannot wait for latecomers. Kids receive sweets on board and a free glow stick.

Expect the unexpected as you look around the London Canal Museum. There will be special activities for children in the museum so make sure you allow time for these either before or after your boat trip. (Before if you are catching one of the last boats of the evening). Look out for horrible sights and listen for screams! Explore the corridor of fear Listen to horrible noises, and look out for horrible pictures in unexpected places! If you have left it too late to book for the complete event including boat trip you will still be able to visit the museum at usual museum entry charges. Advance booking is not required for a museum visit without a boat trip.

Our Ghost Story Teller will tell stories in the museum at 1630, 1730, 1830, 1930 and 2030 on both days. Each story-telling session lasts 20-25 minutes. Prepare for sinister spine-chilling tales that will make your blood curdle!


INFORMATION
Time: Boat ride runs from 15.00pm – 21.00pm
Price: Adult (aged 16-120 inclusive) £10.00 / Child (aged 0-15 inclusive) £8.00
Meeting Point: Canal Museum, 12-13 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RT
Nearest tube / station: Kings Cross tube and BR
http://www.londonparanormal.com/GFcanelboatride30-31oct2010.html

Official Houdini Seance 2010

Fraud! The Houdini Seance Lecture

Tuesday 26th October 7-9:30pm

The Theosophical Society
50 Gloucester Place
London
W1u 8EA

Lecture and Demonstration by Jon Randall on the History & Tricks of Spiritualism and Mediums. Fraud from 1848 to the present day.

Hear about how mediums tried to kill Houdini, How they fake spirit phenomena, and the humorous tale of the "Medium and the Apple tree". Culminating with a recreation of the final 1936 Houdini Seance and maybe a bit of psychic surgery thrown in.

Jon Randall has been delving into the murky recesses of "Fraudulent Mediums" (a tautology surely) to prepare some additions for his 25th anniversary Houdini Seance Lecture. There is a lot of new material added from the last few years of research - you know it'll be fun :)

Admission is £4.50 , members £3.00

Demons and Nightmares: Why do People Believe in the Malign Supernatural

Date: 26/10/10
Speaker: Deborah Hyde
Title: Demons and Nightmares: Why do People Believe in the Malign Supernatural?

Abstract
Deborah’s talk is on the cultural and physiological aspects of the religious and superstitious experience and she’ll answer such questions as:
When do the dead chew in their graves?
Why do vampires strike in autumn?
Why do ghosts live in electric clocks?

Biography
Deborah Hyde has been writing about the folklore of the macabre for eighteen years. She blogs on the themes of magic and supernatural belief as ‘Jourdemayne’, regularly syndicating the ‘The Lay Scientist’ and ‘The Pod Delusion’. She is writing a book called Unnatural Predators which will get published one day when she gets a minute or two to finish it.She is Deputy Convenor of Westminster Skeptics and will be Managing Editor of The Skeptic Magazine (UK) in the New Year.
Her daytime, grown-up job is a makeup effects coordinator in the film industry – more vampires and zombies, then.

The talk is free, open to the public and there is no need to book.
http://www.gold.ac.uk/apru/speakers/abstracts-1011/

The talks will take place in Room LG01 in the New Academic Building- see maps at www.goldsmiths.ac.uk. It's on the Lower Ground floor immediately underneath the entrance to the building, accessible by stairs in the centre of the building and by the lifts at the far end of the building.

Wicked Plants

Wicked Plants


Saturday 30 October, 1.30pm

Free with Museum admission

(Adults £6 / Concessions £5 / Children FREE)

We've added a new and creepy event to our autumn programme, just in time for Halloween. In this talk based on her New York Times bestseller Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, Amy Stewart takes on Mother Nature's most appalling creations. It's an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, Stewart presents tales of bloodcurdling botany that will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

Find out which plant killed Abraham Lincoln's mother, which shrub ignited a global war, and what plant has killed 90 million people. From strychnine to castor bean, from poison sumac to monkshood, from carnivorous plants to weeds that spontaneously combust, Stewart introduces an unforgettable cast of characters and tells their tales with her own wicked sense of humour.

Amy Stewart lives in California, where she tends her own poison garden and runs an antiquarian book shop with her husband.

Suitable for adults and children 10+

Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB. 020 7401 8865

Walter Potter @ Museum of Everything

Seven years after it was sold and dispersed across the world, a bizarre Victorian collection is being reassembled in an exhibition co-curated by Peter Blake

The wild and eerie Victorian world of Walter Potter, where baby rabbits go to school and weep over their blotted copybooks, and where Bullingdon Club-style squirrels puff on cigars as toads play leapfrog and rat police raid a drinking den, is being reassembled in London, seven years after his creatures were sold and scattered across the world.



The displays are being assembled at the reopened Museum of Everything, a pop-up museum in a former Victorian dairy, and later recording studio, in Primrose Hill, London.
The Museum of Everything will run at least until Christmas.

More details on this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/oct/08/walter-potter-exhibition-museum-everything

Museum of Everything
www.museumofeverything.com/

Fortean Times UnConvention 2010

The line-up for this years Fortean Times UnConvention has been confirmed. This semi-regular gathering of Fortean Times readers and friends is taking place Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th October at University of Westminster - 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS‎. Tickets are £50 / £30 for day tickets.



THE VAMPIRE RABBIT AND ITS KIN - Gail-Nina Anderson

Sweet, fluffy little bobtails? Not a bit of it! See the hidden side of rabbits and hares as folklore, art and popular culture reveal some surprising beliefs. From Mary Toft (who gave birth to quite a few) to the Venerable Bede, Boudicca, James Stewart and the Easter Bunny, this talk explores humanity’s weird relationship with the Lagomorph. Fertility, witchcraft, divination, pagan symbolism, a non-existent goddess and the world’s largest knitted art-work, not to mention the mysterious Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle, an inexplicable sculpture that has spawned its own mythology; down the rabbit-hole, it’s stranger than you think.

Dr Gail-Nina Anderson is an elderly Goth who has spent a lifetime nurturing her natural streak of morbidity. Trained as an art historian, she works in Newcastle as a freelance arts journalist and lecturer, specialising in the imagery and folklore of vampires. She lectures academically on Pre-Raphaelite art, and is currently organizing an exhibition for Japan. She has had several short stories published plus the occasional exhibition catalogue. A contributor to FT, assorted UnConventions and Weird Weekends, her worldly delights are mourning jewellery and red wine.

THE BOSOM SERPENT - Jan Bondeson

Which Fortean has not heard of the old stories of animals ¬ like snakes, lizards, frogs and toads ¬living as parasites in the human stomach? As the ‘bosom serpents’ nourish themselves from the steady supply of ready-chewed food, their human host becomes increasingly emaciated. One day, when he or she lies down snoring, jaws gaping wide, the head of a snake emerges from the mouth to take its bearings, like the periscope of a submarine. Since the 18th century, the bosom serpent has been largely relegated to the realm of folklore, but it is still with us, incorporated into the modern newspaper myths, like that of the 25-year-old Syrian woman taken into hospital, complaining of severe stomach pains and found to have a six-foot snake lodged in her intestines!

QUEEN VICTORIA¹S STALKER - Jan Bondeson

After her coronation in 1838, Queen Victoria was relentlessly pursued by a weird teenager, Edward ‘the Boy’ Jones, who had an uncanny ability to sneak into Buckingham Palace without being detected. Once, he broke into her bedroom and stole her underwear, and at least twice he sat on the throne. As a result of his multiple intrusions into Buckingham Palace, the Boy Jones became a media celebrity and a major headache for Lord Melbourne¹s government, who went to extraordinary lengths to get rid of him. In this talk, the Boy Jones will be compared with other palace intruders and celebrity stalkers, and the moral question of what lengths the authorities should be allowed to go to ‘remove’ a royal stalker, potential assassin or terrorist will be discussed. After all, the Boy Jones was held captive in breach of habeas corpus for longer than any wartime saboteur or fascist, IRA member or Muslim terrorist.

Jan Bondeson is a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at Cardiff University. His first book, published in 1996, was The Prolific Countess, a historical study of multiple births. He has since written many other books, including Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, The Feejee Mermaid, The Two-headed Boy and other Medical Marvels, The Great Pretenders, The Cat Orchestra and the Elephant Butler and the best-selling Buried Alive, a study of the history of the signs of death and the risk of being buried prematurely.

IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY: NEW LIGHT ON THE RENDLESHAM MYSTERY - Dr David Clarke

Thirty years have passed since the Rendlesham forest UFO sightings, often described as ‘Britain’s Roswell’. This presentation seeks to find an alternative to the belief/disbelief debate, one that is more satisfying from the fortean perspective. I will argue that once such events are interpreted as contemporary legends the boundaries between fact and fiction, truth and falsity become less polarised. I will suggest that Rendlesham and other reports of ‘anomalous lights’ are best seen as real, extraordinary experiences, transformed by the wider myths and legends of Western society.

Dr David Clarke is head of the Journalism department at Sheffield Hallam University. He is the author of 10 books and is a frequent contributor to FT and TV and radio productions on UFOs and other fortean phenomena. He has a PhD in Folklore and is the consultant for The National Archives (TNA) for the ongoing release of the UFO files collected by Britain’s Ministry of Defence. His book, The UFO Files, was published by TNA in September 2009.

FORTEAN THEMES IN DOCTOR WHO - Paul Cornell

For such a long running SF TV show, Doctor Who has touched upon truly Fortean themes surprisingly infrequently. But what¹s there is very interesting, from the Ancient Astronaut theories of the Jon Pertwee era to three different sinkings of Atlantis and two different Loch Ness Monsters.

Paul Cornell is a writer of SF and fantasy in television, books and comics. His Doctor Who episodes are ‘Father’s Day’ and ‘Human Nature’ / ‘The Family of Blood’. He’s currently writing Action Comics for DC Comics, and his medical horror pilot Pulse was screened on BBC3 earlier this year.

MAGICAL MINDSCAPES - Paul Devereux

A very visual presentation on the ways peoples down the ages have invested meaning in their native landscapes (unlike our own culture). From the Nazca lines to Buddhist soundscapes, from earthen effigies built by American Indians to ancient acoustic Chinese gardens, from the music of Stonehenge¹s stones to the secret topographical imagery of pre-dynastic Egypt. And more! Uncon coincides with the publication of Paul's major new book, Sacred Geography (Gaia Books).

Paul Devereux is a veteran researcher, occasional broadcaster, and author on things mysterious and strange, with well over 20 books and countless articles to his credit, plus a range of peer-reviewed papers. He focuses especially on the anthropology and archaeology of consciousness, exotic geophysical phenomena, and altered mind states. He lectures around the world to all kinds of audiences and conducts field research. He's Managing Editor and a co-founder of the academic publication, Time & Mind - the Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture, a research affiliate with the Royal College of Art, and archaeology columnist for Fortean Times.

THE BLUE DOGS OF TEXAS - Jon and Corinna Downes

In the early winter of 2004 Jon Downes went to Texas to make an abortive TV show. Whilst he was there he examined the skeleton of a blue, dog-like creature. Despite all the claims that these animals are nothing more than mangy coyotes, Jon became intrigued, and five and a half years later, together with his new (and eminently sensible) wife Corinna, he went back to Texas to try and clear the mystery up. Needless to say, they found even more questions than answers.

Jonathan Downes is the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, an organisation which he founded in 1992. He has spent the last 20 years wandering around the world in search of

hitherto unknown species of animals. Five years ago, after years of confirmed bachelorhood, he met administrator and novelist Corinna and a couple of years later found himself with a new wife, and two lovely step-daughters. The CFZ has changed immeasurably since Jon got his foot caught in the tender trap and this is no bad thing.

WIRED FOR GOD? - Charles Foster

Siberian shamans, whirling sufis, entranced Bushmen; hypnotism and magic mushrooms; hymn-singing in the suburbs and ecstatic drumming in the African night; speaking in tongues and UFOs, near-death experiences and epileptics nuns; Neolithic tomb architecture and tantric sex; God-helmets, God-spots and God-genes. We all have ‘spiritual experiences’. Do they tell us anything about what it means to be human, and if so, what? Do they suggest that there's anything out there that is trying to relate to us?

Charles Foster is a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford. He has written, edited or contributed to well over 30 books, including Tracking the Ark of the Covenant, The Jesus Inquest, The Selfless Gene, and Wired for God: The biology of spiritual experience. All his books are fumbling attempts to work out what on Earth we¹re doing on this most extraordinary of all conceivable planets. He lives in Oxford and spends a lot of time in the Middle East and Africa.

RETURN TO SUMATRA: ON THE TRAIL OF THE ORANG-PENDEK - Richard Freeman

In September 2009 Adam Davies, Dr Chris Clark, Dave Archer and Richard Freeman visited the jungles of Western Sumatra on their latest expedition in search of the unknown species of upright walking ape known as the orang-pendek. Deep in the cloud forests around the volcanic lake of Gunung Tujuh, they finally found it.

Richard Freeman is a cryptozoologist who has hunted for the orang-pendek in Sumatra, the African dragon Ninki-Nanka, the giant crested serpent know as the naga in Indo-China, and the infamous Deathworm of Mongolia’s Gobi desert. He is a former zookeeper who has worked with over 400 species of animals, and zoological director of The Centre for Fortean Zoology. He has written a number of books, including Dragons: More Than a Myth and Explore Dragons. His latest is The Great Yokai Encyclopedia: An A-Z of Japanese Monsters.

THE SOUTH SHIELDS POLTERGEIST CASE - Mike Hallowell

Mike will be talking about the South Shields Poltergeist case, and the book of the same name which he wrote with fellow researcher Darren W Ritson. He will also explain how the authors were abused, threatened, vilified and terrorised afterwards none of which, intriguingly, he blames upon the poltergeist. During his talk Mike will detail some of the absurd (and frankly hilarious) criticisms that were levelled at the authors by sceptics and rationalists across the globe. He will also recount how the authors were largely vindicated. Mike and Darren have magnanimously forgiven their idiotic detractors, but just want them to remember that they know where they live.

Mike is a full-time freelancer with twelve books and over 1,000 features and columns under his belt. He specialises in Geordie Forteana, which he describes as, ‘weirdness marinated in brown ale’. Mike has written his weekly newspaper column WraithScape for well over a decade, and possesses one of the largest private archives of clippings relating to Geordie strangeness. He currently pens the Backlight column for UFO Matrix and the Geordie Monsters blog for the Centre for Fortean Zoology¹s website. Known as the Wizard of Weird by his friends and enemies alike, he confesses to being weird, but not a wizard. Although he is. Sort of.

IT IS ROCKET SCIENCE! - Helen Keen

Comedian Helen Keen’s award-winning space-based show is soon to become a Radio 4 series. But you can see it now with a cosmos of costumes, a meteor shower of jokes, and approximately 99 feet of tinfoil... Featuring Space Nazis! Satanists! And Actual Aeronautical Engineers! It Is Rocket Science! will take you on a whistle stop tour around the Great Brains who put monkeys, ladies, dogs and gentlemen into orbit.

Helen Keen is a comedian and writer. In 2005 she won the first Channel 4 New Comedy Writing Award. Since then she has written for, among others, Channel 4’s Friday Night Project and BBC Radio 4¹s The Now Show. Her own live shows mix stand-up with science, storytelling and dodgy props to spin comedy out of such arcane and unlikely subjects as 19th-century Arctic exploration, or the development of the space rocket.

‘This sophisticated rising star is one to watch’ The Guardian

ALIEN BIG CATS OF OZ - Rebecca Lang

It¹s one of our greatest wildlife mysteries: are there really big black cats running around Australia and New Zealand? The big cat mystery has been the subject of much debate and fascination for more than a century in the Antipodes, where it has been blamed for significant stock losses, pet deaths and terrorising people living in rural areas. Rebecca will discuss some of the best cases that have come to light in the past 30 years, which appear to support the existence of Alien Big Cats in Oz, and delve into the rich vein of wartime big cat sightings that could be the source for the Kiwi cat conundrum.

Rebecca Lang is an Australian journalist and editor who has written about a number of fortean subjects during her 20-year career including table-tilting, yowies, big cats and min-min lights. Along with Michael Williams, she is the co-author of the recently-published Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers and is affiliated with the Centre for Fortean Zoology. She also owns the Australian fortean website Strange Nation and is affiliated with the Centre for Fortean Zoology.

SEX AND THE POLTERGEIST - Alan Murdie

Poltergeists are among the best-attested paranormal phenomena. Many theories have been put forward to explain such manifestations, but their origin and the force behind them still remain a mystery. Since the 1930s a number of researchers have theorised that there is a sexual component in outbreaks of poltergeist activity. In this lecture Alan Murdie reviews these ideas, and considers what part sex may have played in a number of classic poltergeist cases, and whether there is an underlying sexual element behind poltergeist manifestations.

Alan Murdie is a lawyer specialising in intellectual property law, civil liberties and the protection of vulnerable people from excessive debt enforcement. He also has a long-standing interest in fortean subjects, was chairman of the Ghost Club between 1998 and 2005 and chairs the Spontaneous Cases Committee of the Society for Psychical Research. He has investigated numerous hauntings and anomalous phenomena both in Britain and abroad. He has written and broadcast extensively on the topic of ghosts and poltergeists and is the co-author of the Cambridge Ghost Book (2000), author of Haunted Brighton (2006) and Haunted Edinburgh (2007), and writes the regular Ghostwatch column for FT.

THE ABUSES OF ENCHANTMENT – Mark Pilkington 


In this audio-visual presentation Mark shows how military and intelligence operators have shaped and exploited beliefs in UFOs, ghosts, monsters, vampires, and elements from folklore and conspiracy theory to create an armoury of supernatural weapons of mass deception. The inspiration for these toys, tools and techniques has come from a range of sources including fiction, cinema, stage magic, advertising and occultism.



Mark Pilkington has written for Fortean Times, the Guardian, Sight & Sound, The Wire, Frieze, The Anomalist and a host of other magazines and journals. His book Mirage Men: An Adventure into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs was published in July 2010. Mark also runs Strange Attractor Press, editing and publishing its occasional Journal, organising events and exhibitions and broadcasting on Resonance FM. When not squinting at words, Mark can be found playing synthesisers and electronic gizmos with musical outfits including Disinformation, The Asterism, Raagnagrok and Urthona

THE RENDLESHAM FOREST UFO INCIDENT: DECONSTRUCTING A MYTH - Ian Ridpath

In the past quarter of a century, the Rendlesham Forest incident has become one of the top ten UFO cases in the world as voted by UFO believers, and is now often described as the ‘British Roswell’. Here, skeptical investigator Ian Ridpath looks at the main points of the case and provides explanations for each in turn, correcting various misunderstandings and pointing out how various unsubstantiated claims have passed uncontested into a body of unreliable knowledge that has already taken on the status of a modern myth. For further information on the results of Ian¹s investigations.

Ian Ridpath is a writer and broadcaster on astronomy and space with a particular interest in the way astronomical phenomena are misidentified as UFOs. He produced the first full explanation of the Rendlesham Forest UFO case back in 1984 and marvels at the way the myth has grown ever since.

AMAZING DOPE TALES! - Andy Roberts

The Verve tried to tell us  wrongly  that ‘The drugs don’t work’, Oasis queried our location when they were getting high, while Donovan exhorted us to partake of the e-lect-rical banana (bound to be the very next craze, apparently). Whatever your stance, drugs have underpinned popular culture for the past 50 years and some pretty strange rumours and urban legends have sprung up about them. Hippy pipe talk and government propaganda have both conspired to create a miasma of fortean drug tales weirder than you can possibly imagine. In ‘Amazing Dope Tales!’ Andy Roberts ¬ backed up by some entertaining audiovisual material takes a cynical look at drug rumour and belief, from reefer madness to blotter tattoos, via acid in the water supply and all points in between.


BERWYN: THE WELSH ROSWELL? - Andy Roberts

On 23 January 1974, people living in and around the Berwyn Mountains of North Wales were startled by an enormous explosion accompanied by lights in the sky. Other lights were seen on the mountainside and police switchboards were jammed with calls from terrified witnesses. Fearing a plane had crashed a local nurse drove on to the mountain road where she saw a huge glowing light on the remote hillside. Rumour had it she was ordered off the mountain by the military and over the next few days, the area was flooded with police and others searching the mountains. Over the years various sources have come forward to suggest a UFO had crashed or landed and was retrieved by the military, earning the case the title of the Welsh Roswell. UFOs, cover ups, MIBs, lights in the sky ¬ the Berwyn Mountain UFO case has every UFO motif going! Andy Roberts has spent 12 years investigating the events and new evidence has recently come to light that has shaken his scepticism about some aspects of this complex UFO case.

Andy Roberts is a veteran fortean researcher, author and a frequent contributor to Fortean Times. His interests centre on the point where the human instrument interacts with aspects of the external environment, and how these perceptions create experiences and beliefs which suggest the universe is really a multiverse; specific areas include UFOs and ufology, urban legends, cryptozoology, psychedelic drugs, mountain legends, ritual landscapes and much more. In the real world Andy is a senior manager for a Housing Association.

A HISTORY OF TALKING TO THE DEAD - Gordon Rutter

We all know about EVP and ouija boards but what came before? From the earliest records of talking to the dead to the modern day, this is an attempt to answer one of the most important questions of all - whether we have an existence after death. Attempts to talk to the dead have encompassed a range of techniques from low to high tech, but which is most succesful and on what evidence? The oldest known book, one of the world's most prolific inventors, and the creator of Sherlock Holmes all put in appearances.

Gordon is a veteran Fortean and frequent contributor to FT and other magazines. For the last 10 years he has organised the Edinburgh Fortean Society (so, if you live in Edinburgh he¹d be more than happy to see you there). Gordon is the author of Paranormal Newcastle and Paranormal Edinburgh, and of the forthcoming Ghosts on Film 3. Lifelong interests in mushrooms and photography have also helped Gordon in his fortean pursuits, and his day job is as a Biology teacher. To date, he has never witnessed a ghost, Nessie or Bigfoot, but he lives in hope.


UFOS AND CLIMATE CHANGE - Ian Simmons

Conspiracy theories usually get judged on the basis of the claims that they are making, be they about UFO evidence, 9/11, Princess Diana or, most recently, climate change. However, can the form and structure of a conspiracy theory tell us anything about its viability? How does the idea that climate change is a conspiracy foisted on us by self-interested environmentalists compare to the idea that world governments are concealing the truth about UFOs, and other classic theories? Do the way the theories developed and the people who developed them show commonalities, and what does this mean for the likelihood of them being true?

Ian has been writing and sorting clippings for FT since the early 1990s, covering all sorts of topics from fairies to creationism, skinwalkers to animal cyborgs. He recently edited volume 14 of The Anomalist: Electricity of the Mind. He lives in Newcastle Upon Tyne, where he works in science communication.


HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR THEE! BROADSIDE BALLADS AND BROADSHEETS OF 17TH CENTURY ENGLAND - Lucie Skeaping, with Robin Jeffrey on lute and cittern

Comical, political, scandalous or just plain lewd, broadside ballads acted as both the pop songs and the tabloid press of their day. Printed in their thousands and sold in the streets, taverns and theatres, they served up a mix of gossip, remedies, strange happenings, political comment and sex, revealing a world remarkably similar to our own. With songs and projected images, and accompanied by lute and cittern, Lucie explores the content of the ballads, their language, historical context and tunes - and invites the audience to join in a chorus or two. This presentation is based on Lucie's book Broadside Ballads (Faber Music) winner Music Industry Award for Best Classical Music Publication.

Singer, writer and broadcaster Lucie Skeaping trained at the Royal College of Music and has been researching and performing broadside ballads since the 1970s, giving concerts throughout the world with her ensemble The City Waites. She presents BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show, and writes a regular column for BBC Music Magazine. Collaborations include Shakespeare's Globe, National Theatre and RSC and she can be heard on numerous soundtracks, including Simon Schama’s History of Britain, Peter Ackroyd’s London, and Polanski’s The Pianist. Her many recordings include The Musitians of Grope Lane (ŒHighly Recommended’ Penguin CD Guide).

3rd LONDON GHOST FESTIVAL 2010

The London Dungeon
Friday 22nd October 2010
28/34 Tooley Street
London SE1 2SZ
Time: 9pm – 3am
Price: £50 per person (places are limited)

A Victorian Ghost Hunt at the London Dungeon

With an array of reported paranormal activity, and regular sightings, the dungeon illustrates in gory detail, many lives of torment. This infamous location is a LPS favourite, therefore a perfect location to launch London Ghost Festival 2010.
Sometimes described as a museum of historical horror, and recalling events and atrocities from the past, is it not recommended for those with a nervous disposition. The London Dungeon events have never proved disappointing. Not many people get the chance to experience the dungeon after closing time, with an atmosphere that chills you to the bone. Are you ready?

The night will consist of a welcome meeting, brief talk about ghosts and spirits, a walk around, group vigils, psychic experiments, experienced psychics and investigators. You will be pro-active during the base line tests and get the chance to monitor our ghost hunting gadgets throughout the night.
Tea, Coffee and biscuits will be served.

Subterranean City.

Friday 15 October - Subterranean City.
Author Antony Clayton presents an illustrated talk about the inverted city beneath our street, including lost rivers, sewers and government bunkers and tunnels. The talk will also uncover some of the colourful folklore of underground London such as legends of secret passages and tunnels.

Friday Evening Events are free, sociable and fun gatherings in a friendly environment. Refreshments are provided (tea and coffee from 6.30pm, healthy buffet at 7.00pm).
Events take place at St Mary's Community Centre, Upper Street, Islington N1 2TX (next to St Mary's Church) from 6.30pm to 9.00pm every Friday of the year, including holidays.

http://www.slt.org.uk/events.html

This autumn at Treadwells

Coming talks, events and walks at Treadwells Bookshop
Click here for further details

30 September 10 (Thursday)
Interview with a Witch: Chris Crowley in Conversation
with Christina Oakley Harrington

06 October 10 (Wednesday)
Jung and the Occult: Was Jung a Mystic?
Gary Lachman

13 October 10 (Wednesday)
Alchemical Countdown: Number and Number Symbolism in Alchemy
Paul Cowlan

14 October 10 (Thursday)
Crowley's Amalantrah Working: Thelema, The Tao, and the New York Years
Gary Dickinson

26 October 10 (Tuesday)
Ghosts, Ghouls and Greasepaint: Guided Walk of Haunted Theatrical London
Deliane Forget, London Ghost Festival

28 October 10 (Thursday)
The Book in Western Art: Symbol, Device, Allegory
Laura Miller

29 October 10 (Friday)
Through A Glass Darkly: Performance Inspired by Victorian Seances of the Fraudulent Mediums
The London Magician

19 November 10 (Friday)
Through A Glass Darkly: Performance Inspired by Victorian Seances of the Fraudulent Mediums
The London Magician

26 November 10 (Friday)
Through A Glass Darkly: Performance Inspired by Victorian Seances of the Fraudulent Mediums
The London Magician

18 December 10 (Saturday)
The Orishas in Cuba's Lukumi Tradition :
Martin Tsang (Egbado Lineage)

The Story of London Festival

The Story of London Festival is on from 1-10th October.

A series of events focusing on the theme of London's from its past to its future

http://www.timeout.com/london/aroundtown/features/10654/Story_of_London_October_1-10_2010.html

Camber Well Open Day

If you missed the last open day or are interested to see work in progress on the  there will be another open day to view the ancient well of Camberwell, the well that gives Camberwell its name.


Sunday 26th September 1pm to 4pm at 56a Grove Park, off Camberwell Grove, Camberwell SE5.  
 
 It is an on going archaeological dig and so far the sides of the well are beginning to emerge. As Roman coins were reputed to have been found at the bottom of the well, it is likely to be two thousand years old or earlier.

Musical River Robots

Water Music by Karl-Heinz Jeron


Thursday 30.Sept.2010 6-9pm

Location: Tamesis Dock, Albert Embankment, between Vauxhall and Lambeth Bridge, London, SE1 7TP

Tank takes to the Thames as a chorus of robots perform Händel’s Water Music on a river boat.

20 tiny self developed robots improvise over themes from the Water Music by Georg Friedrich Händel. The Water Music is one of the greatest hits in Baroque music and consists of three suites. In 1717, Händel shook the London music scene when on a boat trip on the river Thames, he delighted the king with his 2nd Suite. “Our Händel”, as the English called their favourite composer at the time, had delivered another smash hit. One could rely on the Elton John of the Baroque age.

The robot orchestra will contemporarily reenact the historical performance on a river boat. With electronic bleeps and baroque choreography the robot orchestra will revitalize the probably best known suite of the Water Music, Suite No. 2, in D Mayor. Following the permiere on the Thames, the concert will take place on a boat. Some of the robots will improvise within the scope of Händel‘s composition, with the help of Euler‘s music theory. Euler (1707-1783) is a contemporary of Händel.

The methods described in Leonhard Eulers essay “Tentamen novae theoriae musicae” from 1739 set up the foundation for the improviations of the robot orchestra. In his music theory Euler describes mathematical methods for concord and dissonance problems. Eulers music therory suits well here, because there the ratio of frequency intervals play a major role. The robot orchestra uses the musical score of the Petrucci Music Library.

The performance will take place on the deck of Tamesis Dock, an old 1930's Dutch barge overlooking the Tate Britain and Westminster. Previously known as the Mary Rose it is now a bar and restaurant.

Anti-Matters

Tuesday 21 September Anti-Matters curated by


Richard Thomas (Resonance FM) an evening of talks about

negation, negative space, negative aesthetics, trash culture and anti-matter, including:

SHREDS – Stewart Home discusses anti-art, auto-destructive art and shreds books in an homage to John

Latham.

The Psychoanalysis of Trash – Ken Hollings gives a lecture on how Ludwig II of Bavaria and Michael

Jackson, Elvis Presley and Big Daddy Roth, Morris Lapidus and Kenneth Anger can never be recycled.

Sewer Side – Anthropologist and broadcaster Bruno Rinvolucri (University of Oxford) has spent the last

two years exploring London’s sewer system, a subterranean negative space if ever there was one.

Destruction and Negative Space – Curator Mathieu Copeland discusses auto-destructive art, and art

and voids.

Anti-Matter – Dr.Ed Gerstner, physicist and the editor

GOTHIC NIGHT II with Christopher fowler

GOTHIC NIGHT II
DOWN BELOW…

Friday 29 October 2010 7pm-9.30pm £8 / £6.50 Includes glass of wine
London Metropolitan Archives, 40, Northampton Road, London, EC1R 0HB
To Book : Call on 020 7332 3851 Enquiries: ask.lma@cityoflondon.gov.uk

Join CHRIS FOWLER, author of the Bryant and May Mysteries including The Water Room and Off The Rails, for an evening of strangeness and curiosity.
His stories are set in London, past and present. In some Chris has plunged the depths of the archives to delve deep into the city's sewers, drains and tunnels.

The evening includes:
Chris reading from his work / Q&A.
An introduction to some fascinating material from the archives.
Entertaining interludes relating to the 'Down Below' theme.
Behind the scenes tour.
Part of Archives Awareness Campaign 2010—’Discovery’ — Archives in Science, Technology and Medicine

Chris lives and works in London, where he is best known for his dark urban fiction. His books all contain elements of black comedy, anxiety and social satire.
As well as novels, Chris writes short stories, scripts, press articles and reviews. He has written several new pieces involving London below, including a foreword to Subterranean London and a new short story called Down.... Visit www.christopherfowler.co.uk.

Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit Invited Speaker Series

Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit  Invited Speaker Series 2010/11
Department of Psychology , Goldsmiths, University of London

SEMINARS ARE HELD ON TUESDAYS AT 6:10 PM IN THE NEW ACADEMIC BUILDING, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW. All talks are open to staff, students and members of the public. Attendance is free and there is no need to book in advance.

For further information, visit  or contact Tamas Borbely.

12 Oct Jon Ronson

Writer and documentary filmmaker
The Men Who Stare at Goats and Other True Tales of Craziness at the Heart of Power

26 Oct Deborah Hyde
Writer and blogger
Demons and Nightmares: Why do People Believe in the Malign Supernatural?

9 Nov Dr Gustav Kuhn
Department of Psychology, Brunel University
The Science of Magic: How Magic Changes our Expectations About Autism

16 Nov Dr Simon Dein
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Medicine, UCL
A Messiah from the Dead: What Really Happens When Prophecy Fails

23 Nov Daniela Rudloff
Department of Psychology, University of Leicester
Mental ‘Short-Cuts’ – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

7 Dec Andy Lewis
Blogger and Developer of the Quackometer website
The Persistence of Delusion: Why do Some Alternative Medicines Thrive and Others Die?

Debate: What Is Time For Us?

Bigideas present: What Is Time For Us?
8pm Tuesday 28th September 2010
The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1DG

Do people of different cultures have different experiences of time? Is our relationship to the temporal very different from that of, say, the ancient Romans? Or are our experiences of space and time, as Kant thought, intuitive ideas necessary for human experience to exist at all? Is it possible to find evidence either way? Do these questions even make rigorous sense?

The discussion will be introduced by Dr Andrew Gardner, Lecturer in the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at UCL. Andrew has a special interest in theoretical issues raised by archaeology including questions of temporality. It should offer not only an opportunity to broach a deep philosophical question but also interesting insights into how contemporary archaeologists think about their discipline.


Sessions generally start with a question. Someone who has some relevant expertise gives a very brief, informal talk. After that a discussion develops in a free and unstructured manner. It's not a lecture, and it's not a debate; it's a pub argument, but unlike any you've had before.

Dark Mills Festival this weekend

Dark Mills Festival
London Free Festival of Gothic arts and alternative culture.
Two days of bands, plays, films, talks, seminars, art exhibitions, market and more

See website for timetable and details:
http://darkmillsfestival.com/home.html

Walk: Paul Raymond and the Birth of British Burlesque

The London Adventure presents it's first walk of the year. Contact Nick for more details if you require.

PANTIES’ INFERNO: PAUL RAYMOND AND THE BIRTH OF BRITISH BURLESQUE

Presented by Paul Willetts

Saturday 25th September 2010, 3pm [moved from Sunday 12th]

Meet outside the front of St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square.

Ann & Dave Finnin - The Rest of the Story

Esoteric Source presents: Ann & Dave Finnin - The Rest of the Story

The saga of the American branch of the Clan of Tubal Cain from 1965 to the present day. Using old photographs and personal narrative, Ann and Dave Finnin discuss their 30+ year efforts into the reconstruction and practice of the tradition begun by Robert Cochrane and how they planted the seeds of the Clan of Tubal Cain in America.

Friday 10th September
7pm (for 8pm start)
Cost £5 per person

Upstairs at Devereux Arms, 20 Devereux Court, London WC2R 3JJ
Go down the Alleyway next to the George pub, opposite Royal Courts of Justice.
Food and drink available at the bar.

http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub600.php for pub details

This event is sure to sell out, Tickets available on Esoteric Source website homepage - check out the top left of the page. If you have any queries, you can contact via the site too.

Occult London Walk

Esoteric Source Presents: "Occult London" Walk, 11th September 2010

Meeting at Chancery Lane tube at 2pm, finishes about 5.30pm. Takes in various Crowley, Gardner, Montalban and other associated occult sites. You even get to touch Crowley’s knob! Also includes some snippets of London Lore. There will be a visit to Atlantis to see Madeline Montalban's Cloak and to a couple of London Pubs!

All welcome. Lasts about 2 1/2 hours. Cost £5

Payment will be taken on the day, before the walk begins.

Visit Esoteric Source website if you have any queries, or there is also a Facebook presence (see Events there).

Goblin King Masquerade Ball

An evening where the World Turn’d Upside Down; Where Fools become Princesses for one night.
Where Goblins, Nymphs, Ogres, Bad Faeries and other Creatures of the Night, beyond the realm of human vision, are free to make merry, tempt, seduce, carry out acts of foolishness and wantonness.
Dearest revellers cast aside your thoughts of the next day and abandon yourselves to the excesses of The Goblin King’s Court of Disorder.

We are very proud to announce our special guest Brian Froud, legendary artist and conceptual designer of the 'Labyrinth' and 'Dark Crystal' films.
Also featuring some warped, weird and wonderful creatures from Hellboy 2, courtesy of Creature Effects.

The Goblin King's Court of DisOrder
Saturday 18th September 2010
@ The Cavernous Troll's Chambers under London Bridge
9pm til Late

Featuring...
- Outstanding Live Bands & DJs
- Outlandish and mythical performances from the crème of the underworld
- Walkabout Creatures
- The infamous Goblin Market
- The wondrous 'Night Exhibition'
- Enjoy the Goblin Feast of disturbing dead and half living treats to tantalise the tongue and enslave your taste buds.
- Phantastical decor and set
- Discover other enchanting oddities from the disloyal subjects of the Goblin King.

Important Dress Code : Goblins, Bad Faeries, Pan, Mischievous Nymphs, Unpleasant Pixies, Neo Victorian, Venetian Masks, Steam Punk, Boggarts, Brownies, Dryads, Dark Elves, Fawns, Satyrs, Wicked Giants, Jinn, Ogres, Mab, Sprites, Terrible Trolls, Horrid Harlequins, Misbehaving Imps, Bogeys, Hags, Sylphs, Green Man, May Queen, Spirits of chaos and disorder…
Costumes or formal attire with mask encourage.. Imaginative and elaborate costumes recommended!

For the latest info and tickets please visit :
http://www.guerrillazoo.com/goblin-kings-court-of-disorder

Conference: Gerald Brosseau Gardner – ‘Father of Modern Witchcraft’

Esoteric Source presents a full day with Lois Bourne, Zach Cox, Philip Heselton, Professor Ronald Hutton, Fred Lamond, Philip Carr-Gomm Celebrating the life and work Of Gerald Brosseau Gardner – ‘Father of Modern Witchcraft’

Panel: Julia Phillips, Vivianne Crowley, Morgana, Rufus Harrington, Prudence Jones
Introduction by John Belham-Payne
Brian Botham – MC, Entertainment by Paul Mitchell – ‘A Far Better Pagan’

Tickets £20 in advance £25 on the day.


Sunday 12th September 2010

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Sq, London WC1R 4RL Doors Open at 10 am Programme Starts at 11 am.

Information: 07733581504

All Funds are to help the Doreen Valiente Legacy Trust

Testbed1 presents: The Island

Sample a wealth of parochial entertainments including: Music, Magic, Science and moving pictures with The London Snorkelling Team.

There will also be: Barbequed local meat, a licensed tavern, minature golf course, fortune telling, local market stalls, obscure traditional games.

Tours depart from:

testbed1

33 parkgate road

battersea

sw11 4np

Talk: The Knights Templars in London

South East London Folklore Society presents:
Rob Stephenson: The Knights Templars in London
This illustrated talk will discuss places in London that were either occupied, owned or had some connection with the Knight Templars and their dramatic downfall, including the sites of their imprisonment and interrogation.


Robert Stephenson is the chairman and lecture organiser of RILKO - the Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation.

SELFS meet every second Thursday of the month at The Old King's Head, Kings Head Yard,
45-49, Borough High Street, London SE1 1NA.

Secret Subterranean London

THE VENUE.


The Basement Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London, EC1V 9LT

DATES & TIMES

9th Sept 2010 - 15th Sept Open daily 11am-7pm Free

OPENING NIGHT

Thursday 9th September 6pm – 10pm Free

Everyone welcome, please arrive early to avoid disappointment

Illumini Event 2010 will be held in an underground rustic location in London, and promises to be an exciting and historical look into the history of the secret underground city. The old rustic subterranean dark labyrinth, with its many rooms, alleyways and cells, will be transformed by artists’ and prop makers into several areas of historical underground London, e.g: World War bunkers, disused stations, crypts, historical waterways and many more, the long-forgotten hidden secrets of London.
 
The event will start with a grand opening night, which you are invited too with free entertainment; where everyone is welcome. Live acts: stilt walkers, light shows, magicians, illuminating dancers, tarot reading, travel back in time with historical costumed performers, and much more. We hope to see you there. Please arrive early to avoid queues.Opening night Thursday 9th Sept 2010 Free 6pm-10pm

Event includes:

Tour of Shoreditch Church Crypt, by Torch light 10.45am Friday 10 Sept , 2pm Tues 14 Sept . Booking in adavance is essential. The tours will last at least one hour. Meeting point will be at the front of the church situated at St Leonard's Shoreditch Church, Shoreditch High Street , Shoreditch , E1 6JN

Cilla Conway -The Occult World of Subterranean London. Fri 10th sept 11am Free

Scott Wood - Crypts, Creatures and Caverns: the Folklore of Subterranean London. Fri 10th Sept 2pm Free

Tony Clayton - Subterranean City on Fri 10th Sept 5pm Free

Brunel Museum Special event: Sat 11th Sept & Sun 12 th Sept Tours of the Grand Entrance Hall of The Thames Tunnel Tickets £5

Rosie Murdie What lurks beneath - spirits and spectres of subterranean London on Sat 11th Sept 4.30pm Free

Member of London Underground Staff  - Mysteries & ghosts of London Underground sun 12th Sept 3.30 pm Free
 
Much much more at the Illumini website.

The Hendrick's Lecture September Series

Talks and Lectures announced by the The Last Tuesday Society this autumn, from shrinking heads to Mad Animals & Women of The Golden Dawn.
Educational & Informative Talks start at 7pm on the dot at Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors, 11 Mare Street, E8

SEPTEMBER
13th September 2010
Documentary & Myth Making with the Light and Shadow Parlour
The Light and Shadow Parlour will present a programme of short films that explore notions of documentary as myth-making, the threshold between fact and fiction and how to generate and perpetrate collective and personal memories and experiences through art and film.Tickets £7 or £4 with adequate proof of extreme poverty.

14th September 2010
Charming Augustine with Zoe Beloff
Charming Augustine is inspired by series of photographs and texts on hysteria published in the 1870s in Paris. It is an experimental narrative based on the case of a young patient, Augustine.Tickets £7 or £4 with adequate proof of extreme poverty.

15th September 2010
Bataille, Haiti and Voodoo with Dr John Cussans
The presentation will address the mythopoeic role of the Bois-Caïman ceremony in the story of Haitian Revoltion, its influence on sociological imagination of Europe in the forthcoming century, and the subsequent racialisation of the collective, revolutionary unconscious. Tickets £6 or £4 with adequate proof of extreme poverty.

23rd September 2010
Hysteria with Julia Borossa
In her talk, Julia will explore the history of hysteria in relation to psychoanalysis and examine the hysterical identifications' of our time, from dictatorship to pop culture. Tickets £7 or £4 with adequate proof of extreme poverty.

26th September 2010
Guided Tour of The Curiosity Museum
Guided Tour of The Curiosity Museum with its Curator in Chief, Viktor Wynd. Touch a human skull, play with surgical instruments and learn the history of his shrunken heads. Tour commences at 7pm, tickets £5

29th September 2010
19th Century Anarchists and the World that Never Was with Alex Butterworth
Alex Butterworth will present and discuss a revelatory portrait of an era with uncanny echoes of our own. Tickets £6 or £4 with adequate proof of extreme poverty.

30th September 2010
Tim Knox on the Strange Genius of Sir John Soane
Tim Knox, Director of Sir John Soane s Museum in London draws upon Soane s own archive to paint a fresh picture of this strange, tormented genius of British architecture. Tickets £7 or £4 with adequate proof of extreme poverty.

Further details and the October & November program also available on the website
http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/

Austin Osman Spare exhibition at Cuming Museum, South London

Austin Osman Spare - Fallen Visionary

Tuesday 14th September - Saturday 13th November, 2010

This landmark exhibition celebrates the work of Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956),
who lived and worked in Southwark in the early twentieth century. His singular
life and vision will be charted with numerous self-portraits and other diverse
works, this Autumn at the Cuming Museum, South London.

Uncanny Valley

A new show from Spacedog and Professor Elemental.

7:30pm and 9:15pm (show lasts 75 minutes) Thursday 26 – Saturday 28 August 2010
Hen & Chickens Theatre
109 St Paul’s Road
London N1 2NA
MAP
Tickets £8.50 (book online)

Musicians play live with decrepit dolls, theremins and robots in this eerie entertainment, exploring our fears of the almost human – from golems to ventriloquists’ dummies.

Hot from their sell-out run on the Brighton Festival Fringe, dreamlike musical and mechanical inventors Spacedog join forces with gentleman rapper Professor Elemental, known for his YouTube sensation Cup of Brown Joy, a paean to the pleasures of drinking tea.

Death ballads, unsettling live robotics and tales of the professor’s extreme taxidermy experiments, in a night that will take you to the darkest reaches of your mind.

“One of the most inventive acts playing at the moment”, Melita Dennett

“Eerie, evocative and hilarious – tremendous fun”, Roger Highfield.

“A stand-out moment of psychedelic neo-Victorian rap genius”, Monkey Boxing magazine.

Not suitable for children.

Hip Death Goddess

Crowley & Jung – A Look At The Common Ground Behind

Tuesday, 31st August, 2010 – Paul Weston

“CROWLEY AND JUNG – A Look At The Common Ground BehindThe Book Of The Law And The Seven Sermons To The Dead”

The Secret Chiefs meet fortnightly upstairs at the Devereux public house (20 Devereux Court, off Essex Street, London WC2R 3JJ). Nearest tube is Temple. Meet from 7.30pm and the talk starts at 8.30pm. Admission is £2 (£1 concs). All are welcome.

Social: Write Club London

WriteClub gives professional writers, enthusiastic amateurs and anyone else with an interest in writing a place to meet. WriteClub is a very open group (that means that everyone is welcome) with no agenda, no format and no plan. WriteClub is just a way for writers and non-writers to meet each other in a friendly, relaxed setting. They meet on the third Thursday of every month, in the upstairs bar of the Blue Posts at 81 Newman Street, London W1T 3EU.

The next meeting is Thursday 19 August from 6pm.

North London Pagan Picnic

August 14 · 12:00pm - 6:00pm

Mudchute Farm, Pier Street, Isle of Dogs London , E14 3HP

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/event.php?eid=133507273338457

Once again the North London Pagan Picnic has decided to go on holiday! We are holding London's longest running Pagan Picnic at Mudchute Farm. Entrance is free. We are meeting people at two set times. Midday at Mudchute DLR station and at 12.30pm at Mudchute Farm gates. If you think that you may be arriving later than these times, call Jon on 07576504133 so that we can direct you to where we will be. As usual, families welcome but no dogs/pets as this is a working farm. Look forward to seeing you there!

Social: Laydeez do Comics

Laydeez do Comics is a monthly comics forum, that meets in Brick Lane,London. 'Laydeez Do Comics', focusses on graphic novelsbased on life narrative, the drama of the domestic and the everyday. Launched in July 2009 by two women, illustrator Nicola Streeten and artist Sarah Lightman.

LDC is open to all sexes. Artists, academics and fans are invitedto speak and present, and each month a chosen book is discussed. There is also a regular platform for comic artists to test works in progress. In addition, wine and delicious homemade cookies accompany each meeting.

The next meeting will be on August 23rd 2010, 6.30-8.30pm.at The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

London Psychogeophysics Summit

London Psychogeophysics Summit details:

The London Psychogeophysics Summit proposes an intense week-long, city-wide series of walks, fieldtrips, river drifts, open workshops and discussions exploring the novel interdisciplinary frame of psychogeophysics, colliding psychogeographics with earth science measurements and study (fictions of forensics and geophysical archaeology).


Open events include practical workshops in building simple geophysical measurement devices from scrap materials, fieldtrips for study and long-term use of such devices in the city, measurement and mapping of physical and geophysical data during city-wide walks, deployment of strategic underground networks, fusion of fiction, derive and signal excursion, studies of river signal ecologies alongside short lectures and discussions of broad, interdisciplinary psychogeophysical themes.

SPACE, 129 - 131 Mare St, Hackney, E8 3RH  020 8525 4330


HTTP, Unit A2, Arena Business Centre, 71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY

Mon 2 11:00+ SPACE open workshop, meeting and lunch.


Tue: 11:00+ SPACE open workshop, 15.00-17.00: Dark Heart of Codeness, a .walk

Wed, Thu, Fri: walks, individual workshops meeting at SPACE 11.00.

Wed, Thu, Fri: evening informal presentation/interchange/barbeque SPACE 19.00+

Thu: 19:00+ lectures and presentations at HTTP

Sat: open air event (location TBD): sites of execution and memory (working title)

Festival of Yoruba Arts

DATE: Saturday 7th August 2010
VENUE: Clissold Park, Green Lanes, London N16
TIME: Midday - 10pm

5,000 people celebrating the first, free, open air 'Festival of Yoruba Arts' enjoying the color, sounds and dance of Yoruba's rich culture and tradition. That’s FOYA 2010! Movement, color, sounds and tastes.

Experience traditional Bata drummers, dancers, singers, masquerades, jesters, arts and crafts exhibitions, workshops, presentations, Yoruba cuisine and live performances from across traditional and contemporary Yoruba culture.

There will be live performances from the London Lucumi Choir, (Cuba) London School of Capoeira(Brazil) Ayan and the Oduduwa talking drummers(Nigeria), Juju music from Diya Ojo (London), Afrobeat music from Dele Sosimi and the afro beat vibrations (Lagos/London), Yoruba Jazz from Kevin Haynes (Trinidad) and many more artists, whose music and performance art derive its origins and roots in Yoruba culture and tradition.

Charles Fort Birthday Pub Crawl

Charles Fort Birthday Pub Crawl:

A Procession of The Damned
6 August 2010 6.30pm start

The naïve and the pedantic and the bizarre and the grotesque and the sincere and the insincere, the profound and the puerile.
The Book of the Damned

Beginning at 6.30pm outside 39A Marchmont Street, Fort’s home in London, with a reading and toast (ale and cheese optional). Map to Marchmont Street.
Followed by a pub crawl in his honour:
Friend at Hand, 4 Herbrand Street, WC1N 1HX
Old Red Lion, 72 High Holborn, WC1V 6LS
Rugby Tavern, 19 Great James Street, WC1N 3ES
Truckles of Pied Bull Yard, 2 Bury Place, WC1A 2JR

All forteans and friends welcome.

Contact Scott  for more details.

Charles Fort books online.

Short Fort biography (hopefully explaining the cheese):

I Am a collector of notes upon subjects that have diversity—such as deviations from concentricity in the lunar crater Copernicus, and a sudden appearance of purple Englishmen—stationary meteor-radiants, and a reported growth of hair on the bald head of a mummy—and "Did the girl swallow the octopus?"
Wild Talents

Film: Huxley on Huxley

The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series, in association with the Scientific and Medical Network presents:


Huxley on Huxley: Documentary film and Q&A with Producer/Director Mary Ann Braubach

Laura Huxley’s candid recollections offer a compelling glimpse into her life with one of the greatest writers and visionaries of the 20th century. She was a teenage violin virtuoso who met Aldous soon after leaving the concert stage for Hollywood. His 1932 novel Brave New World established him as an undisputed literary giant. They married in 1956. Sharing an interest in the evolution of human consciousness, the Huxleys pioneered the use of LSD. Their lives and work impacted generations and gave shape to an important chapter of American cultural history.

The film is narrated by Peter Coyote and includes interviews with Laura Huxley, drummer John Densmore (whose band, the Doors, was named after Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception), spiritual leader Ram Dass, Esalen co- founder Michael Murphy, artist Don Bachardy, philosopher Huston Smith and actor Nick Nolte, star of the adaptation of Huxley’s novel The Genius and The Goddess.

Huxley on Huxley is an intimate portrait of a compelling personal and professional union.

Wednesday, 28th July , 2010

Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, Birkbeck University of London, WC1H 0PD.

Entry £10 /£8 Concessions, FREE WINE. Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start – Wine available

Film screening: Full Unemployment Cinema

Full Unemployment Cinema presents:
July screening: Grunwick Dispute 1976-78 Film Special

Sunday 25th July, 6pm
Free
56A Infoshop, 56 Crampton Street, SE17 3AE

Selections from films on the 1976-78 Grunwick Strike:
Year of the Beaver
Dave Fox, Steve Sprung, Sylvia Stevens, 1985

Stand Together
Newsreel Collective, 1977

Look back at Grunwick
Newsreel Collective, 2008

The Great Grunwick Strike 1976-1978: a history
Chris Thomas, 2008

The screening will be introduced by former member of the Newsreel Collective, Noreen MacDowell

Exploding Cinema Film Night

Exploding Cinema Disposable Film Show and Bike-in

Saturday 14th August
Utrophia, 136 Tanners Hill, Deptford, London, SE8 4QD

Doors 7:30 pm , Show 8.30pm - 12:30 am
£5 entry (no concs)
Tube & Rail: New Cross, Deptford Bridge, St Johns Buses: 21, 136, 321, 436, 171, 172
SUBMISSIONS STILL OPEN! (see below)

FEATURING:

The 2010 programme from San Francisco's Disposable Film Festival
A Bike maintenance station and Raffle prize of a NEW BIKE courtesy of Globe Bikes
A selection of disposable films made by YOU, the submitting filmmakers.
Electro-Tech-Pop sensation ANGRY DAN
Mind-expanding video trickery from GENETIC MOO
SUBMISSIONS STILL OPEN! Submit now online! Submit! Your film MUST have been made on Disposable media (anything other than a video camera) and be maximum 20 mins in duration. (60mb limit).
You can also send us a DVD

Conference: Death in Legend and Tradition

A weekend of stories, strange lore, and scholarship in the sepulchral grandeur of a Victorian cemetery.
Brompton Cemetery, Fulham Road, London. SW10 9UG

4 September at 9.30am - 5.30pm 
5 September at 10.30am - 1.00pm



Speakers include:
Scott Wood: The Unquiet Dead of England
Gail-Nina Anderson: Rossetti and his Exhumed Wife
Andrew Bennett: Politics, Cowardice and Death
Tómas Albertsson: Death in Protests
Pete Castle: Godfather Death
Peter Robson: Premonitions of Death
David Hunt: The Angel of Death in the Caucasus
Alan Murdie: Ghost Stories Suggestive of Survival
Rosie Morris: Maidens' Garlands
Juliette Wood: Sin-Eaters
Helen Frisby: English Folk Funerals
Dave Evans: The Afterlife of a Bodmin Witch

A tour of the site with Rob Stephenson (of London Earth Mysteries Circle) will also be available.


Tickets: £30 for both days available from Jeremy Harte, Bourne Hall, Ewell, Surrey KT17 1UF


Tel: 0208 394 1734 or email the Folklore Society.


Folklore Society website.


For more on Brompton Cemetery.

"They are not long, the weeping and the laughter"

There will be an unveiling of the restored grave of Ernest Dowson on Monday August 2nd at 2pm at his graveside in the Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery.



There will be an introduction and a reading by Jad Adams, Author of the biography 'Madder Music, Stronger wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson, Poet and Decadent' followed by a memorial in the cemetery chapel, ending with a toast to celebrate the life of Dowson in the Brockley Jack Theatre.

Literature: Litro Live! Summer Party

Litro Live! is an evening of entertainment and storytelling – a chance to gather with friends and fellow book-lovers. Litro Live! is brought to you by Litro Magazine London’s number one short stories magazine bringing fiction to Londoners since 2005. Our aim has always been to further boost the appreciation of literature and culture in the UK through fiction and poetry.

Thursday 22 July, 6.30pm-12pm at The Paradise by way of Kensal Rise
£5 on door

Host:
Paul Lyalls

Words:
Joe Dunthorne
Sabrina Mahfouz
Mark Pilkington
Murray Lachlan Young
Brigitte Voutsa

Music:
DJ 10SUI / Soldiers of the Knight
The Maybirds
MZ Bratt

Walk: Song and stories of Bermondsey

4pm Saturday 17 July
Free but booking essential

Singer songwriter Nigel of Bermondsey and tour guide Chris Roberts are teaming up to deliver a walking tour with a difference. At every stop from Crossbones Graveyard [which we think is the meeting point] in Borough to the Thames water front Chris will relate stories about the location and Nigel will perform a song from his album the Bermondsey suite.


Both the songs and stories will reveal the history of area and some of the tragic tales associated with it. Expect giant shift shifting rats, hidden graveyards, buried rivers and lost industry. The tour will last roughly two hours and, although free, must be booked as numbers are limited.

Film Screening: Comrades

PhantasmaGloria film events invite you to an evening hosted by artist Sarah Sparkes, presenting the film Comrades.

Eight years in the making, released in 1987 and rarely screened since, 'Comrades' tells the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset agricultural workers who, in 1834, were sentenced to transportation to Australia for forming a union protesting against unlivable cuts in their wages. The Martyrs cause was taken up by trade unions across the country, who mounted campaigns for their release. Against all odds, the Martyrs were pardoned. The victory became a symbol to a working-class movement of the power of working together to instigate changes in economic, social and political structures.


'Comrades' visual beauty is complimented by the narrative use of many early optical devises from Bill Douglas's own collection. These touch, in a variety of ways, on the history of pre-cinema and the political role that this visual media has played throughout history.

It is recommended that you bring a cushion as the pews can get rather hard during a three hour film!

St John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA
Tube: Bethnal Green


Entrance £4 or  £2concessions

Saturday 17th July

8.00pm – 11.00pm
(Doors and Real Ale Bar open at 7.00)