Author Archives: tomjohnstone02

Tennant’s Solstice Surprise A nice little unexpected early Christmas present was Peter Tennant’s review on the Black Static website of The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 3: A Miscellany of Monsters, which gave a thumbs up to it and my … Continue reading →

The Count-down is over. Not for Christmas of course. It’s not Christmas Eve yet — that’s tomorrow. But the countdown to the eagerly-awaited BBC2 adaptation of ‘Count Magnus’ has passed, as I am only now sitting down to write this … Continue reading →

Calloween? I wonder if this is what ex-League of Gentlemen TV horror impresarios would like to rename Christmas. Mark Gatiss cast Simon Callow in his Christmas ghost story The Dead Room, and now he’s in the Inside No. 9 special … Continue reading →

Bring out those Solstice bulls! Local story-teller Jon Mason recently drew my attention to a Sussex tradition, called ‘gooding’. This custom seems to me connected to one that’s enjoyed something of a revival of late. I’m referring of course to … Continue reading →

Hausfrau-ratu! There have already been plenty of mentions of Krampus on this series of seasonal posts. But have you heard of Frau Perchta? This old crone, dressed in rags and sporting a beaky iron nose, was to slatternly hausfraus in … Continue reading →

Magnus dominus Following on from yesterday’s post about ‘The Mezzotint’, and to make up for missing a day, here’s a trailer for the next Christmas ghost story, ‘Count Magnus’:

A far from indifferent ‘Mezzotint’ Last Christmas Eve, the BBC treated us to an adaptation of ‘The Mezzotint’ by M.R. James. In the story, museum curator Mr Williams receives the eponymous artwork. “It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an … Continue reading →

Always a day behind… The Female Ghost, a radio anthology of ghost stories by E. Nesbit, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Bowen and Mary Braddon is on BBC Sounds.

Spenser’s spell in Munster Caught napping last night, I failed to provide my Badvent Calendar blogpost on time, but here it is, with another one to follow later today. It’s an extract from a story without any yuletide lore or … Continue reading →

Continuing the Count-down As the run-up to the Mark Gatiss production of ‘Count Magnus’ continues, the BBC invited lead actor Jason Watkins on yesterday’s Today program yesterday to discuss the appeal of ghost story-telling at Christmas. He spoke insightfully of … Continue reading →