Great, I have a few days off to enjoy and what happens? I develop a smegging cold! Nuts. British Summer Time rolls around, the clocks go forward and cue everyone suddenly getting colds and flu. Still, it beats being at work and worrying what Alex is going to do with his omnipresent digital camera (yes, the one that provided Matthew’s Blog with my less than flattering pic).



So last night as I was in no fit state to go out I decided to have a mini vampathon. I watched Shadow of the Vampire and Bram Stoker’s Dracula on DVD. Love the conceit of Shadow, with Murnau directing a real vampire, posing as a method actor called Shrek who is playing a vampire… Very well made, good use of light and shadow - most appropriate considering Nosferatu is one of the high point of the Expressionist movement. The Coppola, despite it’s noble proclamation to be a definitive version based properly the book really isn’t anything of the kind. Instead of a horror tale we have a Gothic romance, but it’s still a very enjoyable movie for us old vamp fiends and Winona looks delectable in that red dress - dontcha love the zoom facility on DVD? What a biteable neck she has - mind you, you’d have to watch your possessions around her.



Finished off with a couple of episodes on old-fashioned VHS of my beloved Forever Knight - anyone else remember that? Actually I’m just listening to the second volume of the soundtrack from the series right now, all composed by Fred Mollin with nice little cameos by the lead actors. Nigel Bennett’s LeCroix is especially fine - the only good human is a bled human. So wonderfully unrepentant was LeCroix - a vampire who really enjoyed being an immortal bloodsucker, not a whiner like some of these modern vamps. He’d have got on well with Cassidy from Preacher.