CHILDHOOD MEMORIES #1: Family holidays, hide and seek, collecting shells on the beach, hopscotch, watching Top of the Pops, school sports days, kids’ TV, chippy tea, the 10p mix, British bulldog, kissy cats, pencil cases, climbing trees, egg and spoon race, cornflake tart...


CHILDHOOD MEMORIES #2: recording the charts off the radio, pink custard, collecting football stickers, conkers, the ice cream man, the pop man, playing outside until dark, scrumping apples, rhubarb sticks with a big bag of sugar, dinner ladies, youth clubs, the tooth fairy...

Have a go at these #GoodFriday anagrams:

HONEST GENE: Our most famous prehistoric circle
ACQUIT MELLOWER RHINO: This Norman invader won the most famous battle ever to take place on English soil
SO BRAVE COMIC: She was the cook at Audley End House and Gardens in the 1880s ANTIQUE VOICER: This monarch had a seaside home, called Osborne, on the Isle of Wight
COLDEST RAVE: The plan to rescue soldiers from the Dunkirk beaches was overseen from secret tunnels beneath this fortress
WHY BITE BABY: This spooky-looking ruin inspired a Bram Stoker classic

In the realm of video games, a curious phenomenon occurs; as we age, our beloved characters often remain frozen in time. But what if they didn’t? What if they aged at the same rate that we do?

To help answer that question, experts at gaming magazine GamerBrain have devised a list that includes some of the world's most iconic video game characters of all time. Using Midjourney AI, they have generated images of what these characters would like in 2024 if they had aged at the same rate as humans.

1. Pac-Man made his first ever video game appearance in Pac-Man (1980), initially released in arcades. Pac-Man was originally called "Puck-Man," but the name was changed to avoid confusion with a popular British curse word.

2. Mario first appeared in the arcade classic Donkey Kong (1981), where it became the highest-grossing game of 1981 and 1982.

Despite being Italian, Mario's voice has only been spoken in English and Japanese in the official games.

3. Lara Croft first appeared as the main character in Tomb Raider (1996) for the Sega Saturn.

Lara Croft was initially designed with a more curvaceous figure, but her design was toned down to make her appear more athletic and less sexualised.

4. Princess Peach made her video game debut in Mario Bros. (1985), which was first released in arcades.

Princess Peach has been kidnapped no less than 15 times throughout the Mario series!

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A spokesperson for gaming magazine, Gamerbrain said: "Using Midjourney AI to create new iterations of our favourite video game characters isn't just about nostalgia; it's about utilising AI tools to generate something fun and innovative that we as video game fans can resonate with".

5. Although not turning out to be quite as commercially successful as Mario, Donkey Kong also made his video game debut in Donkey Kong (1981).

Donkey Kong was not originally intended to be the villain of the game; instead, he was only supposed to be the main character's pet.

6. Link first appeared as the main character in The Legend of Zelda (1986) for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), which became one of Nintendo's most successful video game franchises.

Link is left-handed in most of the Legend of Zelda games, which was a design choice to accommodate the right-handed player controlling him.

7. Princess Zelda also made her initial appearance in The Legend of Zelda (1986) for the NES.

Princess Zelda isn’t your run-of-the-mill princess. She can harness the powers of telepathy and teleportation, among others.

8. Samus Aran made her video game debut in Metroid (1986), which was released on the Nintendo Famicom in Japan and, a year later, on the NES in North America.

Samus was initially intended to be a male character, but the developers decided to reveal her as a woman at the end of the game to surprise players.

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1. DRAGON. TIGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. ​HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. ​HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. ​VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. ​FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO. For centuries past, across the world, some words have defined & decried us, raised our hackles, fired up our blood & told a story. 2. In this blazing, fun & fearless cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens & reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time #Furies #Virago50

1) I love @TheTwilightZone. One of my favourite episodes is The Shelter. It's a shocking but effective example of how fear can breed paranoia, bigotry & wanton aggression. The story begins with an innocent & convivial scene, neighbourhood friends celebrating someone's birthday 2) Then, after a radio news alert about a possible nuclear holocaust & strange sightings in the sky, these neighbours suddenly reveal their true, inner selves. With only 1 house that has a fallout shelter, the so-called civilized human beings become an angry mob.

1) Ductwork specialists @Airmatic, were curious to find out the most expensive types of dust available. Working with dust daily, they’ve ranked their dusty findings to decipher exactly the types you wouldn’t want going into one of their extraction systems. The full list is below: 2) House dust - This is your everyday cleaning enemy around the house, made from dirt, skin cells, pet hair & fabric fibres. You can get this for free, which is why it takes the bottom spot as the cheapest type of dust. It’s not even worth our time to put a price on it.

*THREAD*
1. I Am always in awe of people who put their heads above the parapets in an effort to want to try to better the paranormal. It is an admirable yet arduous task but not without risk as any new paranormal 'thing' is always going to divide opinions.
twitter.com/ukparanormalsoc 2. There'll always be questions, why and who is involved? Is it needed? How can this work when the paranormal might not even be real? Impartiality, experience, transparency, finances etc, etc. I'll be honest, I am not a fan of rules in the paranormal.
twitter.com/ukparanormalsoc

1. Am sure we all know this fella, Edgar Allen Poe, writer & poet famed for his macabre mystery tales. In 1838 he wrote, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”.
Arthur is on a ship when the crew mutiny, there's a storm, most of the crew are killed and the survivors are scattered. 2. Food is a real problem; they hunt, kill & eat a turtle, but it's not enough. So they play straws to see who will be eaten. That person is Richard Parker, one of the mutineers, consequently, they kill him & the survivors eat him. Eventually, they are rescued.

1. “Like many good stories,” writes @weinberg_kate, “it started on a cold, dark night. Agatha Christie, already a literary celebrity, having been overheard arguing with her husband, kissed her sleeping daughter goodbye and, with a crunch of gravel, drove off into the night. 2. The following morning, her Morris Cowley was discovered crashed on the edge of a chalk pit, headlamps still blazing, her coat and a bottle labelled ‘poison lead and opium’ abandoned on the back seat.” Agatha was well on her way to being history's best-selling novelist.

1. This is Tyburn Tree, London’s largest site for public hangings from at least 1177 until 1798 when Newgate Prison became the new home for this macabre form of entertainment.
Out of the thousands executed there, one famous case was that of William Duell. 2. Indicted on charges of rape, robbery & murder, the 17-year-old was convicted of rape & sentenced to death. On a bitter winter’s day in November 1740, he faced the noose at Tyburn. After being hanged for 22 minutes, he was cut down and his body was hauled into a hackney coach.

1. Football legend @petercrouch is releasing a Xmas album with opera star @paulpottsmusic mashing football terrace chants with classical music
‘Crouchy Conducts The Classics’, features orchestral versions of 'Who Ate All The Pies’ and 'We Love You England'
swnsdigital.com/uk/2022/11/a-n… 2. @petercrouch makes his conductorial debut which has been created in partnership with bookmaker @paddypower. The unlikely duo of Crouch & Potts sees the duo deliver a unique twist on popular fan songs such as 'Enger-land, Enger-land Enger-land’ and ‘V.A.R My Lord. V.A.R’.

1) Just catching up with #TheWitchFarm case update after having had 2 days of sparklers, roman candles, bonfire toffee & rockets. Marion Holbourn was a very interesting lady, writing for Fate Magazine including a feature about the haunted church of Avenbury

https://twitter.com/danny_robins/status/1588665363742740480

2) The church had three bells the largest of which was said to ring whenever danger threatened the parish. It was heard in 1931 on the night that the last vicar of the church, The Reverend E.H. Archer Shepherd, died (Marion's Father). His death was unexpected

1) I guess it's standard for an art institution to have a close relationship with its founder, but employees of the @SpeedArtMuseum in Louisville, Kentucky, are in the unique position of apparently extending that relationship beyond the veil. 2) Hattie Bishop Speed founded the institution in 1927 but died in 1942, some workers there say they continue to feel her presence.
Mostly, supernatural occurrences are limited to feelings of a presence, shadowy figures, or unexplained movements in one’s peripheral visions.

1. In November 1883, the gentleman bandit known as Black Bart the poet—because of the poems he left behind at the scenes of two of his crimes—robbed his last stagecoach before being apprehended by the authorities. 2. By then, Black Bart had been robbing stagecoaches in California’s gold country for 8 years, unbeknownst to the San Francisco high society who knew him as Charles Bolton, a courteous middle-aged mine owner who sported diamond accessories. a cane, a derby hat & gold watch.

1) This year, #DayOfTheDead observances are celebrated beginning on the evening of Monday, October 31, 2022 and end on Wednesday, November 3, 2022.

With some similarities to Halloween, Dia de los Muertos is a festive celebration which survives from ancient Mexico. 2) It was only when the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century that the festival was paired with the Catholic All Souls Day & All Saints Day, celebrated on Nov 1 & Nov 2.

As they still say in Mexico, "Nobody truly dies unless they are forgotten".

1) 💀Happy Halloween!💀
In December 1884, workers trying to solve an issue with the drains at Welbeck Abbey found 2 skeletons under the floor of the Steward’s room. They were thought to be from the Premonstratensian Abbey, which formerly stood on the site. 2) This made the skeletons between 350 and 700 years old. As far as we know, no more excavations took place at the time, so there are likely to be more ancient human remains lying in wait under the floorboards for the next time the plumbing goes awry.

1) “There’s no legacy as rich as honesty” so wrote Shakespeare in All’s Well That Ends Well in 1623.
Somehow this excellent advice was overlooked some 300 years later when the British Empire was ending, not that well. 2) Cut to North Borneo, 1963, the cusp of independence for what was soon to be the Federation of Malaysia. A British officer is overheard yelling “What’s burnt won’t be missed!” as he chucks over 500 classified documents into an incinerator.

1) Royal Mob was the term Queen Victoria herself used to describe her huge, extended family; 9 children, 42 grandchildren & 87 great-grandchildren. Starts on @HISTORYUK Monday 7th November 2) Her “favourites” were the glamorous and strong-willed Hesse sisters – the four daughters of her second daughter, Princess Alice; the first of Victoria’s children to predecease her, dying tragically young of diphtheria aged just 35.

1) I am always amazed by the response to certain features in Haunted Magazine. Yes, some are there to be read, to be enjoyed, to soak up the history, the mystery, the bizarreness, the madness, the darkness & the weirdness of the paranormal. 2) But some seem to spark an idea in a head, to ignite a flame in someone’s thought process whether they agree or disagree with the original subject matter & content AND WE LOVE RECEIVING THEM.
One such subject that oftenp provokes a response is the Stone Tape Theory.

1) Here are the dates for our goodwill ghosthunts: Oct 19th, Nov 2nd, 16th, 30th & Dec 14th. In the past our midweek events were £20 but you now ONLY pay what you can afford, even if it's nothing. We know some are struggling more than others &/or they just fancy a chat & company. 2) We've seen the negatives of people struggling of late, both further afield & closer to home, and we just feel we want to try and do something to help because we've seen, first hand, the positives of people talking, sharing & communicating. It can work. It can help.

1) Times are hard so we want turn ghost hunting on its head. We want to make paranormal events more affordable & accessible, especially for those who need some companionship albeit in a spooky setting. To do this we're letting you decide how much you want to pay to attend. 2) Ghost hunting is a passion of ours. It’s something we love doing, we love the buzz, the vibe, the craic as much, if not more, than the ‘search for the spooks’. There’s something special about meeting up with friends, making new ones & a few hours in a haunted location.