Vampires. Yes, honestly, vampires. And news about my next book. And liver flukes, but you can avert your eyes for that bit.

Now, those of you of a sensitive disposition (and there must be one of you, at least, you can't all be snorty killers and laughers at Bambi) may wish to look away now, for I want to talk to you about a subject currently close to my heart.

Vampires.

Yep, I've been very busy on the vampire front lately - and no, being busy on the vampire front does not mean licking the chest of the bloke that played that twinkly thing in those films about an oppressed schoolgirl and her really really old boyfriend. Sadly.  No.  My busyness had been all part of my new novel (due out this Summer, vampire fans!) which is....(drum roll.  No, that wasn't a drum roll, that was my stomach rumbling, here it comes....brrrrrrdddrrrrrrr)... about vampires!

But vampires as you've probably never considered them before.  Unless you have.  My vampires are humans which have been infected with a demon, in a kind of parasitic way.  Yes, like liver fluke.  Or fleas.  Only bigger.  Unless it is a really BIG liver fluke.

Like this.

Which means that my vampires can go out in the daylight and all the things that a person can do, because just being infected doesn't stop all the normal human processes.  Even sheep with liver flukes can still see themselves in mirrors, you know.  They might not know what they were looking at, but they could still do it.  If they wanted to. 

But, like most parasites, the demons confer some advantages on to their hosts.  So my vampires live a long time, are strong and fast and very well dressed.  So, in that respect, not much like liver flukes, because being infected with liver fluke rarely causes sheep (for example) to wish to dash into Prada and buy an impeccable suit.

This is as close as they get.  Sheep have no innate style, you see.  Although, to be fair, this sheep probably doesn't have a liver fluke and therefore believes itself to be well dressed. 

So.  My vampires are stylish, good looking, strong, fast and only a little bit given to posing.  And my hero is a vampire.  My heroine isn't. And, because neither is she an oppressed schoolgirl given to lusting after sparkly lunatics who are going to outlive her by a factor of ten, she regards vampires with deep suspicion and rather a large helping of sneer at their desire to wear designer suits all the time.  Unlike Buffy, she doesn't necessarily want to kill them, but she is prepared to punch them quite hard if they come over all fangy in her presence.

So, now I've whet your appetites, I have to go off and lick another ches...I mean, get busy on the vampire front again.

Remember.  A vampire is for several lifetimes, not just for Christmas.

So are liver flukes, incidentally.

Mice. What EXACTLY are they up to?

You know that saying, the one about the best laid plans of mice and men?  Oh good, you do.  Only that bothers me.  Why on earth do mice need to plan?  What are they planning?

I've always suspected cats of having an agenda, I mean, those whiskery faces are just designed for putting together a good plot, cover story and eventual disassociation with all those caught.  But what on earth can mice have to plan?  I know cheese doesn't steal itself but it's hardly a lifetime's work.

A natural-born plotter and conspiracy-theorist.  Born to 'mwhahahahahhaha!'

 Barely even knows own name or whereabouts of cheeseboard.

So why did Robbie Burns write about the plans of mice?  What did he know? And now he's dead.  Well not now, obviously, I mean it happened a long time ago, but isn't that just a way of deflecting suspicion?  How, exactly, did he die and did anyone see the body?

 Did the mice have a hand in his death?  Did he have to die in order that their plans went undiscovered? And, given that he's been dead some two hundred and fifteen years give or take a shilling, and that is about ninety thousand mouse-generations, does no-one think that it might be about now that their plans are coming to fruition? 

  Yeah, you think it looks cute now, you wait until it's coming at you with an Uzi and four tonnes of plastic explosive, demanding that you open the safe.  They're financing the operation somehow...

And, now you come to mention it, I've never trusted rabbits either.

Fairy Lights - just say 'No'....

In front of me is a big black box.  Well, it's not really that big, it's about...ooohh....this big.  See?  Not that big at all.  But the contents.... I shiver and my skin grows cold.  The sun fades from the sky and crows line up on my windowledge cawing and mouthing 'Nevermore'... the moon rises like a badly-baked bun over the horizon... for the contents of the box are enough to strike terror into the hearts of anyone who comes into close contact.

For the box contains...

Dah dah duuuuuummmmmm.....

Christmas Tree Lights....

Yes, those agents of peril whose very proximity can reduce an entire household to swearing Neanderthals, who trailing wires have been the downfall of many an unwarily carried pudding; whose bulb-failures cause the emptying of complete cupboards, whose random power-fluctuations can blow so many fuses that the resultant Christmas Dinner has to be cooked the following day and, in some extreme cases, next door.

Those Christmas Tree Lights.

They want you to believe that this is the effect you will achieve. That your Christmas tree will illuminate hearts and minds alike and cause a sympathetic glow on the faces of all who come into contact with it.

What you, in fact, get, is this:

With the possible addition of a few smouldering jumpers, their knitted Santa motifs gently blazing, and the cat strolling through the wreckage picking off the remaining pigs-in-blankets.

I know you want the best tree imaginable.  I know you have the image of the perfect Christmas in your head and that it features a beautiful fir tree, branches inexplicably dusted with frost despite the near-Hadean temperatures reached by your central heating, sweetly twinkling lights causing murmers of delight among the children who kneel amid the parcels at its base.

Do us all a favour - just say 'no'.  Hang the branches with light-catching decorations made of tinfoil (which will terrify the cat and ensure it sits on the outside of the windowledge making resentful faces at you until at least the beginning of January).  Scatter the branches with glitter, generously decorate them with glass baubles that gleam in the firelight.  But, if you love your family and don't want the police and Jeremy Kyle to be your close attendants in the New Year, for the love of God don't get fairy lights.

Signed:  One Who Knows...