Only When I Krampuslauf (Santa! Santa! Santa!).

My first (and perhaps only) Christmas present has come early in the return of London Skeptics in the Pub. Not only has it returned but it has found a new home in K.C. Continental Stores on Caledonian Road which is a ten minute walk from where I work and has a very nice downstairs room. Not only that, it's on a Wednesday night and I work from home on Thursdays so get an extra hour, hour and a half even, in bed meaning a beer or two is not just possible but enjoyable.

London Skeptics in the Pub started way back in 1999 and I started attending, with my friend Richard Sanderson, not long after that when it was held in The Old King's Head in London Bridge. I went for a few years and then other stuff happened. Around about 2011/2012 I got to wondering if it was still on - and it was. But then in The Monarch in Camden.

So I started going again and continued for the best part of a decade when The Monarch closed first for the pandemic and then again to be converted in something called Monarchy which didn't seem a suitable home for Skeptics events. During that time, however, Skeptics in the Pub had spread out and had homes, some very brief, as far afield as Aberdeen, Stockholm, Sofia, Phoenix, and Invercargill. I got my Skeptical fix with Soho Skeptics (sadly now gone) and Greenwich Skeptics and even branched out into the London Fortean Society, the South East London Folklore Society, and the Sohemian Society.

But it was still good that the original London Skeptics was back and I was very pleased, on entering the venue, to find former host Carmen was on hosting duties (even if she did say to me "you used to have black hair", yeah it's a choice nature made for me, not one of my own). I already knew that the ever reliable Deborah Hyde (introduced by Carmen as 'skeptic royalty') would be taking the talk and that it would be on a somewhat festive theme. Krampus - Santa's Little Helper ... ? A talk I think I heard before, in an earlier iteration, about a decade ago but that's pre-blogging days so I could barely remember it and it would feel as if it was new anyway. Even if it didn't what is Christmas if not time for tradition?

Which it did. The talk was delivered, partly, as a form of quiz with sweets for the right answers and coal (gift-wrapped coal, I got me some, I wanted some) for the wrong answers. Because that's how Krampus would do it. That's how he rolls. There was an introduction about how us humans see patterns where no patterns are and an image of that piece of toast that looks like Jesus. Or even Lemmy. Though one wag in the audience suggested Charles Manson and another piped up with "my boyfriend Steve".

Then there was some talk about Father Christmas, Santa Claus, St.Nicholas that had me thinking not only about how Santa and Satan are virtually the same word but how St Nick and Old Nick are also curiously close and though Santa Claus started off wearing green he's now mostly seen in red which in most imaginings I've seen is the colour of Lucifer. Could Santa and Satan be the same person?

We just don't know! St Nicholas is said to have been born, in Turkiye, on the 6th December whereas Krampus, who is a kind of satanic Santa, was born one day earlier though nobody seems certain where. Like Santa, he gives out gifts and this, it seems, irked the friar and Protestant reformer Martin Luther who disapproved of the paganism. Though Luther was a miserable git who was later celebrated by the Nazis. Heinrich Himmler was a particular fan.

Maybe Himmler would have liked Krampus too though because Krampus has Germanic origins (the south of Germany it is said).  Although perhaps he wouldn't have done. The vast majority of the Nazi party were Christians so perhaps they'd not have been impressed with the cloven hooves, goat horns, and, for some reason, lolling tongue of Krampus who was usually seen (or said to be seen) wearing rusty chains and bells. Sounds absolutely devilish. You may wonder how he liked to kick back? Well, much as Santa enjoys a mince pie and a sherry during his home visits, Krampus likes for you to leave a glass of schnapps out for him.

Dude's even got his name on the bottle! Boozing certainly seems to be (part of) the order of the day during the Krampuslauf (Krampus run) celebrations that take place annually in parts of Germany and Austria. Mostly young people run in and out of other's houses trying to scare people and often injuring themselves and others.

But it's not just in the Germanic lands, these Krampus like figures appear and Deborah Hyde ran us through a list of other contenders for the scary, dodgy, borderline racist (sometimes outright racist) Santa/Satan throne. There's Knecht Ruprecht who operates in the north of Germany. He is, in Deborah's words, a "grumpy bugger" with a limp and it seems that limping is quite often a feature with these accomplices to Beelzebub. The thinking being that the devil is incapable of creating a perfect human so there always has to be some kind of imperfection. 

Knecht Ruprecht is usually accompanied by fairies or men with blackened faces, perhaps inspired by morris dancers who, in turn, are possibly inspired from, and take their name from, Moorish dancers. Though others dispute this theory of 'blacking up' and suggest the blackened faces come from the fact that these Santa like creatures arrive in houses via chimneys and are therefore covered in soot. It is also suggested that in the old days, soot was the only available form of make up for the poor but I'm not sure I'm buying that one. 

Perchta is an Alpine goddess who wears long white robes, looks after dead children, guards spirits, and, for some bizarre reason, spins around a lot. She is young and beautiful and appears in midwinter but, giving the game away, she has a "goose foot" which causes her to limp. So we know what side she's on.

Then there's Belsnickel. Another Germanic figure but one that really took off in North America. Belsnickel gives cakes, candles, and nuts to good children but beats bad children with a flexible rod. His Italian buddy Belfana is usually seen covered in soot and riding around on a broomstick. He also hands out candles but he spares the rod and gives naughty kids coal. Like I say, I got coal this year and I haven't even been that naughty.

Perhaps most dubious of all in our current era is the Dutch contribution to the canon. Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) lives up to his name by being black and being called Pete. People have tried to explain this by saying Zwarte Piet came to be when the Spanish ruled the Netherlands and that the Spanish that time was under Moorish rule but, more likely, it's just good old fashioned racism a la The Black And White Minstel Show but even more disturbing.

Or less. Depending on your memories of The Black And White Minstrel Show. I used to think it was just bloody weird. As, in the nicest way, was a lot of last night's talk. I didn't even mention Egyptology, goblins, Odin, Donald Trump (another judgemental bastard who people try to appease with gifts), the Brothers Grimm, the Habsburg dynasty, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, or Superman but they all cropped up in a fun and friendly talk with the group that just loves giving fun and friendly talks.

Thanks to KC Continental Stores, thanks to host Carmen, organiser Sergei, everyone who chatted to me at the event (I don't know some of your names so won't do a namecheck), and, most of all, to Deborah Hyde herself. Have a merry, and Skeptical, Christmas everybody. I'm off to the first of my Christmas parties in just over an hour and will likely bore my work colleagues with tales of Krampus. Perhaps I'll take my lump of coal.

When Good Neighbours Become Good Fiends:The Beast In Me.

"We have eyes at the front and sharpened teeth. We are predators. We fuck and we hunt and we kill and we shit and we like it. Every single one of us".

Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes) is a reclusive author with writer's block whose son, Cooper (Leonard Gerome), died in a terrible traffic accident. She's separated from her ex-wife Shelley (Natalie Morales) and is working, or trying to work, on a follow up book to the one about her dad, Sick Puppy. The trouble is the book is about the lawyer and jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg and admirable though Ginsburg seems to have been it hardly sounds like a page turner.

So when the wealthy financier Nile Jarvis (Matthew Rhys) moves in next door and suggests that Aggie should write a book about him instead she eventually comes to realise that that would make for a much meatier follow-up - and might help her out in other ways too. Not that Nile Jarvis is a pleasant man. Quite the contrary. He's arrogant, he eats meat like a wild animal, and he orders other's meals for them at restaurants. Oh, and he's been accused of murdering his wife Maddy (Leila George).

But he's not been charged with anything. Maddy's body was never found. The battle between Aggie and Niles makes up the bulk of Netflix's The Beast In Me (created by Gabe Rotter, Howard Gordon credited as 'showrunner', Antonio Campos, Tyne Rafaeli, and Lila Neugebauer sharing directorial duties) and if it has echoes of 2023's Beef (also on Netflix) than that's hardly surprising. There's a lot of similarities though Beef is funnier and snappier and The Beast In Me aims for more gravitas, a more cerebral feel.

Which isn't entirely successful. Not least in the scenes that reminded me of 1990s erotic thrillers like Body Of Evidence or Basic Instinct (though don't waste your time looking for wank fodder here). Both Aggie and Niles, of course, have very nice, very big houses. She's won the Pulitzer Prize and has a little dog called Steve. Ex-wife Shelley is an artist (her paintings are actually pretty good) and she thinks Aggie needs professional help with a grief that is turning to bitterness. 

Not least in the way she deals with Teddy Fenig (Bubba Weiler) who was involved in the car crash that took Cooper's life and, Aggie strongly suspects, was drunk at the time. Somehow he escaped having a breathalyser test but it is her, not him, who has been issued with a restraining order and when he goes missing some fingers start pointing towards Aggie. Even though it's a case of suspected suicide.

Nile Jarvis may remind you of a certain president. Not just his arrogance, his constant, and barely suppressed, aggression, his self-obsession, and his constant grandstanding. He's made his fortune in Manhattan real estate, he has a much younger wife in Nina (Brittany Snow), he had an older brother that died young due to addiction issues, he holds women in contempt, and his father (Jonathan Banks, Mike Ehrmantraut in Breaking Bad) is an egotistical and ultra-competitive shitbag of the highest order.

But if Nile is some kind of cipher for the tangerine tyrant then what is Aggie? It seems to me she's an archetype of the so called liberal/metropolitan elite. Out of touch, sometimes snobby, easily angered, and never questioning her own beliefs even when they are clearly formed out of personal prejudices. She is ridiculously wealthy and privileged in her life but she is seemingly unaware of that fact. You'll have met someone like her.

Despite this, we can't help rooting for her as Nile's involvement in her life seems to bring all manner of jeopardy and danger. It starts innocently enough with Nile hiring a construction company to build a jogging track in some nearby woods, Nile and Nina's noisy alarm keeping Aggie awake at night, or their even noisier, and more threatening looking, dogs doing much the same.

When Aggie gets a visit from drunk FBI agent Brian Abbott (David Lyons) in the middle of the night she starts to realise that this story, the one she's about to write about, goes far deeper and that, it seems, is the main problem with The Beast In Me. Because it's Netflix they have too many episodes. Eight, all nearly an hour long. It starts well and it ends well but there's a lot of flab in the middle.

Some of the supposedly tense scenes are not as tense as they should be (though there's an absolute chill up the back jump scare that arrives in a "the call is coming from inside the house" fashion) and some of the acting (specifically that of Rhys) is hammy as fuck. Seemingly intentionally so.

It all comes good in the end though so it's worth hanging on through the longueurs to get there. There are riots, extreme drunken behaviour, bad actors with very precise agendas, knives, elephants at parties, hyperrealism, weaponised canines, property porn, a glut of nosebag (even some cartel members), bloodied bandages, close ups of human mouths, hacking, and pistol whipping and there are decent supporting performances from the likes of Tim Guinee (as Nile's uncle Rick who sometimes goes under the name Wrecking Ball), Aleyse Shannon (Olivia Benitez, a councillor who is campaigning against one of Nile's real estate projects), Deirdre O'Connell (as Carol, Aggie's agent, friend, and confidante - useful for exposition), and Hettienne Park as Erika, another FBI agent who just happens to be having an affair with Brian Abbott.

There's some decent music (Wings' Let 'Em In, Talking Heads, Pixies, Bowie, and Karl Denver's Wimoweh) and there's an impending sense, nearly all the way through, that something really bad is about to happen. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else nearly all the time. The rich person's world looks to be one full of paranoia and double crossing as much as it is one of expensive meals and luxurious homes. 

The Beast In Me doesn't quite work as a whodunnit and it doesn't quite work as a satire on the excesses of the megarich but despite all that it is, after a fashion, a very enjoyable watch which is best taken as a good old fashioned thriller. I'm not sure that's what the makers intended but it's what they've delivered and that's good enough. But then I liked Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin in Sea of Love.

Sicily Part IV:Taormina, The Lotus Position.

Taormina is probably most famous now for season two of The White Lotus and now, having visited there, I can see why they chose to film there. It's not a bad little town.

I'd taken the very scenic coastal railway down from Messina, just a 45 minute journey, and arriving at the railway station I decided to walk up to the town proper. It was uphill and I had a trolley but how steep could it be?

Very fucking steep turned out to be the answer. On a hot and sticky day it was bloody tough going and by the time I was halfway up the hill I'd regretted it. I couldn't roll my trolley along because much of the path was made up of broken paving stones (and because it's only got two wheels) so I either had to drag it or, at some points, carry it. 

Luckily I like to travel light. As I was halfway up it seemed more of an effort to go back down than it was to carry on to the top and once I finally reached that top it was well worth it. The town was buzzing and the bars were doing a roaring trade. I'd visit some of them later but first I had to get to my AirBnB, check in, and have a now much needed siesta.

Luckily, the room (a kind of granny flat not attached to the main residence) was very comfy and once fully rested I headed back into town (the bnb was a little walk out in a rather pleasant suburb), had a little browse about, and took a very enjoyable Aperol spritz at Caffe Wunderbar on Piazza IX Aprile where they were playing an agreeable mix of Ray Charles, Elvis, James Brown, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker, Billie Holiday, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Wunderbar was once the haunt of Greta Garbo and Reiner Werner Fassbinder but it seems that, back in the day, they all used to hang out in Taormina. DH Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Roald Dahl, Giacomo Balla, Tennessee Williams, Ezra Pound, Bertrand Russell, Luc Besson, John Steinbeck, Rudyard Kipling, Jean Reno, Roberto Benigni, Peggy Guggenheim, Christian Dior, and Truman Capote. That's the sort of company I was in. That and several thousand other tourists also drinking Aperol spritz and buying pairs of socks and fridge magnets festooned with images of fresh Sicilian lemons. Back at the hotel I had a birra Messina and watched The Rest Is Entertainment podcast on my phone.

Before heading out again to the Time Out bar where I watched Man City vs Napoli and Newcastle vs Barcelona on the big screens while texting my nephew Daniel and, later, moved on to the bar's pleasant garden and chatted with a nice couple who lived in Suffolk. Something that only made me even more certain that next year's TADS two dayer should take place in that county.

After a nice lie-in, I headed down to Sike for a brunch of maccheroni al Norma and a Coke before taking a quick wander up to, and around, the Teatro Greco with its panoramic views across to Calabria and, even more impressively, out to Mount Etna (though more on that in a future blog). That earned me a chocolate and lemon gelato and as with every Italian gelato I've ever had it was absolutely delicious.

I had a look around Santa Caterina and the Duomo, had a general walk about to see more of the town and get my step count up, took another siesta, and wandered down to and then around the rather wonderful public gardens taking in all the eccentric follies, the cacti, the views, and the noise of the local ragazzi.

Then it was time, again - so soon, for another Aperol spritz at the curiously named Bar Billy & Billy before a pizza at Ristorante del Corso Umberto and lasties in the Re Di Bastoni pub. As you can probably gather, my time in Taormina was mostly spent leisurely. It's that kind of place. I could get quite used to it.

But the next day I was moving on. So I had brunchington at Licchio's (a continental breakfast with a cappuccino) which made me feel like James Richardson on Channel 4's Football Italia in the nineties (although minus a bright pink copy of a La Gazzetta Dello Sport) and followed that with another chocolate and lemon gelato - a huge one - before heading to the bus station.

There was a fair bit of hanging around, and looking for shade, before a bus took me down to the train station (two lots of door trouble on the way, the driver was not impressed with me) where I had such a long wait to my train to Catania that I not only worked up a few thousand more steps I also even tried to have a sleep on a bench. I'll pick up from Catania soon but, for now,  Taormina was simply lovely. Wish I was there now, Aperol spritz in hand.