Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat and we tried to order some precious presents for our lovely loved once. The perfect present appeared and immediately, we owled our order only to discover that there was only a very special sort of delivery: the under-aged witch or wizard may not publicly purchase this marvellous Marx bros. Collection. As fervent fans of the bronx brothers we granted this categorisation due to the perfect use of puns only to discover the official classification as 'universal', i.e. people of any age can watch it.

We were consequently charged 5 whatever and had to be present in person ready to prove our own personality with the help of our ID. This, naturally, was only possible because of the need to type in our full family and first name including any additions and other nicknames named in our passport papers. The threat was that the trifle would be taken back to the sender if any of the above rules was not followed to its minute point. Pretty afraid as we felt following this threat we made sure to stick precisely to the steps offered and finally got it. (MF)

(The World) Nothing new, but seriously scary anyway: sassy spiders sit in creepy crevices only to fiercefully frighten unwary people.
The tiny animals effortlessly manage to frighten Muggles and

The most magical holiday of the year is here at last, and we are very happy to present the new festive and gruesome recipes our famous celebrity cook Harriet Kettle-Stove graciously let us print. Enjoy!
Happy Halloween, dear cooks-to-be!
This year, you might want to try new levels of disgust with sweet treats looking like a nightmare. If you give them to little trick-or-treaters, they might run away screaming, leaving you with all the tasty bits left for your own pleasure.
My first recommendation is brain muffins. You need: 100 g dark chocolate, 250 g flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 spoons cocoa, 1 egg, 250 g plain yoghurt, 125 g sugar, 80 ml oil, 60 g soft salted butter, 250 g icing sugar, 2 spoons milk, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, red food colour. Cut the chocolate into small pieces and melt them over hot water. Mix flour, baking soda and cocoa. Mix egg, yoghurt, sugar and oil and add the dry mixture. Now add the molten chocolate. Pour into muffin forms and bake for 20 minutes. While the muffins cool down, whip the

Brian Cullen did his best to try and get out of this assignment, but there was no way he could have missed this important interview. For the first time since Bram Stoker met him, Count Dracula agreed to meet with a British man to talk about life, death, and Transylvania.

BC: Count Dracula, this is the first time a stranger set foot into your castle since Bram Stoker came by.
CD: Oh yes, that is true, young man. Have a seat.
BC: Actually, I thought there would only be coffins all around, you know, and bats flying around our heads, and candles burning.
CD: Oh no, no, no. I like my comfort, you know, that is why I had electricity installed everywhere. Far easier to switch off lights than blow out candles. After all, I am not a wizard like you.
BC: You aren’t? I thought vampires were necessarily magic people.
CD: No. A vampire becomes a vampire because he is bitten – much like a werewolf becomes a werewolf after being poisoned by the bite.

 rather I wouldn’t die once but again and again and again. Painful, pointless, nonsense.
BC: Were you really Vlad Dracul when you were still human?
CD: I am still human, thank you very much, just incapacitated in my menu. And no, but Vlad was a cousin once removed who so enjoyed being cruel we had him beheaded and cut up into pieces. And I made personally sure he could never come back – I am not stupid, you see. And before you ask, no, I do not specialise in biting young women. Usually there’s too much chocolate in them. I remember once getting drunk in New York just because I had bitten that stick-thin socialite I thought was particularly healthy. It turned out she was on a champagne diet, only took litres of the stuff instead of eating. Have you got any more questions? I begin to feel a bit peckish…

Brian ran as fast as he could to get away. Maybe the famous Count Dracula would have changed his mind after all and gone for a little British fast food…

Dear Auntie Agatha,

my garden is in a mess and I have no clue whatsoever what to do. I know this is more like a question for Leslie Pagana Greenacre, but I still hope you in your cleverness can provide some useful tips for the following problem: Anything I plant is eaten by slugs! It doesn't matter where I put those innocent little baby plants. They get eaten in the greenhouses, they get eaten on the terrace, thy get eaten on the balcony. To tell you the truth they are not eaten by slugs when I put them in my room on the topmost floor, then, you know, mice take over, break into my room and do the job of destroying everything. My garden practically is flowerless. What can I possibly do?

A very desperate employee

Dear very desperate employee,

I can understand your problem well. And let me assure you, I have the perfect solution. Forget about the plants in your garden, don't bother about sowing any more plants and forget about taking care of any baby plants. The thing you should take care of is breeding slugs. Slugs are now terribly en vogue in France. They are used for cosmetic improvements in the female face. It seems that it is believed that the slime that is excreted by them improves the structure of the facial skin. As a matter of fact you may be able to make good money with the selling of the one or the other hundred specimen. You might also want to try it yourself, but make sure you haven't fed them before.

Agony Auntie Agatha

(The world) All of the world this dark period at the end of October beginning of November is used to think of the dead and in turn they think of the living. Yeah, it's Halloween. All Souls and All Saints Day again and you might be paid a visit by your loved ones even though they have been dead for quite a long time.
There are different ways of dealing with these visits. Many people believe that they will be able to bribe them into being kind and generous and not scaring the wits out of them. This is tried with food. Fruits and nuts seem to be very common in this respect. Others don't assume that these zombies are much into eating and food, especially healthy one and offer presents that take all sorts of different shapes, but usually consist of tiny replica of luxury goods.
In former times the zombies were followed by the people or in the best of cases recognized. As a consequence their graves were opened and a stone was put into their mouths or on their chests so that they would not be able to drop in for tea or

whatever again. This was done because they were regarded as some sort of creature who ate the living – no similarity to the Death Eaters intended.
Still others believe that there was no way preventing the zombies to come to your place on this one special night and therefore they thought it best to disguise themselves as witches, wizards, zombies or evil spirits and ghosts. However, we're not quite sure how witches and wizards come into this! The general idea was that zombies would not do any harm to any of these creatures. Plus they would not be able to recognize their formerly loved ones and turn their lives into hell.
A similar idea is to produce ghosts made out of sugar-beets or pumpkins. You just have to carve a scary face into the skin of the vegetable or berry, put in a light and scare the guts out of the ghosts – that is should they still have their guts. If not, you just have to hope that it will work out any way.
So whatever your plans are for the night, make the best of it and enjoy a wonderful Halloween! (MF&BC)