Bizarre

The Female Messiah of Suburbia

The Panacea Society, Albany Road, Bedford On an ordinary English suburban street, in an ordinary English town, there lies an...

Dr Sex and The Electric Love Bed

James Brown, medical reformer, with James Graham just visible in a white suit in the background by John Kay 1786, National Portrait...

Merlin and the Silver Swan

The Silver Swan, 1774, created by John Joseph Merlin and James Cox. The eighteenth century was a time of magic and mystery despite – or...

The Beast of Gevaudan: the Napoleon Bonaparte of Wolves*

The Beast of Gévaudan Max Von Sydow in The Wolfman, 2010, Copyright Universal Pictures I first came across the legend of the Beast of...

Chevalier d’Éon: Soldier, Spy and Transvestite

In June 2012 the National Gallery revealed its new acquisition. Discovered by the London dealer, Philip Mould at a provincial sale in a...

Hikes, Hostels and the Old Hag…

Just want to get this straight here, I’m NOT the hag mentioned in the title (I’ve got a few more years before that happens yet!) ;0)...

Wicked Jimmy Lowther: The Toadstool Earl

Vincent Price, from Tales of Terror (Dir.Roger Corman 1962) When I first found out about Wicked Jimmy, otherwise known as Sir James...

The strange case of Sir Francis Bacon and the frozen chicken

One of the strangest ghost stories that I have ever come across involves Sir Francis Bacon, empirical scientist and a frozen chicken. Sir...

Sawney Bean: Cannibal, Progaganda or Bogeyman?

By Levi L. Hill [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, image adapted by Lenora “A man and his wife behind him on the same horse, coming...

The curse of the red shoes: dancing manias of the middle ages

Dance of Death Image by Pieter Breugel the elder Amidst our people here it comeThe madness of the dance.In every town there now are...