Bram stoker

Thursday

Edmund West

Fear and gloaming at Whitby Goth Weekend

Every April and every Halloween weekend, Whitby in Yorkshire is chock-full of goths. As I seem to be The Spectator’s adopted goth, I was asked if I might like to write about Whitby Goth Weekend (WGW). Goth is a fashion that emphasises darkness and death: Edgar Allan Poe and Alice Cooper are the best examples. But the only thing to fear from WGW is the horrific train journey. It took six hours to go from King’s Cross to Whitby. Whoever called the TransPennine Express an express needs to explain themselves. When I finally got to Whitby, I was met by thousands of people in costumes. Even the dogs were taking

Thursday

Tessa Dunlop

It all started with Dracula

The title of the journalist Paul Kenyon’s second book on crazy leadership, Children of the Night, leaves the reader in no doubt of its approach. This is a narrative that feeds off the macabre legacy of Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, the country’s most infamous anti-hero, while examining Romania’s recent collection of demented dictators and cult heroes. Imagine the history of Britain cast exclusively through the flamboyant prism of Henry VIII, Princess Diana, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson and you’re nearly there, only in the case of 20th-century Romania the pickings are far richer. The story opens with Vlad, and his dramatic appearance as a medieval Wallachian prince (Romania didn’t exist