Hallow'een on campus

In one of the better episodes of 'Buffy', she's expecting a busy night and wondering why it's quiet. Well, you would, right? Spike replies that real monsters tend to regard Hallow'een as a night off; too many wannabes on the streets.

That's a bit like me.

Ever since that Hallow'een when I lived in a reconditioned paint factory on the Isle of Dogs - and a vampire in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel complimented me on my outfit - I've avoided the streets in late October. (I wasn't wearing an outfit.) I understand my personal sartorial values of black coats and leather etc don't sync well with the everyday,

Which creates even more reason to stay at home tonight. I've just made a trip to CostGouger, and had to wait in line behind two wizards and a goblin. I was out of there like a flash and raced back to Lakeside.

I wasn't home and dry yet. Dodging a pair of vampires outside the Arts Centre (which, incidentally, is hosting 80s band 10CC tonight; that's surely scarier than any ghost or ghoul) I made it onto the shortcut towards WBS, forgetting that the route passes the Multifaith Centre (THE HORROR! THE HORROR!) which I find scarier than any undead creature.

I speed up. But I'm not home and dry; there's a mob of monsters coming up the back passage next to Ramphal (ooo-eeer, Missus.) Somehow I've stepped into a Michael Jackson video from the 1980s. (The scariest part is most of these people weren't even born when 'Thriller' came out.) Manage to survive the experience with only minor scars, which is more than you can say for Jacko himself.

Taking a swift detour into the WBS Teaching Centre grounds, I make it onto the Lakeside path, and I'm nearly home.

The only plus point is that I pass a naughty teenage nurse on the Lakeside footbridge, skirt better described as a belt and let's not go to the boob area lest I get arrested. Does your mother know you're out like that, young lady?!! Even if you do have fangs?!