Halloween

Halloween is one of the busiest times of year in Stoke and this year is no exception, with an estimated 700,000 people ready to join in the local celebrations!

The party will begin with the ceremonial burning of the (wicker) witch, which won't feature a real witch obviously, as the burning of witches was outlawed in Stoke in the 1980s. Jonathan Wilkes will light the witch, designed this year to look like Sir Jimmy Savile, with a traditional Stoke molotov cocktail before the celebrations get into full swing with ethnic dancing and naked tom-foolery.

Peter Pumpkincrouch

Highlights this year include a parade of movie villains and a float featuring Tony Pulis as "king of the parade".

Police have warned revellers to check that they buy their LSD from reputable outlets following last year's "psychedlic shitstorm", when a bad batch lead to a mass outbreak of diarrhoea in the city.

Paranormal Investigator Used Tax Avoidance Scheme

Paranormal investigator Mick Wessex says he has "made a terrible error of judgement" after it was discovered he has been using a tax avoidance scheme.

In a statement on his Twitter account (@BigMick69), Mr Wessex said he was no longer involved in the Derbyshire-based tax schemes, which are said to be sheltering £168m a year from Stoke City Council.

Local councillor Tim Diesel on Wednesday called Mr Wessex "a fucktarded spunk mop" and his use of the scheme "as wrong as a rapist". But councillors refused to comment on Jonathan Wilkes's tax affairs - saying he's "different" and "a legend".

Mick Wessex

On Twitter, Mr Wessex said: "I met with a financial advisor and he said to me: 'Do you want to pay less tax? It's totally legal'. I said 'Yes'. He then said: 'Do you want to keep that pen?' Again, I said 'Yes'. I now realise I've made a terrible error of judgement."

Stoke City Council says it wants to put an end to tax avoidance schemes. Next year it plans to bring in a new anti-abuse rule, to stop "cunning stunts" designed solely to avoid tax.

Wessex finished by saying: "I'm no longer involved in it and I no longer accept free pens. Apologies to everyone. Big Mick."

Stoke's Yeti Population Declines Due To Global Warming

There is rising concern among boffins that the big recent summertime retreats of snow and ice in the Fegg Hayes area of Stoke are already harming Yeti populations. That was one conclusion of the Paul Brown Yeti Group, a network of Yeti experts and academics who held a conference in Fegg Hayes last week to review the latest data on the population of Yetis in and around the mountain ranges of the Fegg Hayes area in northern Stoke.

The group, part of the International Union for Yeti Conservation, includes biologists, politicians, non-profit conservation organisations and celebrities such as local stars Jonathan Wilkes and Anthea Turner. At its last meeting, in 2005, the group concluded that the Yeti population was in decline.

The meeting was not without controversy. Mick Taylor, a Derbyshire expert who had attended the conferences for many years, told some reporters that he was banned for attending this year because he says that "global warming doesn't exist and, as such, cannot possibly have any affect on the Yeti population". But Paul Brown, the lifetime honorary chairman of the Paul Brown Yeti Group, gave an alternative reason for banning Taylor: "He's an idiot and he smells bad, really stinks up the meetings. And we're sick of his yokel Derby accent."

The Fegg Hayes-based group is pressing world governments for cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions and better efforts to control all forms of animal hunting, both legal and illegal.

There is a strong consensus that snow and ice levels in Stoke this summer will remain well below the average recorded for the last three decades and that there is no indication that a return to historical levels will occur. "The Yeti is fucked if this continues," commented Brown, but participating scientists concluded the conference on an optimistic note, saying they were "optimistic that human people can mitigate the effects of global warming and other threats to the Yeti, and ensure that they remain a part of the Stoke ecosystem in perpetuity."

Robbie Williams: I Believe!

Pop star Robbie Williams is one of the most famous people from Stoke, probably second only to his mentor Jonathan Wilkes. What not everyone knows about Williams is that he is a big believer in UFOs and claims to have seen some himself!

You can read Jon Ronson's piece for The Guardian newspaper about "Our Robbie" and UFOs here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/apr/19/popandrock.spaceexploration

Jonathan Wilkes: I'm Not Retarded!

If there was an award for Stoke's "Man of the Year", Jonathan Wilkes would have been nominated for it on many an occasion, especially the years he was host of 'You've Been Framed', 2003-2004.

But a mere two months ago, roly poly Scottish TV host Eamonn Holmes shocked the TV viewing public on 'This Morning' when he called our Jonathan "retarded" live on air!

"Retarded?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2046718/Eamonn-Holmes-apologises-calling-Jonathan-Wilkes-retarded-This-Morning.html

A mere two months later, JW has responded to the furore by saying that he's not retarded and that he hopes this won't dissuade the producers of 'This Morning' from having him on as a guest again. Here's hoping, J, here's hoping.

The Steve Identity

This isn't paranormal-related, but I wanted to let you all know about a film I'm involved with. We're currently trying to raise finances to make the film. We've got some money from the Cobridge Film Council but need more before we can start production.

The film will be produced by people from Stoke and is called "The Steve Identity". It's a fast paced action thriller, and will be filmed entirely in movie studios near to Prague, with sets made to recreate the streets of Stoke. We think it would be an ideal vehicle for cockney bad boy actor Danny Dyer. And as we all know, if you get Dyer, you will also get Tamer Hassan. Whether you want him or not. Jonathan Wilkes is also said to be eager to be involved.

Here is the synopsis for the film.

"The Steve Identity"

Director: Dave Burgess

Writer: Phil Burton

Producer: Kevin Thompson

Executive producer: Montgomery Deschanel

A man wakes up in a gutter with two black eyes. He does not know who he is or why he is there. However, he finds an on-the-spot fine ticket for drunken behaviour in his pocket.

The man makes his way to a park bench, where he is bothered by two football fans. They try to start a fight with him because he does not know what football team he supports. Using advanced brawling techniques he didn't know he had such as headbutting and glassing, he beats up the men easily, before running into a nearby Police Station.

In the Police Station, he hands the ticket to the desk officer hoping to find more information about himself. The Officer tells him he's lucky and hands him a wallet that has been handed in. In the wallet, he finds various bank cards and benefit cheques, all to different names. He takes the name on the driving license, Steve Stevens, as his own.

While leaving the police station, he sees Kayleigh Povey, trying to help her friend get released from spending a night in the cells. Steve is then approached by more football fans. He offers Kayleigh a tenner to drive him to Burslem to the address on his driving license. She is suspicious, but needs the money and agrees.

Steve and Kayleigh arrive at the block of flats in Burslem. He dials 1471 on the phone and gets through to the JobCentre. The Job Advisor recognises one of the names on the income support cheques, Nigel Yip, who Steve is told wears an eyepatch and has a limp. But then a skinhead jumps though a window and attacks Steve. Steve shouts "D'yer want some yer slag?" at the skinhead before headbutting him. He then smashes a glass on a table before shoving it into the skinhead's face. In the skinhead's pockets, Kayleigh finds an England flag and a mobile phone with a picture of Steve and her saved in it. She starts crying, so Steve slaps her and tells her to get it together. Meanwhile, the skinhead escapes.

As Steve and Kayleigh leave in her car, they are chased by someone driving a white Vauxhall Nova. A car chase through the Smallthorne roundabouts follows but Steve and Kayleigh escape and go to Kayleigh's council flat in Cobridge.

The next day, they contact the JobCentre again and obtain an address for Nigel Yip. Arriving at the address, which is Port Vale's football ground, Steve concludes that he must be a football hooligan.

Going back to Kayleigh's flat, Steve notices Stoke City fans and decides they are no longer safe in Cobridge. Kayleigh takes Steve to (her stepdad) Mick's house. He is supposed to be in prison for wife-beating, but he shows up with a local stripper called Sharon. He lets them stay the night. The next day, Steve hears a powerful car pull up outside. Steve takes Dave's pool cue and goes into the street to pummel the man (Paul Botts) waiting for him. After getting battered, Paul tells Steve they are in the same Port Vale supporter's group, headed by local crime kingpin Dave Johnson. Steve takes Paul's phone and rings Dave, arranging to meet him by Lake Burslem.

Arriving near the lake, Steve notices some undercover skinheads (wearing hats to hide their haircuts). He decides it isn't safe, so he waits for Dave to leave then follows him home. He breaks in then holds Dave at snooker ball-in-a-sock point. He asks Dave about how he got to the ditch, then has a series of flashbacks. Steve was with the supporter's group ahead of the local derby game against Stoke City. Spotting a Stoke fan in a public toilet, Steve approached intending to beat the crap out of him. However, Steve started to feel pangs of guilt and told the group to lay off it and just go to the game. The group turned on him immediately and gave him the beating of a lifetime, leaving him in the ditch. After fully remembering what happened, Steve tells Dave that he no longer wants to be a hooligan or to support Port Vale. He then smashes Dave's face up a bit for good measure.

Dave is then seen before the supporter's group telling them the group is to be closed down. He then starts to tell them about his new England Supporter's Group...

Later, Steve finds Kayleigh working at a KFC in Fegg Hayes. The pair get off with each other.

THE END

Fegg Hayes Yeti: The Tunstall Tail

The Tunstall Tail is an artefact stolen from a Taoist monastery in Tunstall. Supporters contend that the tail is from the Fegg Hayes Yeti. Critics argue that this claim is a load of old rubbish however, and is in fact a fraud.

Dave Munton first heard accounts of the possible existence of a Yeti tail held as a ritual artefact in the monastery in Tunstall during one of his "Abominable Stokeman" treks in 1977. These expeditions were the first to bring photographs of the tail back to Hanley.

On later expeditions in and around Tunstall and Chell, Munton’s associates gathered more information on the Tunstall Tail, and an effort to further examine it was planned. In 1999, Pete Grimes, a member of Munton's expedition that year, reportedly stole pieces of the artefact after the monks who owned it refused to allow its removal for study or play. Grimes claimed to have replaced the stolen bone fragments with badger bones he had taken from Longton Zoo, rewrapping the hand to disguise his theft.

Grimes smuggled the bones from Tunstall into Chell Heath, after which media personality Jonathan Wilkes allegedly smuggled the tail out of Chell Heath in his Widow Twanky pantomime costume. Chat show host Paul O’Grady discovered the story in 2007 while interviewing Wilkes about his forthcoming show 'Stoke's Got Talent'. Wilkes, a close friend of Take That dancer Gary Barlow, confirmed details of the incidents with written materials from the Dave Munton archives.

Jonathan Wilkes takes a break from
his busy work schedule

Staffordshire University Lecturer Phil Majors conducted a physical examination of the pieces that Grimes supplied. His first findings were that the pieces were "definitely bone" and later in 2000 he decided that the Tunstall Tail fragments were "a closer match to some monkey or other than to a human or dog".

In 2001, in conjunction with Majors's research, it was discovered that the Munton expedition consultant, a Derby-based anthropologist by the name of Cletus Conk, had sold samples of the alleged Yeti tail to American shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, who had the bones ground down so he could smoke them in a pipe.

During her highly-publicised 2008 autobiography promotional tour, Fearne Cotton took a side trip to Tunstall to investigate the tail. Cotton was unaware of the possibility that she was looking at a combination of the original material and the badger bones placed there by Grimes. Cotton determined the tail was a hoax.

In 2009, the entire tail was stolen from the Tunstall monastery, and reportedly disappeared into a private collection in Derbyshire. "Don't look at me," Jonathan Wilkes said about the theft.