Pants in the Park - Roundhay Park Leeds

A 5km charity fun run in aid of Prostate Action will be held at Roundhay Park on Sunday June 12th. Fancy Dress is encouraged and wearing your pants outside your trousers is doubly encouraged at this event. Tickets cost £ and under twelves go free. All entrants will recieve a medal for their endevours.

You can register for Pants in the Park from 10pm on the day, the race begins at 11am and prizes will be awarded for the best decorated pants on show at 12.00.

To sign up visit http://www.prostateaction.org.uk/pantsinthepark

Dave Gorman Waterstones Leeds Book Promotion

The witty beardy chappy of Googlewhack fame Dave Gorman will be in Leeds on Wednesday June 16th reading from his new book Dave Gorman Vs the Rest of the World which is due to be published on June 2nd.

Tickets cost a meagre £3.00 and can be picked up from the counter at Waterstone's. The ticket price is also redeemable if you happen to want to pick up a copy of the book.

Dave Gorman is a familiar face on TV these days, after being catapulted into the public eye in 2003 with his sellout Googlewhack Adventures tour. If you haven't read the book or seen the DVD about Dave's utter failure to write a book and the Google-esque escapades that this dragged him into, then it's about time you did. Tears of laughter are coming your way and watch out for the anecdote about the tattoo.

Craft, Sewing and Dress Making Classes Leeds

Fabric-ation are running the following craft, fashion, dress making and sewing classes in Leeds. Call 0113 243 9140 to book a course.

Vintage Hair and Makeup 1.00pm-5.pm

Join burlesque bombshell Anna Fur Laxis for a vintage hair and makeup session.

The workshop content will be tailored to the ladies who are attending and what they would like to go over, but in the main it will cover how she does her hair and makeup - using hot rollers, hot sticks and curling tongs, putting hair up into several vintage inspired hairstyles including victory rolls, using snoods/scarves/fascinators etc, vintage-inspired makeup, false eyelash application, and tricks and twists for make-up for parties & photo shoots.

Sat Feb 6th 2 places left


Sun Feb 7th 1 place left

Valentines Potions and Candles

February 13th 10.30-4.30pm

Following the success of our Christmas Candles class we have now decided to run a special one for the valentines season. We will be making candles, bath bombs, massage bars and lip balms using very simple recipes you can replicate at home. With essential oils and paraben and sls free ingredients in sensual and aphrodisiac fragrances. Make as many or as few items as you can fit into the day

Please note all our classes need to be prebooked. £35 + materials. Refreshments, but not lunch, included.

Learn to make a skirt using your own machine

Have a sewing machine, but haven't got any further than a cushion cover? Then come along to our class where you will learn how to make a basic skirt. You will learn how to cut a pattern, and sew the skirt together, put in a zip and work a button hole.

Cost £40 + materials, please bring your own and a pattern. Refreshments, but not lunch, included. You should have already attended our 'How to use your Machine' class or have the basic knowledge of how to thread up and use a straight and zigzag stitch.

Feb 20th fully booked


Feb 21st 2 places left

Make do and Mend, Recycle

Feb 27th 10-30-4.30pm

Here at Fabrication we are taking on the credit crunch with the spirit of the Blitz. Don't buy new, learn to alter, repair, customise and revamp your wardrobe.

You will learn to replace buttons, add new collars and cuffs, add trimmings, as appropriate to your garments and requirements. and turn unused garments into new objects. Either use bits and pieces you have found or root through our trim and button box.

This class will not only help you revamp your wardrobe but turn you into a canny bargain shopper. How often have you not bought the £5 sale trousers cos they were too long, or a fab markdown silk frock cos the beads were coming off or the zip was dodgy. After this that won't happen again.

Cost £35+ materials, includes refreshments but not lunch

Please note all these workshops take place in an upstairs room with no lift facility. All classes must be prebooked and paid for prior to the day. Places are ltd to 6 for clothes making classes so we can give you more attention.

If there is a class you want to us to run then let us know and if enough folks also want it then we will try and organise it. If you really want to attend one of our classes but work weekends etc then we may be able to run in an evening if enough people want to

Our Club Nights

Crochet Club 1st Thursday every month 6.30-9.pm

There seems to be lots of knitting clubs around these days but what about those of us who want to crochet. Well we have the answer. Come along to Crochet Club and bring your projects, wool, cake, gossip and tea. If you Knit, macramé, lace make etc you are also welcome.

Cost £6 inc refreshments and cake. You will need to prebook this event so we have an idea of numbers

Costume Clinic

Costume Clinic is for those making their own burlesque, theatre or historical costumes, of any description, who may need a hand to sort out problems they are experiencing with floppy bows, quick release systems etc or just an extra pair of hands and eyes to help them.

It will run the 2nd thursday of every month

Crafty Club 3rd thursday every month 6.30-9.pm

Because we all have projects we want to start/finish/ stop being bored of but get distracted by the telly/kids/hubby once a month we can get together, get inspired and finally finish them all with the addition of cake and gossip.

This is not a teaching workshop for a specific craft but a fun creative night just getting on with stuff 3rd thursday every month. Cost £6 inc refreshments and cake

You will need to prebook this event so we have an idea of numbers

Honey Monster is coming to Leeds

Hide the Sugar Puffs! Honey Monster is coming to town! The huge furry yellow fella is visiting the White Rose and St Johns in Leeds where fans will be able to meet the big guy himself and try his new cereal, Honey Waffles.

Honey Monster will be at White Rose with his Honey Waffle Factory between 9 am and 7 pm on the 30th of May and 11am and 5pm on the 31st of May, and he will be at St Johns on the 6th of June between 8am and 6pm and 7th of June between 11am and 5pm where kids and fans will be able to meet everyone’s favourite TV monster. They will even be able to have professionally taken photos with him.

You can find Honey Monster and his helpers by looking for the giant Honey Waffle Factory which will be churning out samples of the new cereal all day, and while the factory is busy there will be fun games running and even the chance to win breakfast with the Honey Monster at your house!

Honey Monster's team of helpers will be on hand to make sure everyone gets their free box of Honey Waffles, a multigrain cereal glazed with just the right amount of sugar and honey to add a tasty start to your day, so for more information and a full schedule of Honey Monster appearances go to

http://www.honeymonster.co.uk.

Sham 69 playing in Leeds

Veteran punk legends, Sham 69 will be playing at Carpe Diem in Leeds on the 1st of March 2009. Tickets cost £6.00 and are available from the bar.

I love the Sham and I can't wait for this one! I wonder if they'd be interested in my Borstall Breakout parody? It starts off in Chester Zoo, and has UN zoo keepers involved in a high speed chase all the way to Betty's Tea Rooms, with the refrain: Can I get a bagel takeout? Its nearly as good as my parody 'God feed the Queen - the fascist baked bean'.

Unfortunately, I have it on good good authority that none of the original band members are in the lineup - shucks!

Anyway get your tickets for Sham 69, and I'll see you in the pit. Let's hope for some classics, like 'Angels with Dirty Face', 'Hurry up Harry', 'Hersham Boys', 'If the Kids are United' e.t.c. e.t.c. It would even be nice to get the sombre and ever so sinister 'Dead Nazi March'. Bring it on (Watch Sham 69 live at the Reading festival in 1978 below)

Leeds 22nd International Film Festival 2008Guide

The full guide to Leeds' 22nd Internation Film Festival in 2008 for what is showing and where will be available from 4pm tomorrow at any of the following locations:

The Carriageworks Box Office, Town Hall, Art Gallery, Tourist Information Centre at the train station, and the Film Festival Centre in The Light, and from 5pm at the Hyde Park Picture House

Tickets for individual films will also go on sale tomorrow. Full passes are already available.

For more information, see the Leeds Film website: http://www.leedsfilm.com/

Ladyboys of Bangkok - Millenium Square Leeds

The Ladyboys of Bangkok will be performing at Millenium Square in Leeds from Saturday 11th October to Saturday 25th October at The Sabai Pavilion.

Tickets for the show cost £22.00/ £19.00 - concessions £19.00 and £17.00 (£10 students). To book tickets phone 0871 882 9558

Numbers will include tributes to the Spice Girls, Grease and Moulin Rouge

Shakespeare at Kirkstall Abbey cancelled

It is very dissapointing this year that the British Shakespeare Company performances have been cancelled at Kirkstall Abbey due to a lack of funding.

This event is the jewel in the crown of the Leeds events calendar, and the only one that I attend religiously every year, and have done right back since 1998. This year we were all looking forward to A Midsummer Night's Dream, a play for which the company have historically offered up magical performances. The first time I attended this play at the Abbey in 1998 I was enchanted and then again in 2005 and 2006.

The arrival of the British Shakespeare Company to Leeds each year represents the backbone of the Leeds events calendar and puts bigger more populist events such as Opera in the Park and Classical fantasia absolutely in the shade - in my opinion at least.

Don't even get me started on about what Leeds City Council is offering up as alternative entertainment to the Shakespeare festival - eh hem - balloon modelling and face painting. Some real thought went into that one. In fact about as much thought as went into trying to restore the Abbey and make it visitor friendly - you don't put a new roof on a twelfth century abbey, especially when part of the attraction and history underpinning its interest rests in the dissolution of the monasteries and it having its roof pulled off. Its an act of vandalism that effectively erases an important part of our history, and its the same philistine approach to the Abbey that is behind this failure to support the British Shakespeare Company through hard times.

I can't help feeling that Leeds is suffering from something of a cultural crisis at the moment, while many other large cities in the UK are enjoying a cultural renaissance - Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham to name but a few, everything in Leeds seems to be experiencing something of a dull ebb - from the diet of lacklustre theatre offered up by the playhouse, the lack of classical venues, live music and bands that are slim pickings except in really small and well-trodden venues such as Joseph's Well or the Pack Horse and everything else besides. Add to this the demise of Caberet Heaven in 2007 and it all starts to look rather grim.

Ok I admit Opera in the Park is a great evening, and the Leeds Mela is always a great experience, but we seem to be lacking something in high culture and the more avante garde culture that many other cities enjoy in abundance. I'm starting to think that Leeds City Council really needs a kick up the arse, and probably the whole of Leeds needs a kick up the arse before we get any sort of re-awakening - we are becoming a city of shopping and lacklustre wine bars, which is really the equivalent of a small town that has little to offer but musty pubs and charity shops.

Anyway, please show your support for the British Shakespeare Company and Robert J. Williamson here: http://www.britishshakespearecompany.com/diary/?p=241 - they have done us proud for the past twelve years and it would be a terrible shame if they were unable to come back. Bite your thumb at Leeds City Council and let them know just what barren practicers they are.

Here's some of my favorite memories from the performances over the past twleve years -

• 2006 - Wayne Sleep trying to have a quiet drink in the Vesper Gate pub while being pestered by a semi-sober girl with a voice that sounded like a slab of concrete being dropped on a squeeky toy.



• Sliding off my chair after mis-judging how much wine I could down by the end of the first interval during Romeo and Juliet in 2006



• Taking a Mongolian bloodline princess to see The Taming of the Shrew in 2005



• Robert J. Wiliamson playing Hamlet with a semi-healed broken leg in 2003 - how did he do it and how ironic?

And much much more.

I've always hoped that events like this might be Leeds' passport to extend its repetoire of Reniassance drama beyond Shakespeare and to give us a better taste of the variety of the Renaissance theatre, but no such luck. The playhouse gave us a real treat with the Duchess of Malfi in 2006, as well as (okay its Shakespeare but not performed as much as it deserves) a great adaptation of Cymbeline in October 2006 - but aside from this its been really slim pickings, and now we're going backwards rather than forwards. ho hum, and why does the rain it raineth every day?

Lastly, and before I forget to mention it - just to add a kick in the nuts to a fart in the face - Comedy in the Park 2008 has been cancelled as well.

Faversham on Thursday 28th February

Gig at the Faversham on Thursday

the 28th of February

Gig at the Faversham on Thursday the 28th of February with the best bands in Leeds; The Bribes, The Vangos and Vibetown. Genre is funk, soul and indie plus DJ Tom Connally. Its gonna be a great night. Tickets £4 for advance bookings or £5 at the door. For tickets contact shan at 07833391865 or email shandanakhan@gmail.com.

Faversham address:

1-5, Springfield Mount,

Leeds LS2 9NG