Halloween - Your Last Minute Party Gear

From time to time this Blog will offer the services of The Cloud 109 art department as a thank you to all you people who share the occasional cybernetic tea and cakes with us.

It can't have escaped your notice that Halloween is now bearing down on us with the unstoppable momentum of the devil's hearse. Come Saturday night and all you guys will doubtless be off to a never ending succession of ghoulish get togethers with a myriad of strangely garbed folk looking like extras from a George Romero, David Cronenberg schlock/ horror fest. Bars and discos will be pulsating to the haunting strains of "Jack the Ripper, "Night of the Vampires" and "The Monster Mash" as werewolves, zombies and vampires bop the night away with their ghoulfiends fangs stuck firmly in their necks or wherever else ghoulfiends sink their fangs.

Now things do occasionally go wrong with these dos, i.e. you leave your costume making to the last moment and somehow you manage to mislay the fangs, the dripping gelatinous goo that you've carefully managed to drip over your face just won't set properly, or your cat is so out of sorts with the whole ocassion that he's just thrown up over your Dracula cape.

... Or you're just so hung over from Friday night that you really can't be bothered to struggle with the finer points of zombie couteur .. in which case never fear!

We have managed to persuade four of the stars of the Cloud 109 cyber lounge to pose for our resident artist so that we can offer you these four handy dandy face masks. So with the aid of Tom, Sheryl, Oliva and Mr Jimmy Riddle we can help you guys and ghouls out.

Now all you need to do is open up the chosen mask image in your computer (it should open up as A4 which is probably the size your printer works to). Print your mask on card stock or heavy paper, cut out the mask shape and adjust for the eye holes. Punch a small hole at each side and then attach ribbon ties or elastic string and then fasten behind your head so you can see.

For a tres chic alternative you can simply dispense altogether with the strings and just attach one side of the mask to a short dowel or pencil, which means that you can quaff liberal quantities of booze without soaking your mask at the same time and even if your speech is getting pretty slurred at least it won't be muffled.

Lastly a quick mention of Oliva Spleen who when he's not posing for our dribbling draughtsman is one of the most out there performers on the planet and this Tuesday is fronting his band Pink Narcissus at The Hobgoblin pub (9.00pm onstage) in Brighton. This guy is a legend and if you're in Brighton on Tuesday night go and check him and his band out.