According to today's Irish Times from 2009 travellers between the UK and Ireland will have to have a passport.

This is yet more evidence of the UK government's paranoid attitude to its borders. In Europe you can travel freely most of the time between the Schengen countries that are within the EU (soon to be extended to most of the new EU entrants) without being bothered by passports and customs checks. Its only the UK that insists on it.

A big step backward in my opinion. Its bad enough with all the palaver of security when you leave the UK without having to wait in line when you get back.

Staff at the theatrical costumier Morris Angel have discoverd the cloak worn by Christopher Lee in the classic 1958 Hammer Horror while doing a stocktake prior to Halloween. Aside from the Count's cloak which Angels think is worth £24,000, the long overcoat Peter Cushing wore as Van Helsing was found at the same time.

Call me a cynic but isn't it a coincidence that the restored print of the film is due to be released next week!

Christopher Lee had played the Frankenstein monster the year before in Hammer's first colour horror remake The Curse of Frankenstein , but apparently was the second choice for the role as the future Carry On star Bernard Bresslaw had wanted too much money for the role.

And in the New Year watch out for a new BBC production of Dracula with Marc Warren as the Count and David Suchet as Van Helsing, hope its not as crap as their version of The Hound of the Baskervilles was.