The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

I have a strange relationship with Halloween. I actively participate in all the other "holidays" as Americans would call them but I've always found the notion of Halloween a bit odd. All Hallows Eve was first used as a phrase around 1556 and there's debate about where it came from. All Hallows Eve was certainly a Christian religious observance and still is in many places with services and the lighting of candles on the graves of the dead. Most people think Halloween traditions originated from Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic Samhain, which probably had pagan roots. There is debate about whether modern Halloween is a combination of the two or was a Christian event which later had some old pagan ideas attached to it. Samhain marked the end of the summer and start of the winter with people believing that this was a liminal time when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld, where 'spirits' or 'fairies' could more easily c...

We all know that there are major issues with the way society treats women. But there is also a problem with the way society treats men. It's all part of the same issue really, where gender roles are still defined like they were hundreds of years ago. I'm not saying that being a man is harder than being a woman, far from it, but I thought I'd talk about my negative experiences with growing up male. I certainly look masculine. I'm big and hairy and for many that makes me intimidating. I watch as people greet someone in front of me and then completely ignore me, avoiding eye contact let alone conversation. Sometimes people cross over the street from me. I completely understand why people have that attitude. Men that look like me commit all sorts of horrible crimes. But it's still an unpleasant feeling to have people totally avoid you because of how you look. The 'me too' movement is something I really support but it adds an unnerving element to approaching ...

I'm excited because this weekend sees Doctor Who return to TV. I am a huge fan. I've often felt that being a Whovian is not a cool thing to be and many others look down at fandom. But I think most people have a obsession over something. Why is loving and being knowledgeable about Doctor Who any different from loving and being knowledgeable about a football team? For me it began on 26th March 2006 when Billie Piper's character Rose Tyler met the Doctor, then Christopher Eccleston. I had seen a few repeats of old episodes when I was much younger and went to a Doctor Who museum with a load of the costumes on a family holiday to Wales but this was my first proper encounter with the show. And I loved it. Since then I've watched every episode from the 1963 debut through to the modern day. I've read countless Doctor Who novels and magazines and own a range of Who stuff from T-shirts to pencil cases. I've visited the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff and also been ...