EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN

As, depending on when you’re reading this, Halloween is creeping up, it would be remiss to not post up a spooky Spotify playlist. Now this blog must never be seen to be remiss, so a Halloween playlist has been created.

triskaidekaphobia

Rather than go on and on about the songs – an unlucky 13 in total, let's name it Triskaidekaphobia and pretend it's a real LP – those interested can have a listen to the thing here.

Below, you can also hit play on one song that didn’t make the list. It’s No More Sorry, a track from the 1988 LP Isn’t Anything by My Bloody Valentine (a band, appropriately, named after a 1981 Canadian horror film).

MBV are absent from Spotify’s catalogue, but No More Sorry – a nightmare disguised as a pop song – deserves a special mention.

GHOST WRITING

Halloween looms large in the first half of Neverland in Shadow, with the action commencing just a couple of weeks prior to 31st October: the best day of the year. Beginning the story at this juncture was entirely deliberate; the colourful Halloween season is jam-packed with traditions and events that are loads of fun to write about. Hopefully they’re equally good fun to read about.

GHOST BAKING

Rounding off this post, here’s a really quick and easy Halloween recipe...

...Treacle scones for Halloween

Darkly dreaming and delicious, these are a traditionally Scottish affair at Halloween. But wherever you are in the world you’ll be glad you took the time to bake these vegan-friendly treacle treats. Great with a cup of tea.

You’ll need

200g of self-raising flour

25g of caster sugar

50g of soy or vegetable spread – for example, Vitalite

1 teaspoon of mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of baking powder

60g black treacle

100ml of soya milk, or other non-dairy milk

A regular tin of Lyle's black treacle alongside a special 'Trick or Treacle' edition made just for Halloween.

Method

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/180C (350F in old money).

Line a tray with a non-stick baking sheet (alternatively flour the tray’s surface if, like me, you hover, wide-eyed, over the baking parchment rolls in the supermarket yet never commit).

Rub the fat into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Next, stir all of the dry ingredients into the mixture.

Then add the treacle followed by the milk. Give the mix a good stir until an attractive treacle-coloured dough leaves a clean bowl – but be careful not to overwork the dough as this will toughen your resultant scones.

Finally, on a floured surface, roll out your mixture until it’s around 3cm thick, then cut into circles. No cookie cutter? Just use a glass tumbler. No glass tumbler? Try an empty tin can. No tin can? Right. OK. Use a knife and cut into squares or triangles. No knife? At this point that’s probably a good thing.

Finally (again) bake for around 12-14 minutes.

"OUT OF THE STRONG... "

The Lyle’s logo, featuring the curious lion and bees, together with the Biblical motto ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’, dates from 1883. It is officially recognised as the world’s oldest branding and packaging device. You can read about the company’s story on its website