festival

Imagine going to Paris to watch television! For some, such a impious prospect will make perfect sense over the coming week.

Nowadays, most of us know that TV drama is the new cinema; actors love it because they can get their thespian teeth into meatier roles, writers have a broader and more diverse canvas to write great TV novels, and audiences can go episode by episode or binge watch as their fancy takes them. Top-notch directors from Martin Scorsese, to David Fincher, to Danny Boyle are prime movers in the revived game.

Scandinavians are having a field day; Israelis are innovating. Cable and Internet technology has played its role: HBO was the original champion of this renewal, now joined by Netflix, Orange, Microsoft and hosts of others. Everybody is winning and the quality just gets better by the year.

So it's perfectly normal that Paris, the capital of world cinema, from 22nd - 30th April should be presenting the 5th edition of Series Mania at the Forum des Images in the centre of the city. It is a unique event where we get to see previews of first and second episodes of top drawer TV series from around the world as well as meet their creators, the famous show runners of legend.

With Halloween coming up this week, we've brought together some of the best ideas around to make the spooky holiday a little different this year. From making your own costume, to spending the night in dungeons, to carving a David Cameron pumpkin(?!), have a look at the brilliant ideas from around the web below.

1) Watch a Horror Movie

One of easiest ways to get in the mood is to scare yourself with a horror film. Whether you prefer monsters, the paranormal, zombies, vampires or plain old evil humans, there will be something to scare you silly.

Jarmok is a kind of festival mixed with amusement park attractions. Unlike Oktoberfest or other famous festivals, jarmok does not focus exclusively on beer promotion. In fact, nowadays jarmok does not have any special purpose, but there are strong traditions rooted in the past.

The people would gather from time to time to exchange, and later unfortunately trade, their goods and enjoy themselves whilst doing it. Such market meetings took part in the early Autumn, after the end of the harvest season when the farmers looked to sell their crops and buy what they would need for the winter. The farmers and craftsmen were gradually replaced by supermarket suppliers and businessmen, but the idea of jarmok, or city market, remained.

Jarmoks take place over the whole year in different cities and towns, often connected by some kind of holiday- for example the city's anniversary or a Christian holiday. The jarmok in Levice (where I went) used to take place on St Martins day (11 November), but was brought forward to the middle of October for the better weather. My grandparents remember the traditional jarmoks, when the people used to sell real animals. Now, the poor horses serve as an attraction for the kids who consider them unicorns with broken horns.

Glastonbury music festival ended last night after 3 days of live music, huge crowds and (unusually) pretty good weather.

British folk band Mumford and Sons closed this year's festival, headlining the main stage last night. In their typically energetic style they got the crowd dancing throughout their set, before ending with a unique rendition of the classic Beatles song ‘With a Little Help from my Friends'. Fittingly, they got a number of other performers to join them on stage for the final song, including Vampire Weekend, The Vaccines and The Staves- you can watch it below.

This weekend saw an area in East London usually used for local football games taken over by some of the biggest names in music as part of Hackney Weekend. 100,000 lucky fans got free tickets to the two-day music festival which was part of the London 2012 Festival and organised by BBC Radio 1. They were treated to performances from Jay-Z, Rihanna and Dizzee Rascal among many others.

A Festival for Locals 

Hackney was chosen as the location after it became clear that many local people felt left out of the Olympics despite it being so close. BBC Radio 1 controller and head of the festival, Ben Cooper, explained:

"Here at Radio 1 and 1Xtra we wanted to make sure that we marked this in a way that would give young people from London and beyond, who might not necessarily be engaged with the Games, a chance to celebrate as part of Festival 2012."

Indeed, the opening act on the main stage on Saturday had a very local feel to it. Leona Lewis who grew up in nearby Islington kicked things off along side the Hackney Empire Community Choir and local rapper Wretch 32: