This weekends recommend is the Wexford Halloween Festival running till Sunday. From puppet shows and parades to fireworks displays and Wexford races, there's something for everyone.

As Halloween arrives and the unreal becomes reality, its not too late to arm yourself against potential spooks.

As seen on the TV show Most Haunted, Abate Electronics in the USA offer you the P1A Ghost Detector, an electronic device that pinpoints the paranormal up to fifty paces. For those with 169 dollars burning a hole in their pocket its the essential protection you need this holiday of the dead.

The company, which also sell UFO detectors and a smogasbord of similarily essential gadgetry for modern living, promises the very best in Tri-axis ghost detection from their devices, and also sell a mobile keychain version for the paranoid punter on the move. The detector glows red in the presence of a ghost, and blue otherwise.

The Ghost Detector Machine is available in stores with big windows now.

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Halloween has become a time of celebration but for most dogs it’s a time of trepidation. In the land of hooch, the spontaneous sound of exploding fireworks must sound like the world coming asunder.

For many dogs, Halloween represents the rough equivalent of being airlifted into Basra. So, why make things worse ?

Well, if you’re of a sadistic bent you could visit the pet dog costumes website where you can choose from a number of garish outfits ranging from plain ridiculous to downright ridiculous.
There’s the hot dog pet costume, the nun dog costume, the bride or groom dog costume and finally, if you want to get that preppy prehistoric pet look - the Jurassic Bark!

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Unless you’ve got St Peter on speed dial or you’ve been brain washed by a dangerous cult - mortality is a bummer. Every year is getting shorter, and time slips away...

Once you hit 30, life slips by all too easily - one day you’re on your local fairway, the next you’re on the heavenly stairway but not for some.

Kevin Kelly an internet visionary who has a technology cv bigger than the phone book is making the most of his dwindling years. In typically scientific fashion, Kevin has roughly calculated how many days he has left to live and now tracks his countdown to death on his computers desktop.

Kevin is clearly a glass-half-full type of guy because constant reminders of your imminent demise aren’t everyones cup of tea. Countdowns aren’t really any fun unless Carol Vorderman is involved.

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This weekends two recommends ahead of the witching season. The Wexford Halloween Festival runs from Friday with spooktacular parades, puppets and fireworks display. In Cork, you can spook yourself silly at the Irish Ghost Family Festival in Cork

Both celebrate Ireland’s spooky heritage or you could visit the online Irish paranormal database to find out more about some stroppy spirits .

Did you know a vanishing island was spotted of the coast of Ballycotton in 1878?

In Dublin, the phantom Buck Jones has been seen riding headless on the back of a white horse.

In Limerick, a company of fairies on horseback patrol Carrigogunnell Castle

The Kerry Carabuncle is a mythical lake dwelling snake like beast covered in jewels and gold

Finally, on Lough Derg legend tells of an abomination with cloven hooves which protects a hidden trove of treasure - folklore doesn’t confirm if it’s Daniel O’Donnell’s family pet.

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In this world where sponsorship and branding are ever present, brought to you by is a phrase we’re all used to hearing.

So, what a wholesome surprise to find a product that is not to brought to you by a multi-national soft drinks snack food lifestyle conglomerate but instead, by ephesians chapter 6 verse 10 18. Yes, biblical inspiration has led to the armor of God Pyjamas.

An American mother came up with the idea when, quote "God gave her the idea to make a pair of pajamas that symbolized the Armor of God so that her children could feel safe and secure at night" unquote.

The Armor Of God PJ’s aren’t yet available in Ireland so there could be an opportunity for the entrepreneurial zealot who wants some prayer payback. Anyone for a Sermon on the Mount slipper set?

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In these stressful modern times, meeting Mr or Miss right is harder than ever. You could try online dating or a carefully planned video, but be careful....

Here's how one hapless chap came a cropper and missed cupids arrow by a country mile.

Meet 26 year old Steven Miller, a comic bookstore assistant looking for love. In his online video Steven lets us know he is not fussy; blondes, redheads, brunettes, all he wants is someone with whom he can have fun with.

If Steven had stopped his presentation there, love may soon have blossomed. Sadly however, he descends into an angry rant against the pitfalls of the dating world, that will have any potential suitors scrambling for the exit.

If dating is a battlefield, it seems poor Steven is Sergent Bilko

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This Weekends Recommend is the Cork Film Festival happening in Cork, obviously, and offering an eclectic mix of big budget pictures, world cinema, independent films and documentaries from all over the globe.

You won’t find it on their programme, but you will find it online; it’s a 30 second satirical version of that famous antarctic escapade March of the Penguins - this time, re-enacted by bunnies.

Lets hope we will soon see a sequel; how about Watership Down re-enacted by penguins?

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God certainly blessed Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlin Upton with the beauty stick, but when it came to brains, he broke the mould.

As a result, Caitlin’s 15 seconds of Youtube fame will go down as notorious rather than victorious. The video shows what happens when she’s asked why only one fifth of Americans can find their country on a map.

Caitlin should have fluttered her eyelids and given some lip service to world peace, third world empowerment and children being our future. Instead she floats off on a stream of unconsciousness worthy of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

In an almost breathless, completely brainless monologue, she attributes American geographical sloppiness to the fact that "a lot of US Americans don't have maps." She also believes "that our education, like such as South Africa and the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and over here in the US, should help the US."

This toddler grade gibberish might make you think blonde or bimbo but it’s not unpossible that Caitlin isn’t entirely to blame. After all, the Commander in Chief of her country recently framed the debate on education by asking the following - the question must be asked is our children learning ?

The answer, clearly, is no.

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It seems Sir William of Gates has been trying to reinforce some core company values with Microsoft middle management....

and has turned to one of the countries foremost philanthropists and self professed self trained “management consultants” – David Brent.

These corporate insights can now be enjoyed by everyone thanks to the resulting video which is streaming online.

Brent apparently has an affinity with the Microsoft engineers or as he puts it “loads of old egg headed guys who’ve been working in their bedrooms since the 70s going we must beat the Japanese”.

And, he’s pleased to hear that 27 % of employees are women on the basis that the world’s biggest software companies has a definite need for “a lot of secretaries”

And, when Brent hears their could be a vacancy for a new Managing Director, he seems keen to offer his services - but only if the price is right. The move from Slough to Seattle won’t happen unless he gets a salary of 40 grand a year and a Ford Mondeo - preferably brand new.

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Those of us born in the not too distant past might think scopitones sounds like a flesh eating disease or an old fashioned fitness regime….

According to their official blog, a Scopitone is an olden day video jukebox which projected musical movies on a 26-in. screen, flooding the premises with hi-fi scooby-ooby-doo.

Scooby-ooby-doo, or music, as it’s now known seemed be comprised of bizarre tunes like Bittersweet Samba by Herp Albert and the Tijuana Brass, Mother Nature, Father Time by Brook Benton and the well worn classic Baby Face by Bobby Vee. All of these gems were broadcast from a unit that looked like a super sized updended coffin.

It’s easy to mock these not so portable music players, but, in the 60’s before the Ipod was even an apple in Steve Jobs eye, Scopitonic sounds were blazing a trail. In fact, some say the Scopitone was the inspiration for todays modern music players. After all, the video ipod is nothing more than a scopitone with more music and less wardrobe interface.

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This week we recommend you visit the Broomfield Equestrian Centre, Tinahely Co Wicklow. Get away from it all with a relaxing trek through the beautiful Wicklow hills.

If horseriding proves that the best fun is the the simplest fun, so does the art of letter writing.

Video killed the radio star..or so said the Buggles way back in 1982. But those that argue technology is wiping out traditional forms of communication have got it wrong.

Meet Miss O Dear, a blogger who combines good old fashioned letter writing with modern technology in her blogs. With passive aggressive candour she lays waste to the many objects of her ire in her weekly blogs.

The objects of her invective range from hapless Weatherman, toothpaste companies and even tall people.

The site has picked up a bloggers choice award and is a Bloggy Nomminee.

All of which prove two things; that the pen truly is mightier than the sword, and secondly...

you should never, ever take advice from a Buggle.

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As the charts become overwhelmed with banal cover versions, and even cover versions of cover versions, modern hits just makes us want to turn off our radios.

Thankfully, one artist is bucking this downward trend and reinterpreting classic songs like The Beatles “Yesterday” in a truly unique and individual style. He's been around since halfway through the last century, and still going strong.

Yes, it's none other than Daffy Duck. And as this exclusive studio recording reveals, the old maestro is something of a diva and perfectionist.

But the end result is worth the tantrums, a wonderfully unique version of the Beatles tearjerker that is sure to echo down the corridors of musical history.

Just try not to stand too close, or at least bring an umbrella.

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Modern art is all about reinvention, then how about reinventing our e-greetings? How about sending your message via Bob Dylan?

Bored of birthday cards? Tired of text messaging? Overexposed to emails?
Don't get tangled up in blue when it comes to getting in touch with family and friends.
Why not send your message via the man that defined a generation. Mr Bob Dylan

In Subterranean Homesick Blues, one of the most instantly recognisable videos of all time, we see the great man spell out his vision with paper slogans in a New York alleyway, and now, you can too.

Simply log on to this site, choose your 10 line message of choice, and click send.

Your friends and loved ones will be serenaded by the 20th centuries coolest musician spelling out a personalised message just for them - leaving all other forms of e-greeting Blowin' in the wind.

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This weekend we recommend you visit the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork, voted Best Public Building in Ireland and now exhibiting some intriguing new work.

These days, many pubs and clubs are installing equipment that will measure just how drunk you actually are. They're called Karaoke machines.

But before you cringe in embarrassment at your extraordinary rendition of Material Girl at last years Christmas office party, replete with eight Margaritas as backing band, check out American Ricky Miller performing the Queen classic Bohemian Rhapsody, in not just one, but twenty five different voices, including scarily accurate impersonations of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Neil Diamond and Axl Rose.

This guy is a human iPod Shuffle....

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