Picture Yourself There

World Gravy Wrestling Championships

As soon as we heard about this one, we knew it was destined for Picture Yourself There. If ever there were more stereotypes crammed into one event, we’d like to know about it: this Lancashire competition challenges teams to battle it out in the wrestling ring, a task made more difficult by a generous helping of traditional Northern gravy. The happy contestants are happy to risk their dignity (and end up smelling of onions) for the chance to get their – greasy- hands on the ultimate prize: a trophy, and a tray of pies.

Yes, it sounds like a scene straight out of Phoenix Nights, but this isn’t a Peter Kay thing – this is for real, and it’s all happening on 8th September in Sainsbury's car park in Darwen. All we need now is for the booby prize to be a lump of coal, and for the spectators to push their bikes up the big cobbled hill at the end of the day (to the sound of the Hovis theme tune) as they wind their way for some bread and dripping.

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London Film and Comic Convention

Where else would you find a hobbit, the Captain of the Starship Enterprise, Freddie Krueger and Davey Jones, all in the same room? Earl's Court, apparently. The London Film and Comic festival celebrates all the weird and wonderful sci fi, fantasy and good old-fashioned classics - from James Bond to Star Wars – you could possibly hope to squeeze into a single day, and all your old-school heroes (along with some new faces) will be there. Yeah, you might act too cool for school, but we know that you’ve run around your room more than once with your boxers over your trousers, pretending to be one of the X Men (and not just when you were nine, but when you were a student too).

The London Film and Comic Con takes place at Earls Court this weekend, and is a chance for die-hard fans to meet their favourite characters from the big to the small screen. We hope Freddie's not as frightening in the flesh as he is in the films...

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Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

If you’ve told yourself a thousand times that you really must stop scribbling urgent reminders on the back of old envelopes, or important phone numbers on bits of kitchen roll, don’t criticise yourself too harshly for your habits: you may just be in good company. Louis van Tilburgh at the Van Gogh Museum has discovered that the tortured painter used a teatowel or tablecloth as the canvas for more than one of his great works. Apparently, you can even observe a faint pattern of red rectangles beneath the lovely Wheatfields on a Mountainous Landscape, a pleasingly banal detail to find on such a masterpiece.

It’s resourceful at least. Though, just as it’s inevitable that your old envelopes will find their way into the bin, it’s lucky these creations didn’t end up in the wash. You can see Daubigny’s Garden, one of these teatowel pieces, at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

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Rugby World Cup

If football is the beautiful game, what does that make rugby? Skilful it may be, but what with all those bone-crunching tackles and fearsome scrums it always looks more brutal than beautiful. Lucky for any disgruntled rugger boys out there, maybe some elegance and charm will rub off on the sport when the World Cup begins this on 7th September in the city of romance: Paris. At the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, players from France and Argentina will be proving that this is a game of grace, and not just a bunch of blokes having a bit of argy-bargy.

From there, the competition will move across France, to venues in Marseille, Lyon and Lens amongst others. And if you’re still not a rugby fan after seeing it live, don’t mention it to the players – many of them might not be beautiful, but they’re big fellas…

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Blackpool Illuminations

Blackpool: for the many who went on family days out to the prom and the Pleasure Beach, it’s a place of nostalgia, a place of childhood memories. Fish and chips on the promenade, riding the donkeys, spending the entire contents of your mum’s purse trying to win a slightly scruffy-looking teddy from the impossible-to-beat arcade grabber machines… Despite the addition of new attractions over the years, the presence of old favourites such as the ballroom means that visiting here always feels a little bit like going back in time.

Appropriate, then, that the celebrity chosen to preside over the national institution that is the Blackpool Illuminations is none other than Time Lord David Tennant. The Doctor Who star will be switching on the famous lights this Friday, with Dale Winton lighting up BBC Radio 2’s coverage of the event. Also appearing will be Pop Idol 'star' Gareth Gates... another blast from the past, perhaps?

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Portsmouth Dockyard 800th anniversary

According to the song, Britannia rules the waves – and while that might not be strictly true nowadays (if it was, Richard Branson would probably be Lord Admiral), there was a time that the English Navy was the most respected on the high seas. Portsmouth dockyard, one of the most famous in the world, will soon be acknowledging 800 years of shipbuilding for the navy and will be celebrating with an interactive historical show over Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th. Hopefully minus the traditional rats and scurvy.

With so much history and so little time, it’ll be a race to cram everything into just two days (think not so much Goodnight Sweetheart, more Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure). From watching Tudor food being cooked in a replica galley of the Mary Rose, you can take part in interactive displays about Horatio Nelson’s dramatic victories and also the Battle of Britain.

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Agatha Christie celebration! Oldway Mansion

Torquay: discuss. Yep, we knew you’d say that. But this Devon town is famous for more than just a frustrated hotel manager, his infuriating wife and incompetent Spanish waiter. It was in this town that the most popular novelist of all time was born and raised, and created her iconic characters, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Sure, it seems a world away from the Orient Express, but maybe the good thing about living in a little Southern town is that you’re less likely to fall foul of an arsenic-wielding rotter?

From the 10th to the 16th September, the third annual Agatha Christie Week will take place at the Oldway Mansion in Paignton, coinciding with the 70th anniversary publication of Death on the Nile. Visitors (and Unexpected Guests… snarf snarf) are invited to lay picnics on the lawn to enjoy the classic film adaptation.

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Terracotta Army

Some people have very strong beliefs and superstitions. Whether it’s just walking around the ladder rather than under it, or a dedicated attendance at church every Sunday (or, alternatively, tuning into BB every night), many of us invest time and effort in what we believe to be true and important. Few of us, however, go so far as China’s First Emperor Qin Shihuang, who - preparing for immortality - ordered the construction of 1,000 terracotta soldiers to serve him in the afterlife. Not to mention the horses, grooms and chariots that were also discovered in his tomb in 1974.

And there was me thinking that I pack too much when I go on a trip. The famous Terracotta Army is one of the most incredible sights on earth, commonly described as the Eighth Wonder of the World – and you’ll be able to catch these ancient warriors in all their glory when they come to the British Museum in London. But why not go and see them at their burial place in all their glory?

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Carling Weekend 2007

If you’ve still got the energy after the shenanigans of the festival season, brace yourself as one of the big ones takes place this weekend: the Carling Festival, with a host of performers appearing on stages in both Reading and Leeds, is happening this Friday and Saturday with Interpol, Kings of Leon and finally Razorlight taking the top billing.

Apart from the great bands, the thing we love about this event is the ‘Warm Beer Amnesty’: to make sure you don’t have to suffer tepid festival beer (we’ve all been there) you can swap cans of unopened lukewarm tinnies for ice cool cans of Carling. Wonder if there’s also somewhere you can take your sweaty, lairy, crowdsurfing mates and swap them for nice, fresh, respectable ones? Now there’s an idea…

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East Side Gallery

If you expect the most famous and impressive examples of graffiti art to be credited to the enigmatic Banksy, you should know that a more spectacular – and highly politically charged – example of the art in Berlin is currently under threat. The East Side Gallery is one of the last remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall, and features the work of more than a hundred artists from across the world who wanted to make a statement about the regime that created it.

There are no kissing policemen here – but one of the most famous murals on the wall shows Erich Honecker, the East German leader, locked in an embrace with Soviet President Leonid Breshnev. Sadly, age and the elements are taking their toll on this relic, and the government is struggling to find the £2.2 million necessary for renovation.

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