Visit it

TONIGHT Leeds' fourth annual Light Night event will fill the venues and streets of Leeds city centre with spectacle, participatory entertainment, projections, and magical, sinister, surreal fun.

Light Night in Leeds is a showcase for the full range of creative activity in the city, with involvement from Leeds-based companies of national and international repute such as the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Northern Ballet Theatre, through local emerging arts groups, students, individual artists and the public themselves, who will all be expected to play their part!

The event now makes use of over f40 venues in the city centre. As well as the established cultural mainstays such as galleries and theatres, the event takes over libraries, places of worship, public squares, shops, bars, barges, graveyards and prison cells, bringing a carnival of creative activity to unexpected spaces and thus shedding new light on the city centre for a night. In 2007 the combined venues received in excess of 20,000 visits throughout the night, and we know that this will continue to grow year on year.

Outside of the venues, the events will create large spectacular, large scale, light based pieces of new art.

Visit leedsliveitloveit for more information.


Nest building

The latest looks for winter use a host of deep, dark colours that you may not be used to using. Think smoky grey and black mixed with a really rich colour such as a deep raspberry or splendid navy blue shade.

Using the right quantities is the trick to getting this right. I would recommend using mostly grey, followed by a slightly smaller quantity of the rich colour and then glossy black as an accent.

It is best to use this type of colour scheme in larger rooms and make sure you add in plenty of light sources such as lamps and candles.

Include lots of sumptuous fabrics in your final design and then you can use this room as a cosy hideaway.

Recommended by Barker & Stonehouse, Leeds.


Listen to it

KERRANG! The Album '08

They're everywhere. You mightn't be able to pick them out in a crowd, but, believe us, they're there.

Don't be fooled by sober suits, sensible blouses or neat haircuts, beneath many a conservative facade lurks a music fan with a passion for something a little lairier than Keane, Katy Perry or the Kaiser Chiefs.

We're talking about metal fans – those connoisseurs of the distorted guitar, the powerhouse riff, the strident vocal and the heroic drumroll.

Like the music, metal mag Kerrang! has happily existed outside the fickle world of pop for the last 27 years and therefore is in the ideal position to put together a 2-CD compilation which can – in the words of Kerrang! editor Paul Brannigan – offer a "state-of-the-rockin' nation address".

And it does, offering a neat overview of a very diverse genre, from Kid Rock's hit Al'Summer Long to Pendulum's metal and drum'n'bass mash-up Propane Nightmares, the trad melodramatic heavy metal of Avenged Sevenfold, the take-no-prisoners thunder of Slipknot, the accessible emo of Panic At The Disco and all points in between.