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We've got vampires crawling out of every nook and cranny of our popular entertainment industry. Twilight: New Moon is coming in November, followed by Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant early in 2010. On M-Net, the second series of True Blood is a hit.

On US TV, there is a new series trying to hitch a ride on the Twilight movies. Vampire Diaries is about a cute high-school girl, Elena, whose emotions are torn between two blood-sucking hunks - not your average "boy-meets-girl" plot.

One of the objects of her affection is Stefan, a centuries-old vampire pining for a lost love who looks almost exactly like Elena. Stefan's evil vampire brother, Damon, is not only making a move on the same girl, he's also left a trail of mutilated bodies in his wake. It's like High School Musical with fangs, but the young audiences are entranced.

So, you have to ask yourself: why are vampires back in fashion? Why not werewolves or zombies or genuine witches? I mean, when last did you read a book or see a decent film about a witch? Or a leprechaun, for that matter? And what about an angel? There's a whole cult-cum-industry around angels, but the entertainment business is fixated on vampires and they are playing fast and loose with the lore around them.

Those scary legends about bloodsuckers, who slept in coffins by day, fled from garlic and crucifixes, and could only be killed by a stake through the heart, are getting a makeover.

These days they look like supermodels who are just slightly hungover. They are featured in centre spreads of glossy fashion magazines, where adolescent girls (and some boys) dream about the vampire's dark, vulpine sensuality.

The traditional "handsome prince" and "the boy next door" of teen romance are as passé as a Pat Boone love song, and "bad boy" bloodsuckers seem to have become prime wet-dream material. It's as if pop culture has turned them into soulful gigolos and upscale "ladies of the night".

I've read some theories that the renewed fascination with the undead has something to do with a generation for whom Aids has been an issue in their lives since they were born. That nexus of sex, blood and death - of beautiful strangers who offer pleasure but leave death in their wake - could be a strong, subconscious anxiety that is not directly addressed, but is expressed and, to a degree, confronted in the costumed unreality of the glamorous movie-vampire generation and the Goth clubs.

But it is far more likely that this phenomenon is due to commercial greed. Vampires were hanging around in the mythology and legends of Europe for centuries. Only when someone made some serious cash by writing about a vampire did the craze begin. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897 and although he was a theatre manager who wrote many books it was Dracula that made him rich and famous.

Almost as soon as feature movies became an international craze, Dracula was filmed as Nosferatu (1922) in Germany and again in the US in 1931. Since then, it has just never stopped. Dracula is still as energetically "undead" in the movies as he was in the legends.

Once that flow of vampire-derived cash had started, it was obvious that many people would want to get their share. After many remakes and sequels, there came a revolutionary style change in 1976 when Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire struck gold in the bookstores and the subsequent film.

The creatures of the night were back and the young audience has made sure that they will never leave. Joss Whedon followed Rice's lead and made TV bloodsuckers the flavour of the decade. Buffy the Vampire Slayer kept slaying from 1997 to 2003 and the series turned the feared and revered creatures and other undead beings into suburban commodities.

The problem is when vampires have a huge fan-base in suburbia, a lot of the excitement and fascination is drained from the genre. Nothing dispels the chill of horror faster than commercial breaks and microwaved TV dinners. Soon there was a sense that the vampires were about to be sent back to their dressing rooms.

That, I surmise, was when author Stephenie Meyer, a receptionist in a property company, spotted a gap in the richly rewarding genre of softcore horror. Why not a good old American teenage love story in a rural setting where a cute girl gets involved with a handsome non-lethal vampire and his family?

It's young love that really does last for ever (at least for the vampire) and Meyer's series of novels brought a new flavour to the teen romance. She has diluted traditional vampire culture down to what tastes like a watery milkshake, but it has made her rich beyond her dreams and if there is a moral in that story, I sure as hell can't find it.

Croaking

I gave up after trying for 10 years to introduce frogs into my garden pond, but to my amazement and delight, during the recent rains, two frogs arrived to croak me to sleep. In a bid to learn more about them, I found A Complete Guide to the Frogs of Southern Africa by Louis du Preez and Vincent Carruthers, which has stunning pictures, great info and CD of froggy sounds. It's the ultimate frog book, so aspirant princesses take note! Buy it from www.randomstruik.co.za.

Speaking

The first ever Cape Town Spoken Word Festival, will be staged at the Baxter Theatre in Rondebosch from November 17 to 21. Traditional storytellers, actors delivering soliloquies and hip-hop poets accompanied by the city's top beat-box performers, will crowd the stage in a tribute to the human voice and the words it can utter. Visit www.baxter.co.za for more details.

Staying

I'm always one for understated elegance and the Village Green Guest House, which sits snug in the charming suburb of Parkview, is the quintessence of unobtrusive indulgence. It only has five guest suites, so it's not as impersonal as a chain hotel, or overblown as a boutique hotel. The garden will remind you of The Enchanted Wood and has the kind of peace and quiet we all hanker after. It will impress stop-over business folk, families and couples. Call 011 646-5820 for more.

Performing

Leonard Cohen is no ordinary pop star. He wrote poetry and spent years in a Zen Buddhist monastery. He became a star in the Flower Power '60s, a status he retained into the '80s. Songs like Suzanne and So Long Marianne became major hits and in 2008 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Lou Reed. Now you can buy the double disc DVD Leonard Cohen: Live in London, part of his sell-out 2009 tour. It's like a time-trip for ageing hippies . www.lookandlisten.co.za