AMERICAN film-maker, author, actor and cult icon John Waters, whose films include Hairspray and Crybaby, will appear at Liverpool's Homotopia Festival in November.

He will perform his one man show This Filthy World at the Philharmonic Hall on November 8 as part of the city's queer arts and culture festival.

The "joyously devious monologue" focusses on his early negative artistic influences and fascination with true crime, exploitation films, fashion lunacy and the extremes of the contemporary art world.

Waters, who has been exhibiting his photo-based artwork and installations internationally since the 1990s, said: "I can't wait to see Liverpool, the town I've always wanted to come to but never have. I bet it's as extreme as Baltimore!"

Festival director Gary Everett added: "From modest beginnings in 2004 Homotopia has grown into an international flag-bearer for high quality queer culture consistently punching above our weight. We are very excited to bring an international star like John Waters to Liverpool for our big tenth birthday celebrations."

I recently found myself wondering why it took me so long to come across the Muppets films. As you do.

I suppose the answer is that until you have children of your own, you are unlikely to watch the kids' flicks you missed out on when growing up. And after adolescence, there are only a few windows of opportunity for adults to watch children's films.

It was while trying to keep a trio of ankle-biters entertained over the recent holidays that I came across The Muppet Movie (1979) and, later, the Oscar-winning The Muppets (2011). They are simply incredibly good musical films. Apart from the catchy numbers and clever dialogue, they are filled with heart-warming silliness and convey moral messages about camaraderie, collaboration and perseverance.

A QUICK notice from the team behind the Lift-Off film festival taking place in Liverpool this week:

Lift-Off International is an exciting new film festival whose objective is to "look beyond the gloss" in order to promote raw talent and artistic flair in filmmakers from Liverpool and around the world.

Founded in 2011, by up and coming independent filmmakers Ben Pohlman and James Alexander, Lift-Off is a place where small budgets and big dreams combine to give a powerful boost to budding film careers.

After two successful first years in London, Lift-Off is expanding and coming up North, with the aim of providing Liverpool with an annual, truly independent film festival to showcase local and international talent alike. Known worldwide for its influential music and arts scene, which helped the city win European Capital of Culture 2008, Liverpool is the obvious choice to host the Northern branch of Lift-Off International.

The advancement of digital technology means we can now chat over the Internet with Aunt Dot in Dallas or find out if a hotel is a four-star or 400-cockroach joint.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Compared with even three years ago, we can, today, do a hell of a lot when and wherever we want to. We're in the middle of an exciting period in the development of human communications. Few working-age people in the UK live off-grid. Mobile phone technology and the Internet have hopped into bed together and decided to consummate their digital relationship. There's no reason to be incommunicado anymore, save you lose your charger, lose your phone, laptop or tablet PC, or find you've got no signal.

Digital technology is dazzling us like a siren. We have become enchanted, but instead of dragging us into the drink, technology and its battalions of aps, programmes and social media platforms is speeding us up.

Those gaps between our daily tasks are being filled by texting, tweeting and updating, or fretting over which ironing board cover product review to believe. These downtimes are precious times. These moments of sanctity, whether a quiet 15 minutes with a book or five minutes of idle daydreaming, bring balance to our lives. We seem to be 'moving' a lot more than we used to. In all senses of the word. Gentle reflection has made way for connection, silence for sound, and patience for impatience.

Our dancers are using the movement-stillness dynamic as the theme of their next show, Stillness in a Mobile World. Professional choreographers will work with third-year dancers to capture some of the spirit of our age through elements and fusions of ballet, commercial, jazz and tap. It is a challenging theme to explore through such a dynamic art form.

That's the beauty of art, though. You work from a blank slate, whether that's a piece of canvas or a group of students, shaping and creating until you find that perfect combination of colours, that perfect combination of movements. Art can say what you want it to say. It's like a ball of magical play putty.

On a similar note, in December some of LIPA's management students are putting on a secret cinema event in Liverpool, particularly aimed at those looking to escape the Christmas hullabaloo - and go off-grid - for a few hours.

Their event, called The Hidden Picture Show, is a film-screening with a difference. To find out more information and book tickets you'll have to go online. Digital technology's really has got us, hasn't it. The web in particular has become as sticky as an extra sticky, sticky-toffee pudding.

APOLOGIES for the lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks. It's been surprisingly hectic for the silly season when we're usually scrabbling around for things to fill the newspaper. It's times like this when I realise what a diverse job I have - last week was all about the Everyman, that wonderful little theatre that's somehow managed to survive all these years with funding coming and going, and this week was all about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the final film in a series of global blockbusters.

 Image courtesy of Warner Bros

I've written hundred of words on these already so rather than repeating myself I will link to those pieces.

So, first up - the Everyman's closure...

GREAT news that Liverpool-based filmmaker Deena DeNaro-Bickerstaffe has won the One Minute Film Challenge with her short film Reverse the Wave.

Her 'subvertisment' highlights Nokia's provision of technology to the Iranian government. Last June, the mobile phone giant confirmed it had supplied the country with technology needed to monitor, control and read local telephone calls.

ACCORDING to gossip website Realbollywood.com, Brad Pitt is looking for someone to write a bio-pic about John Lennon that he will probably star in. He's been chatting with Yoko Ono about it, who is impressed by his keenness to learn to sing in a Scouse accent.

Too utterly random or destined to be a box office smash? What do you reckon?

WHILE I was writing a column for today's Daily Post about a visit to Mini Hollywood, the film set in the middle of the Almeria desert in Spain, where Sergio Leone filmed his Dollars trilogy, it struck me that it would be more interesting with photos.

So here is an embellished version - illustrated with some pictures and video.

THERE are no spurs on his trainers but this doesn't stop the office worker-turned-aspiring cowboy from striding boldly over to the bucking bronco and leaping, gazelle-like, to its back.

An onlooker places a coin in the slot and we wait, our breath baited and our knuckles white, for the beast to begin lurching about and unseat its unwelcome passenger.

LIVERPOOL actor Margi Clarke is taking part in a Clapperboard Presents event on Monday.

If you aren't familiar with this series of film screening with accompanying Q&A sessions then they are worth checking out as they not only have interesting guests and give you the chance to see the films on a big screen, but they also raise money for charity.