Here comes the disclaimer: We are NOT encouraging you to kill anyone, or try to hide it if you do. Kids, do not try this at home.

First, you need to take care of any identifying features. Face, fingerprints, tattoos and birthmarks – they all have to go. Burn ‘em or smash ‘em, doesn’t matter. If you want to dump the body whole, make sure you then dress it in clothes from a second-hand store (that you have never touched with un-gloved hands) and dump it in a bad part of town.

Next is the smell. If you’re keeping a body around the house for a while you will need to make sure it doesn’t smell. Drain it of all blood and other fluids by cutting it open and performing CPR. Make sure you do it in an easily cleanable place (the bath is perfect). Half-fill the bath with bleach (to disguise the smell of old blood, and to help with the cleaning). Once the fluids are drained, the body will keep a little while longer. Don’t use preservatives like formaldehyde. Although they will give you more time, they have a distinct smell of their own. The neighbours will notice.

If you’re old-fashioned and want to bury the body, try to seperate it into parts. This is not as hard as it sounds and doesn’t require a chainsaw. Think of it as a big chicken – a knife and plenty of energy is all you need. Cut it into six parts: The head, the torso and two arms and two legs. Bury each part in a different place (someone going to the same patch of forest six times in six nights is a dead giveaway, no pun intended). Digging a deep grave for one arm is a lot easier than digging a deep grave for an entire body, so you should be able to do this quickly. Do the digging around 4am, when the human body is sleepiest, and people are less likely to wake up. Store the other parts in plastic wrap in the freezer until you are ready to bury them.

Dissolving in lime is a popular way to dispose of a body. No, not the kind of lime you use for Mojitos. The kind of lime that will dissolve your own skin if you’re not careful. It will take a lot of lime to do this, so spread your shopping around several gardening stores. Do this in a large barrel or other suitable container, preferably a long way from your house – this stuff stinks.

An alternative to this is to cut the body into very small pieces and feed it down the drain with lots of Drano. This will take weeks, or months, depending on the size of the body, so it is only an option for people with plenty of time on their hands, and lots of privacy. It is also only an option for places with good plumbing, like those you find when renting apartments in Berlin, so ensure that your pipes are good, or take the toilet off to access the large sewer drain beneath.

If we want to know and enjoy the “ultimate” in dark culture, whether its gothic, dark, electro, ebm, darkwave, death rock, and so on, the place to be is Germany, especially in spring and summer, where there are two of the most important festivals on the worldwide dark scene, Wave Gotik Treffen and M `era Luna.

The first of these festivals has been around officially since 1992 in the city of Leipzig, just an hour and a half from Berlin. In the first edition of Wave Gotik Treffen there were more than 200 bands playing all styles and genres of dark music, and more than 20,000 people from around the world came to witness the event. The public has grown over the years and it has become an attraction for thousands of tourists who visit the city annually between the 20th and 24th of May.

The festival is now the most important event in the Goth subculture and organizes events of interest for all sorts of fans of the Goth subculture as well as others: there are works of theatre, classical music, baroque, opera, medieval, themed parties, on more than 12 sites which are distributed throughout the city during the 4-day festival.

The festival M `era Luna takes place in the city of Hildesheim on August 7th and 8th. If you are interested in travelling to Germany, take a stroll through the beautiful city of Berlin and rent apartments in Berlin to enjoy excellent music and all the attractions of dark culture before setting of on your dark adventures. This year will feature bands like Placebo, The Sisters of Mercy, Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy and 31 other bands featured in the two scenarios from the exhibition “Flugplatz Hidesheim – Drispenstedt”, a former Army base that is just outside of the city and has all the necessary amenities to house the two-day festival.

Prices of both festivals are very economic, 80 euros for the Wave Gotik Treffen and in the case of M `era Luna, 70 euros for both days. The connections for both cities from the capital Berlin are very good and the hotels and camping areas within the precincts of the festivals have everything you need to be comfortable and to enjoy a pleasant stay. Camping during the festival costs extra.

Germany is the centre of global dark and gothic culture and its festivals are a treat, with excellent organization and the best shows on the worldwide scene.

Standard vacation practice means buying some souvenirs of the trip: a few postcards, a poster, a shirt, and once upon a time, oils, wines, cheese, spices and other food (and liquid! Before the regulations about what you could carry on got to be so strict). Nowadays, we are travelling (and moving,) much more than before, hence a tattoo can be an ideal reminder of our travels: they don’t weigh anything, you can’t break in the suitcase or a move and you can always get on the plane with one.

In Berlin, you will find a variety of artists who are true tattoo masters that can provide you with a phenomenal memory of a trip you’ll never lose. Some tips on tattoo tourism:

1. Please contact the artist via myspace or email to set an appointment and talk about what you would like to tattoo, the price and how many sessions it takes to complete the tattoo, before planning any trip.

2. Tattoo tourism and beach vacations are not a good mix, avoid the sun and the beach until the tattoo is completely healed.

3. It is always a good idea to rest and eat well before and after getting a tattoo, and follow the tattooer´s instructions to take care of your tattoo.

Berlin has some incredible choices for tattoos. Perhaps the most famous is the Mistress of realism Miss Nico, owner of All-Style tattoo. If her waiting list (1 or 2 years) is too long for you, consider getting work done with the Tattoo Obscur team. They are known for their unique designs and super-modern style. Berit has Uhlhorn, Zoe Thorne, Sara Rosenbaum and Julie Toebel are capable of realizing a wide variety of styles, especially the tattoos inspired by screen printing and realism. Another good bet for a variety of styles is Berlinink

If you like the old Japanese school or contact Lu’s Lips. He doesn’t do conventions, so if you want a tattoo by him, you have to go to Berlin. Rent apartments in Berlin and get ready to show off an incredible piece of art when you come back.

Thought you’ve heard it all? Maybe not. There have been several cases of people who volunteer to be murdered, and sometimes eaten, by willing killers.

This is basically cannibalism as a sexual fetish, coupled with a death wish in the victim. The first high-profile case was in 2003, when Armin Meiwes was convicted of first cutting off his victim’s penis and letting him bleed to death for a few hours before hanging his body from a meat hook, severing various parts and then storing them in the freezer. And yes, there was sexual contact between Meiwes and his victim, although no-one is really sure if the sex took place before or after death.

Meiwes found his ‘accomplice’ after placing more than 400 ads on various internet sites. Bernd Jürgen Brandes was the one who eventually responded. Although there has been plenty of speculation about Meiwes’ motivation, and his psychological state, very little has been said about Brandes. What makes a person desire this kind of death? After all, volunteering to be murdered is no normal suicide. Some theorise about the religious implications – if Brandes was a devout Catholic, being murdered would avoid him sinning under the rules of the church.

On the other hand, there is heavy evidence suggesting that there was no struggle involved with the severing of his penis, or the sexual contact. How far does submissiveness (in the context of sexual Dominance/Submissiveness) go? The answer is, in this case, about as far as it is possible to go: Meiwes filmed the entire murder, and it appears that Brandes was completely complicit in each step, even going so far as renting apartments in Berlin that could be used as potential crime scenes.