Interesting times.

I have a film of something but I'm reluctant to post it because I don't consider it particularly convincing. I keep watching it and thinking 'maybe...'

If I do post it, bear in mind that I am not convinced. The thing in my house is quiet at the moment but it's still around. I have to find a way to provoke it.

Anyway, Lionel Fanthorpe is in the news again. He is an ordained priest who has a healthy view of the paranormal, being simultaneously open and skeptical, and he presents cases in an entertaining and informative way.

Some of the things he's turned up in his latest survey are very interesting. For example, poltergeist effects are often explained as energies related to puberty, especially among girls. However, Reverend Fanthorpe's survey gives UK poltergeist reports a definite geographical bias to the south-east of the country. Now, the UK is a wierd place and getting wierder by the day, but we do not yet transport all children to the south-east until they have passed puberty (Since I live in the north, I'd be happy for that to become law). So if there was anything 'normal' hiding in these poltergeist reports, they should be evenly spread over the country.

However, if the ability of a ghost to perform poltergeist-like phenomena depended on, say, geology, then it would be concentrated in particular areas. Worth studying further, I'd say.

A lot of other reported phenomena are location-specific. Not just one location either. So maybe it's time to look for links between these locations.

That might give us a clue into a way to make spirit communication possible. They have little of use to tell us, but that's not the point. The proof is the point.

Something...

Nothing on the soundtrack other than my fridge humming and me snoring.

Something might have appeared on one of the overnight films. Might be a head seen from behind, sitting in a chair, but it doesn't look like what I've seen (then again, a digital camera doesn't necessarily see what the eye sees) or it could be a shadow. It's not pixellation, it had become light by then.

I am not confident it's anything useful but I'll try to clip out the bit and put it here for opinions. The whole film is from 4 am to 9 am and there's about 10 seconds of interest so you really don't want me posting the whole thing.

The haunter haunted.

I've annoyed something I shouldn't have and it's followed me home. The only sensible response to this is to set up video and trigger cameras in the room it's claimed as its own, and sleep in there to goad it into doing something. If only it had picked a more comfortable room.

I've seen it, it's pure white and unfriendly and has some impressive ability with suggestion and illusion but can't cause physical harm. At least, it hasn't so far. I don't think this is a human ghost.

The chance of obtaining evidence without having to sit outside in British weather... how could I resist?

Decolourised.

Apparently it will soon be possible to cure colour blindness.

I won't be volunteering. Nobody is messing with my vision. I know it's not the same as everyone else's and I like it that way. I see things differently to most people and that does not bother me. I don't form the same sort of emotional attachments as other people either, something the doctors call 'Aspergers' and they think it's a disorder.

Well I like it. I like to see the things I see and I will not risk losing that. I am happy to be able to go for days or weeks without missing human contact, and while I understand that most people find that disturbing, I don't and I like it that way. I don't care what anyone thinks of me and I like that too. Having seen the effects of 'peer pressure' on people, I am delighted to be immune.

I'm not a clone. I don't want to be one. I'm different, some people have a problem with that and I don't care. I can't care. I don't know how and don't want to. Most of all, I really don't want any of it 'fixed'.

Everyone should be different. It's really a lot more interesting than being a sheep.

Smoking steam.

Or steaming smoke, whichever you prefer. I am back smoking again but not really. I have the electric cigar, which blasts nicotine in steam but has no tar, no phenolics, no particulates and in fact none of the lung-wrecking stuff of real cigars. Even so, it feels like smoking, it looks like smoking, it tastes like smoking and it's a hell of a lot more pleasant than sticking pointless patches on or chewing nicotine gum that tastes as if it's already passed through a stoat.

So I am content. I won't be mentioning this to any doctor or they'll have a fit. Enjoyment is illegal in the UK now.

No it isn't.

A newspaper article claims that the discovery of a rocky planet around another star is 'proof that we are not alone'.

I claim that claim is rubbish. All it proves is that there's a lump of rock going around another star.

As for life...

Corot 7b is similar in size to Earth, but daytime temperatures of 1,500C mean it is far
too hot for anything to flourish there.

It's a hot rock. An ember, a cinder of a planet. It's hotter than Venus and a less pleasant place to live than New York. You can at least light a cigar there without getting arrested. There is no proof of extraterrestrial life here.

All it proves is that the formation of rocks around a star is not unique to our solar system. Who ever imagined it would be? There might well be extraterrestrial life somewhere out there. There might be some who have advanced beyond our technology.

If they're advanced and intelligent, they won't come here. Too many of us will be asking for a lift out of this place.

Smoking, but not really.

Becoming a non-smoker has made me irritable (yes, hard to believe I know) and snappy and unfocused and easily distracted. The tedium of long nights is unbroken by the puff of cigar smoke these days. I can't even entertain myself with smoke rings on still evenings. Temptation to resume the cigars has been unbearable at times but doctor's orders and all that.

I have never been one to follow orders, and never been interested in 'health and safety' as a concept, but this is my health and safety and that matters to me.

All the same... it's not easy being clean.

A smoking friend of mine has taken up something he calls 'Electrofag' which is a battery powered cigarette thing that looks and acts like a cigarette. It produces steam rather than smoke so has no tar content and none of the deadly chemicals of real smoke. I tried his, which is set up to taste like a cigarette and, you know, it does. Thing is, I don't much like cigarettes. Cigars were always my fumes of choice.

Ah, but it seems there is an electric cigar too. With cigar-flavoured steam. None of the nasties, just the smoking action.

It's on order.

So I expect to be back to my normal jovial and ultra-tolerant self within days. Without compromising or exacerbating any previous lung damage either.

Unless it turns out to be a pile of crap in which case, there will be rants, quite possibly followed by a tearing up of prescriptions and a visit to the tobacconist. There is only so much deprivation a man can stand.

Non-smoking is, I'm sure, the healthy way to live but well, it's just not me. I might not live as long but I'll enjoy it at least.

Nothing works.

A frustrating few weeks. The last Full Moon brought a mass of activity but not one worthwhile photo or recording. I sometimes think they do it deliberately.

Since we've had rain like rods of water recently, I've been trying to revive my old Myspace and Facebook accounts. The Facebook one is attracting some interest from some odd sorts. I have a feeling I know which particular lunatic is responsible for that. He's harmless.

The Myspace account has gone completely dormant. Well, that seemed like a good time to mess around with it because nobody's reading it anyway (because I haven't added anything to it for so long).

I tried changing the background. It looked like it had worked but when I went back to the page, hey presto - it was exactly the same as before. I haven't worked out why.

Facebook - total blank. I can't find anything that changes anything!

It can be done. There are some spectacular pages on those sites. I don't have anything that ambitious in mind but perhaps it would be worth my while becoming a little more online-savvy. The standard pages just look like some kind of telephone directory.

As for Blogger, I'm scared to play with it in case I wreck the whole blog.

I think I'll mess around with Myspace first. It's a dead account anyway so nobody will notice if I turn it into something that looks like a sixties drug dream. If I do, I just hope I can remember how to turn it back.

Don't look yet.


(extra - Uh-oh. I just clicked an 'update' button on Myspace. Now it's gone all strange.)

A slow-burning fuse.

Lately, I have become more interested in the politics of this country, and of the world. It's something I've tried to ignore for most of my life but it's hard to avoid these days.

Scotland (where I live) has just released the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing because he was dying. That made no sense to me. Rather, it didn't, until it came to light that the London parliament (who still largely control Scotland) were involved.

If you want to see the most base, spite-driven, self-interested people on the planet, get over to Westminster when the public gallery is open. You won't believe what you see and hear in there.

The Scottish government is getting the blame because, we are told, 'it is a matter for Scottish foreign affairs'. What is less well publicised is that the Scottish parliament, a partial parliament still largely under the control of the main parliament in London, has no authority in foreign affairs. All that power remains with the London parliament. So Scotland might have been able to release him into Scotland but could not have brokered his return to Libya.

Now it appears the man's release was part of an oil deal set up by the London parliament.

I realise there is some doubt as to whether he was guilty or not, but that should be a matter for the courts to decide. Not the oil industry.

There is a wave of anger building in this country and in others. Actions like this, in which politicians of all stripes are dismissive and contemptuous of those who pay their wages, are becoming increasingly common and the anger is building. You can feel it in the street and in any public gathering now.

It's an unfocused rage. A subliminal fury. People aren't really sure what they are angry about but they know it's something worth blowing up over.

I see more and more people in a dream state these days. You know the dream. It's the one where you know something has happened, you can't tell what it is but you know for sure you're going to be absolutely furious when you find it. People are now in that state while awake. Something is nagging at the back of their minds and they know it's going to be bad. So they push it back and try to ignore it, but then another stupid law appears, another idiotic decision is taken and that nagging feeling is back, stronger, more insistent. Still they push it down.

So they don't see other people and bump into them, they step out into the road without thinking to check for traffic, all because they are distracted by that nagging thought that something is not right.

In some parts of the country, photographers are stopped and searched as if they were terrorists. In some places, households are forced to use smaller and smaller bins and fined if they overfill them. Petty, pointless and downright nasty laws appear by the day. Oh, people notice but they push it aside. This is Britain. It can't possibly be happening here. It can't possibly be true that five-year-olds are to learn about masturbation and abortion by legal obligation. Nobody can possibly believe that high-ranking Government ministers are personally teaching school children to sneeze into their sleeves.

No, something is not right but how can anyone accept what they see, when what they see is so far beyond the realms of the sensible that it cannot possibly be true?

It is true. All of it.

That realisation is going to hit people like a hammer some day soon. When it does, the Berserker gnawing away at their subconscious will be let loose.

I have a feeling that once it starts, there will be no stopping it.

An odd thing in the Chinese sky.

During the last total eclipse, visible mainly from China, several Chinese filmed something unusual in the sky.

See what you think.

The Chinese government are taking it seriously enough to investigate. Although I suspect they might be looking not so much for aliens as for USAF insignia...

Thought control.

I know I said in the last post that science was making a lot of paranormal subjects normal.

But this is just too weird.

What will we get next, magnetovision? The ability to control the weather? Blades that slide out of our knuckles?

(I'm sure it's a Great Thing, really, but I'm not comfortable with anything that involves wiring something into my brain. It's just too...Borg...for my liking).

Tasting the scenery.

A long time ago there was a flurry of reports of people who could feel colours. Blindfolded, they could tell the colour of an object just by touching it. There were some who seemed to be genuine but, as with all such things, there were some who found ways to fake it.

Having uncovered some of the fakes, mainstream science pooh-poohed the whole idea. One uncovered fake, in many otherwise sensible people's eyes, means the whole subject is fake. Yet there remained many whose ability could not be explained. These were dismissed as 'also-fakes, we just haven't worked out how they faked it'. Sometimes you just can't win.

Yet now it seems that a computerised device can allow blind people to see through their tongues. Not merely sensing colour, not some tactile form of echolocation. The device, it is claimed, sends impulses through the tongue and the brain can use these impulses to form actual images.

There is some crossover between the senses in everyone. In some people it can be considerable, leading to a particular taste being experienced when they see a particular colour, or colours associated with certain letters or numbers. This is synaesthesia, and like Asperger's it is ridiculously considered a 'disability'. It's just a different way of experiencing the world. Some would argue that it's a more interesting way. I'd certainly like to try it, if that were possible.

Detecting colours through the nerves in the fingers hardly qualifies as paranormal, when real-world images can be visualised through the tongue.

Certain aspects of the paranormal are becoming normal. That's not quite true. They were always normal, just derided as abnormal by those who did not have the ability. Those who show a little skill in producing a fake ability serve only to reinforce the view that all such abilities are faked. I have no time for fakes. We used to have stocks for such people. If only they could be restored!

Other aspects remain completely out in the paranormal wilderness. Ghosts have been proved to exist to me, to my satisfaction, but there exists no empirical method by which I can then prove their existence to you. You have to experience a meeting with a ghost for yourself, and I can't and won't arrange that. It would involve coercion of someone who's vulnerable and anyway, if I did, you'd claim I faked it. Besides, I'm no necromancer. I can't conjure spirits to order, and I don't want to. Despite what you see on TV, deliberately calling up spirits is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.

Photos and tape recordings are of interest to me but can be so easily faked that they will never be proof. For most people, the only way you'll find out about your inner ghost is to die. Then you'll find it's too late to tell anyone.

It is encouraging to see some subject areas shifting into the mainstream, even if the mainstream doesn't realise it yet. I doubt the study of hauntings ever will, unless there's some 'Ghostbuster' style massive haunting event coming up and even then, it'll be decried as fakery. So I expect to be working out here on the fringes for quite some time yet.

I don't mind. It's quiet out here and since I am biologically predisposed to enjoy working alone and to care not a jot for other people's opinions of me, it's an area of research I feel well suited for.

One day, though, I'll find a way to produce that proof. Not for the fame, not for the glory, and not for the money (although I won't turn that down).

For the sheer bloody-minded joy of watching sceptics wriggle.

Seeing through your tongue is only the beginning. There's more to come yet.