On restless spirits

On restless spirits

Our local gang of paranormal investigators, meddling with dark, dark forces of which they know nothing have hit the local press with their plans for a Hallowe'en ghostbusting extravaganza.

This, essentially, involves visiting a number of locations in the South Dorset area and poking them with their best ghost-poking sticks until something dreadful happens, for eg: the Old Dark Ones rise and feast on their very souls.

If there's one thing they ARE doing right, it's their choice of venues.

Pubs.

Loads and loads of pubs.

Because – BAD JOKE ALERT - you get loads of spirits in pubs.

No, really. Why do you get so many pub ghosts? Is it because they're places where people met in life, so they'd naturally congregate there in death? Or, is there a deeper meaning?

Or, are freely available supplies of brain-rot the answer?

I feel it is my duty to contact my new pals at the Weymouth Paranormal Investigation Team (Warning: Loud website) to find out.

Dear Weymouth PIT,

Congratulations on being Weymouth's top paranormal investigation team!

In recognition of your forthcoming pub crawl serious scientific exploration of other-worldly phenomena in various licensed premises in the South Dorset area, I thought you might like to hear about my encounter with malevolent spirits in and around the public bar of the Old Castle Hotel and Ruan Thai restaurant in Weymouth.

An enjoyable evening in my local public house, in which I consumed a several pints, was somewhat ruined when a poltergeist hurled me bodily to the ground in the street outside, leaving me bloodied and bruised.

When I came to, I was covered head-to-toe with ectoplasm, which, as we all know from previous studies of public house-based paranormal events, looks exactly like six pints of heavy and four packets of "Nobby's" dry roast peanuts.

As I staggered to my feet, a voice told me to "walk toward the light". So I did, and got run over by a passing moped. A passing moped with A HEADLESS RIDER, which had fallen through an apport from another parallel, ghostly dimension.

Then I was sick in a hedge.

It was while I was being sick in a hedge, ghostly orbs dancing in front of my eyes, that I came face-to-face what could only have been a LEOPARD. I could tell it was a leopard, despite the pink collar bearing the somewhat inaccurate name tag "Tiger", through my years of training as a lion tamer.

We all know that so-called Big Cat sightings go hand-in-hand with ghostly happenings (witness poor, dead Derek Acorah being carried away to his doom by a flock of lions in a recent episode of 'Ghost Towns'), so this was clearly 100 per cent of proof of my previous experiences.

If you want to add the Old Castle to your pub crawl serious scientific exploration of other-worldly phenomena, meet me in the public bar at 8 o'clock tonight. You're paying.

Your pal, Albert O'Balsam