It was supposed to be real, but how real is it when the
paranormal investigators capture the ghosts clear as day and in living Technicolor
on their camcorders? It doesn’t happen, does it? If it did, nobody would be
able to say ‘I don’t believe in ghosts’ ever again.
The best bit for me was when the man from the local church
was called in to perform an exorcism. He was bald and 6ft 10” of pure blubber. In
true man-from-the-church fashion, he reassured the benighted mother that she
wasn’t going crazy, and called her Debbie with that simpering tone of voice that
makes you want to vomit. At that point I found myself changing sides and
wishing the ghosts would bounce him down the stairs. They didn’t, but neither
did they leave. I like it when that happens.
The bad bit for me was that the whole thing was set in Pennsylvania. I like Pennsylvania. It has
warm and scintillating associations. Arguably the biggest sparkle my life has
ever known comes from Pennsylvania.
Why not South Dakota, which is the only American state that has never visited
this blog?
To conclude, Debbie put the house up for sale. ‘Until the
house is sold,’ intoned the narrator gravely, ‘Debbie lives in constant fear of
the unknown.’ Don’t we all?
* * *
I hear the Republicans are now running America and
want a return to the good old days when poor people got the health services
they deserve. We’ll take the better ones of you Yankees back if it all gets too much.
* * *
And since I’m nothing if not disjointed these days, I might
just mention an old injustice. When I was a kid and my parents went out on a cold
winter’s night, my mother would instruct me to switch on their electric blanket
at 10 o’clock. Sometimes I forgot, and then I would feel terribly guilty. Why
should I have felt guilty? I didn’t even have
an electric blanket. That didn't occur to me at the time, but now it's simmering.
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