Had a lovely day yesterday! And what a view we had... from the Little Chef. Not just any Little Chef mind, this was the one featured on the Channel 4 documentaries Big Chef Takes On Little Chef in which top chef Heston Blumenthal was brought in to revitalise the ailing Little Chef chain of roadside restaurants.

You guessed it. We didn't make it up in any balloon, we didn't even make it to Glastonbury. Our first phone call to confirm if the launch was going ahead left us hopeful of a possible take off as the recorded message instructed us to call back an hour later. Winds were a little high at the launch site but there was an outside chance these would drop by the time we were due to launch. We were already on our way, so we stopped off at the aforementioned Little Chef to sample some Heston-inspired roadside grub. Lovely.

As soon as the recorded message an hour later began with the words "I'm sorry but..." we knew it wasn't to be fourth time lucky for us. We'd need to go re-book and try again a fifth time.

Oh well. Given we had a babysitter (thank you Sandra and Keith!) we thought we would still make the most of it. We continued to drive through the countryside and discovered a beautiful little town called Bradford-on-Avon not too far from Bath and found a fantastic B&B for the night. A lovely evening stroll in the evening sunshine before a spot of tapas. Who needs a hot-air balloon?

Fourth time lucky?

For Valentine's Day Rachel booked a balloon flight for us (aaahhh...).

That was Valentine's Day 2008 and we still haven't yet been up in a balloon! Not for want of trying... so far we have booked three times but the weather has stopped us from taking off. In fact, we have not even got so far as even seeing a balloon, as the procedure involves you calling a number two hours before going to the launch site to make sure the launch is going ahead. Each time we have been told by the recorded message that it is too windy and that we should re-book. Personally, I'm not convinced Mr Branson even owns any balloons! (What about the balloon in the picture on the right I hear you ask... two words: "photo" and "shop".)

Today will be our fourth attempt. I'm a little more hopeful as the weather over the past few days has been glorious (although today is a little cloudy), and now that we are 'dahn saaf' we are due to launch from near Glastonbury. Our previous attempts were up in the Lake District (beautiful scenery but balloon-unfriendly weather).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've heard that works.

Righteous Indignation

Ahead of Thursday's talk at the Merseyside Skeptics Society I was interviewed for this week's Righteous Indignation Podcast. The whole podcast lasts a little over an hour and includes plenty of discussion about the importance of critical thinking when it comes to making sense of the various claims that are often made about the paranormal and so on.

The interview with me is towards the end, and starts at around 45 minutes. And, no, I wasn't speaking from inside a metal box.

Skeptical Skousers

On Thursday this week, I will be returning to Liverpool to give a talk about the 'Million Dollar Psychic' project to the Merseyside Skeptics Society. In fact, it's my first public talk about the project so it's nice to be doing it in the city in which I have spent much of my adult life.

The talk begins at 8pm but earlier in the day I plan to try some psychometry. This, so the psychics tell us, where you try to pick up information about someone just from handling an object (like a ring, or a watch) that belongs to that person. I'm not making any claims about being able to do it but I need to practice at any opportunity I get!

The plan is to film my attempts and reveal how I got on as part of the talk in the evening. Nothing lik a little public scrutiny to help relax me...!

It's all happening at The Vines at 8pm on Thursday 15th April. More details here.

Are you brave enough?

Drove into London yesterday to see Ghost Stories at the Hammersmith Lyric. It was a frightening experience. Creepy, unnerving, gut-wrenching, and at times surreal. And that was just listening to Richard Madeley standing in for Simon Mayo on Radio 2 on the drive in.

The show itself was excellent. Lots of jump moments, and all brought together brilliantly. Highly recommended.

The man with the cash

A short clip of James Randi, he of the Million Dollar Challenge, courtesy of YouTube:



The clip dates from March 2008 and it is stated at the end that the challenge "...only lasts another couple of years." Fortunately (for me) the decision to withdraw the challenge in March 2010 was itself withdrawn last summer!

My Psychic Quotient

I'm currently reading Billy Roberts' 10-Step Psychic Development Programme. None-too-surprisingly, it's written by Billy Roberts (or Billy Roblets as Freya refers to him...). I met Billy for the first time a couple of weeks' ago even though he used to run a paranormal centre in Liverpool just a mile or so from the University I worked at for ten years!

I told Billy about my rather ambitious attempt to learn to become psychic (oh, and win a million dollars!) and he very kindly gave me a copy of his book on psychic development. How cool is that?

Towards the beginning of the book, in order to identify where you are on the psychic development path, your 'psychic quotient' so to speak, Billy very helpfully provides a quick test consisting of ten questions (another ten questions point to your psychic potential). I'm hoping he won't mind me copying them here so you, too, can discover your psychic quotient. All you need to do is answer 'yes' or 'no' to each question:

1. Do you feel an affinity with some people more than others?

2. Do you sometimes have strong feelings about imminent events, perhaps an inner voice telling you something is wrong?

3. Do you sometimes find yourself daydreaming in the middle of a conversation with someone, even though you are not bored?

4. Do you sometimes have vivid dreams about impending doom and disaster?

5. Do sweet or unusual fragrances sometimes remind you of someone who is dead?

6. Do you ever see images when staring at a carpet or curtains?

7. Do you sometimes think you can hear someone calling your name when you know you are alone in the house?

8. When lying in bed, do you ever feel pressure on top of the covers, as though someone were sitting on the end of the bed?

9. Have you experienced deja vu on more than one occasion?

10. When drifting off to sleep, do you see small faces passing quickly in front of you?

How many did you say 'yes' to? According to Billy, if you said 'yes' to between seven and ten of the questions above then you already have developed psychic abilities! I only said 'yes' to four of the questions, but that just means my psychic abilities simply need a little encouragement. Even if you found yourself saying 'yes' to just three or less of the questions, there is still hope... with patience and determination you'll still meet your psychic potential!

That million dollars is mine for the taking...

Spooks on stage

I am soooo looking forward to this... Rachel surprised me with tickets for Ghost Stories at the Lyric next month. Here's the trailer:

Still here (just)

Nearly another month has passed since I took it upon myself to record some thoughts here! My only excuse is that we have moved house again, and for much of that time we have been without broadband. And the only reason we have access to the interweb now is because we can get our neighbours' wi-fi signal!

Anyway, will try and get back in the habit of jotting some not so random thoughts down here once in a while.

Bored? Try this

I recently finished (and thoroughly enjoyed) Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure. A ‘Googlewhack’ is where you enter two words into Google and the search results consist of a single web page. That is, where you might normally see several thousand, or even several million, hits for your search terms, a Googlewhack shows just one hit.

Dave Gorman’s adventure begins when he learns that he, himself, is a Googlewhack. At the time, Gorman’s website was the only one in the world to include the words ‘francophile’ and ‘namesakes’. The book tells the story of what happens when, instead of writing the novel he was supposed to be writing, Gorman is challenged to see if he can find ten Googlewhacks in a row. It’s a great read, and the ultimate lesson in procrastination!

I imagine like many readers of the book, once I’d finished it I was curious to see if I could find my own Googlewhack. The idea is to choose two unusual words that shouldn't really have anything to do with each other. My first attempt, 'hasselhoff infinity' is rubbish. 58,500 hits. Also I realise it wouldn't even qualify as the two words are supposed to be words that would appear in dictionary.com. (Hasselhoff wouldn't qualify, unless it is there as a word that means coiffured tit.*) My second attempt, 'tenterhooks felines', fairs a little better but with 24,800 hits it is still a long way off. 'Tenterhooks drummerboy' does better with only 563 hits!... 'Primaeval hotelier' 991 hits... 'Primaeval tenterhooks' 381 hits... 'paraphimosis tenterhooks' 161 hits. By this time I'm getting a little weary and I wince when I discover what paraphimosis means. So I stop.

My difficulty in being able to find even one Googlewhack makes Gorman's challenge all the more impressive. I'll let you know if I ever actually discover one!

*'coiffured tit': 266,000 hits.

Just discovered

Am I going gaga?

That is the question I have been asking myself ever since receiving an email from the man who runs a website called BadPsychics.

As its name suggests, BadPsychics is largely dedicated to exposing ‘psychics’ and ‘mediums’ as nothing more than frauds and conmen (or conwomen); or at the very least as individuals who are deluded into thinking they might have paranormal abilities. The website also hosts a collection of forums on which members debate (or perhaps debunk) the latest psychic to grace our television screens.

The email was to inform me that someone had posted to one of the forums asking if Dr Matthew Smith had gone gaga as they had read that I had been quoted as describing a particular medium as ‘one of the most impressive mediums I have seen’.

You might wonder why anyone would care if I had gone gaga. Well it all stemmed from the fact that the good folks at BadPsychics knew me as a voice for the ‘sceptical community’ through my involvement on a TV show called Most Haunted. My role, as a psychologist and parapsychologist, was to put forward alternative explanations for apparently paranormal occurrences that took place during an investigation of an allegedly haunted location. As far as this programme was concerned, I was the ‘voice of reason’ who did not believe in ghosts and was there to ensure that the rational explanation for any apparently ghostly phenomena was heard.

So to be quoted as describing a medium as one of the most impressive I’d seen clearly raised a few eyebrows. But being sceptical doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, rule out being open to apparently paranormal phenomena. It is more to do with having a questioning approach to unusual and extraordinary claims.

Mediums claim to communicate with spirits of the dead. By anyone’s account, this is quite a remarkable claim and so it is reasonable to be sceptical. But I am also intrigued. Many mediums give messages that are rather vague and likely to apply to quite a few people, and so they do not provide compelling evidence that they really are receiving messages from the dead.

However, on the several occasions I’ve seen this particular medium perform, he has given messages that seem to contain both accurate and specific details such as names (first and last), dates, even addresses. He has even been known to provide such information under conditions that seem to rule out some of the more obvious non-paranormal explanations like cold-reading. So, yes, I am happy to be quoted as regarding this medium as one of the most impressive mediums I have seen.

The question I am now asking myself is, how does he do it? Is he really communicating with spirits of the dead? Is he drawing upon some other as yet unexplained power of the mind like telepathy? Or is there some other non-paranormal explanation for his apparent abilities?

These are the really interesting questions to ask. And sceptics should ask questions – they should seek to find answers – not make assumptions.

This article was originally published in Paranormal Magazine in October 2009. It is reprinted here with permission.

Normal service has been resumed...

It seems that Phil'n'FernGate has been resolved. It wasn't meant to be a puzzle or a fiendish psychological experiment. Just one of those little things... when I woke up that morning I didn't imagine that a few hours later I'd be posting letters to Sir Phil and Dame Fern (I know they're not, but they should be...).

Sorry to have kept you in suspense by not moving on with fresh and witty posts (yeah, right) to distract you from Lord Phil and Lady Fern. A technical hitch meant that for the past few days I wasn't able to log in to blogger. Normal service has now been resumed (as in you may or may not see a blog post appear from time to time...)

Phil 'n' Fern

Today I posted two letters. One to Philip Schofield. The other to Fern Britton. Not sure how that happened.

Going South

The sound of broken glass being shoveled into a bin is not the sound you really want to hear at the end of a house move.

Saturday saw us move from the North (well, Knutsford... "posh North") to the South (where they're all posh aren't they?). All seemed to be going well, right up to the point where I pulled out one of the bookcases that half a second later I remembered was propping up seven or eight framed pictures. It was the huge great crash of glass splintering that reminded me of this fact.

As it turned out, it sounded worse than it was. It was the glass in only two of the pictures that had smashed. I'm learning to always look for the positives.

Some people...

A few posts back I mentioned a recently published book on Anomalous Experiences what I edited. A fairly descriptive review of the book can be found here.

All very well, but he doesn't even mention the index once.

eBay 'eck!

It started with a singing bear. Not just any singing bear. This was Bear. From The Big Blue House. Freya is a bit of a fan of Bear. So, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Rachel discovered a singing Bear for sale on eBay. At £6, it was a bargain. However, by the time it arrived through the post, we figured Freya would prefer a non-singing version (fickle I know). So Rachel re-advertised the singing Bear on eBay. A few days later and it was sold. For more than double what she paid for it!

With dollar signs in our eyes, we looked round to see if there was anything else we could sell on eBay. Our eyes fell on Freya's old pushchair. Although, of course, it's not just a pushchair is it? It's a pushchair-pram-car-seat combination. Limited edition no less. We had been meaning to sell it for some time, but hadn't got round to it. But buoyed by the success of the singing Bear, I gave it a thorough clean and took a few photos. Rachel did the technical bit of putting the listing on eBay, as I must admit to being an eBay virgin (as in I have never used eBay not that you can bid for my, ahem... well, you knew what I meant). Before you could say, "pushchair combo up for sale," the pushchair combo was up for sale! The auction would last for seven days. We would have to wait and see if anyone would actually bid for it.

Before long, there was an opening bid of £100. Not bad! We would have been happy with that, but there was soon a second bid of £105. Bidder 1 quickly responded with a return, and frankly unusual, bid of £129.99! As far as I understand how eBay works, each subsequent bid is supposed to go up by a certain minimum amount (e.g., £5), but you can put in 'automatic' bids so that if another bidder bids higher than your first bid, it will revert to your automatic bid, if it's higher than the second person's bid (are you following this?). Bidder 2 must have done this because his or her next bid was just a penny more at £130. Bidder 1 must have done the same, as it then jumped to £132. Meanwhile, a third bidder (let's call them bidder 3) had been watching this and upped the ante with a bid of £150!

Things were now hotting up. It was obviously too rich for bidder 2. But bidder 1 was having none of it. He/she hit back with a bid of £165.99. But it was to be short-lived. A few hours later, bidder 3 jumped to £190. Rachel and I just watched as the bids rose. We were just pleased that anyone wanted to buy the pushchair!

Things went quiet for a few days. Rachel assured me this was typical. If there were to be any more bids, they would be just before the bidding deadline, so we didn't expect any more movement for a couple of days. Even if there were no more bids, £190 would have been a good selling price!

As the final hour of the auction approached, we kept an eye on eBay just in case there were any more bids. As Rachel had predicted interest returned. A brand new bidder who we'll call, for the sake of consistency, bidder 4, pitched in with £195. But bidder 4 hadn't appreciated that bidder 1 had been in this from the very beginning (although the name 'bidder 1' in the bidding history may have given it away), and wasn't going to let this Johnny Come Lately (not his real name) steal the glory. Bidder 1 offered £200.

All remained quiet as the final minutes of the auction ticked by. There was less than a minute left when bidder 4 upped the stakes with a bid of £235! But bidder 1 didn't want to lose this. They offered £240. But with seconds to go a bid of £261 from bidder 4. Surely that was it.

5... 4... 3... 2... £266! Sold. To bidder 1.

Exciting stuff this eBaying! Now, what else can we sell?

The iPad

Already got an iPod and an iPhone? Next thing you'll want is an iPad, launched today. Although it's bigger than an iPhone, I don't think it's quite as big as it appears in this clip.

In it to win it

I'm not a regular buyer of lottery tickets. But I bought one this week, just in case my new found psychic skills were able to determine this week's lottery numbers.

Of course, prior to tonight's draw, Rachel and I had had the obligatory conversation about what we'd do with the money if we won. Tonight was a £7 million rollover, so around £3-4 million would go to charity, up to a million on a nice new house, and the rest in gifts, etc. We had it all worked out.

I won't beat around the bush. We didn't win. Not even £10. Two numbers came up. But I suppose my chances of winning the lottery are even lower than winning James Randi's million dollar challenge!

From flukey to spooky!

Things got even weirder today. I tried my hand at psychometry, which is where you try to pick up information 'psychically' from just holding an object that belongs to someone. I had four objects to pick from: A stone, two finger-rings, and a watch. I picked up the stone to see if I could 'sense' anything using my new found psychic skills (!)

It was smooth and just felt cold to the touch, but with a little questioning from my 'tutor' I eventually said it made me think of Brighton beach and I could imagine it being picked from the beach by a young girl (the stone had child-like patterns painted on its surface). When asked to suggest which decade it was picked from the beach, I immediately came back with the 1970s, as that would have been when I was a young child. It turned out the stone was indeed from Brighton beach, and was picked up from the beach by a child (a boy, not a girl) in 1972! Not a bad start, eh?

Even more bizarrely, a little later on, when I was recapping on what I had done I jokingly made out that I had really known that it was a boy who had picked it up and, yes, I sensed it was in 1972.

"...And his name was Michael," I joked.

"No, his name wasn't Michael, but that's his father's name and he's the one who gave me the stone," my tutor told me.

"...Joseph," I quickly added.

"Yes, Joseph is his middle name. Michael Joseph!"