Derren has announced his spring tour 2005. This is a new show, and if it’s half as good as the last one it will be brilliant. Tickets are guaranteed to sell out fast, so book ‘em quick. See Derren’s site for more details.

Today my little girl is 2 years old.
Happy Birthday to you.
She’s really enjoyed it so far - she loves her babies new crib and the doll Billy got her (it has real hair - as Billy keeps reminding us). Both sets of Grandparents are set to join us later - so the day should prove busy.

Things that happened on 19 November:

1600: Charles I, who believed the king ruled by divine right, but lost his head after the Civil War, was born in Fife.
1620: The Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with the first pioneer settlers.
1828: Franz Schubert, Austrian composer, died in Vienna of typhus, aged 31. His last words were: �Here, here is my end.�
1863: Abraham Lincoln made his famous Gettysburg address, with his freedom cry: �Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.�
1942: The Russians counter-attacked at Stalingrad and surrounded the German army.
1949: Prince Rainier III was sworn in as the 30th ruling Prince of Monaco.
1960: The first vertical take-off aircraft (VTOL) made by the British Hawker Siddeley company was flown for the first time.
1984: More than 500 people died and 10,000 homes were destroyed in an explosion at a chemicals factory in Mexico City.
1988: �Poor little rich girl� Christina Onassis, daughter of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle, died from a heart attack, aged just 37.
1990: Nato and Warsaw Pact members ended the �Cold War� by signing a weapons treaty in Paris.

Just discovered this brilliant site that has retro case mods. This is basically people putting mini-itx boards into old computers and other ancient technology. No surprise to anyone are my favourites:

Project Anemone modding an old 1940’s Bush bakelite radio.



Atari 2600 modding an Atari 2600 ‘Woody’ including a SlimDVD drive.



I just love them.

The Clitheroe Advertiser and Times has a good article/review on the most recent Most Haunted Live at Pendle Hill.

Apparently “Millions of people tuned in with the final hour of the Hallowe’en show being the most watched programme in the whole of the UK”.

Wow. I’m not suprised at the viewing figures it was very entertaining TV. And to their question: “Do you believe now?” my response is “No”.

Atari is selling a product called Atari Flashback. It’s an all in one games console complete with 7800 style joysticks. Each console contains 15 Atari 2600 games and 5 Atari 7800 games. I think it’s a real shame that they didn’t make it look like a classic 2600 “woody” and I think they could have been a bit more generous with the number of games.

Bush has won.

I have two questions for America:
How?
Why?

Boing Boing compares this to Nixon winning his second term. Let’s hope the result is the same. The article also quotes the following: “Bill Hicks once told a story about an American friend of his who complained about the USA. When told, “well, if you don’t like it then move somewhere else” the friend’s reply would be, “What? And become a victim of our foreign policy?”

You’ve got to wonder which country is next on his list. The whole thing makes me very nervous.

What a weekend it has been for Most Haunted Live at Pendle Hill Lancashire.

According to the Lancashire Tourism Partnership “History and legend has woven a spell over Pendle. Pendle Hill rises above this ancient hunting ground, once the home of wolves and wild boar and to this day dotted with tiny hamlets and farms. It is still an untamed place, full of mystery and infamous as the home of the Pendle Witches who were tried and executed for witchcraft in 1612.”.

So far (and there is another edition tonight at 9pm on Living TV and I can’t wait) Derek Acorah and the crew have excelled themselves. Here are some of the highlight that made me laugh.

Derek Acorah saw the ghost of an alien; in fact not just any alien, a ‘grey’. This was pointed out solemnly by the other medium back in the studio. When asked what he thought of Derek’s revelation, this other medium said that he thought it was “brave” of Derek to mention this. For “brave” read “he’s really pushing is luck now”. This is on a par from the time he ranted on about seeing subterranians in a london Tube Station.

Richard Felix was “really impressed” (isn’t he always) by Dereks revelation that Elizabeth Southerns was also known as Demdike; particularly as this information is hard to find. Yes it sure is. Took me 10 minutes to find this site that says “Elizabeth Southerns, alias Demdike, died in Lancaster Gaol awaiting trial…” I guess its harder to find this in his dusty old books.

Derek Acorah got possessed about three times by different witches. When Matthew Smith (resident sceptic) was asked what he thought of Derek’s possessions he said “One interpretation could be that he was just play-acting”. This was followed by boos and much eye rolling from the other medium”.

The show ended with a bit of table tipping and a seance with an upturned glass. The glass was whizzing around the table apparently being moved by the Wicked Witch Elizabeth Southerns (or perhaps Derek, or producer Karl). Then suddenly the cast started dropping like flies. First one of the sound crew thought he was being strangled, then Stuart (Paula’s favorite) got strangled and collapsed. Then the makeup girl and finally we lost all footage as the camera man was attacked. This really reminded me of GhostWatch which was a spoof haunted show broadcast in 1992. I have no idea what was going on but it was great TV. Maybe they are trying to get some publicity so they can be moved to a real tv station?

Roll on tonights installment, I’m sure it will be great. I’m having a sweepstake on how many times Derek will get possessed.