Ghostwatch

Last night I was watching a documentary on TV called Ghosts in the Machine, which was about the depiction of ghosts and the supernatural on British TV. It was only an hour and so it was pretty condensed but it was really interesting. One of the things that it featured was this thing called Ghostwatch, which remains one of the most complained about shows ever on British TV. It purported to be a documentary about an investigation into a haunted suburban house, interspersed with segments in a studio where the presenters discussed the events in the house with experts and there was a hotline number for people to discuss their own supernatural experiences. Of course, by the end the ghost dramatically manifests itself. Ghostwatch was an entirely scripted drama, not a documentary that was made as a Halloween special in 1992. Of course, this was long before The Blair Witch Project and the whole fake documentary thing was pretty much unknown, and also it used well-known TV presenters playing themselves, and so a lot of people genuinely believed it was real and were absolutely terrified. To this date it has never been repeated. I watched it and I think it was the last scary thing that I have seen on TV or movies that genuinely frightened me, because at the time I didn't know what they were doing and I was kind of taken in by it. I can still remember it vividly after all this time.

I also started a new short story which is completely unrelated to the NaNoWriMo background that I've been working on. This one is about a small town fair which receives some sinister visitors. I'm hoping that when it's finished it will be kind of scary.

Today was pretty much the same as usual at work. Every day I just feel so relieved to get back home.