Living

...unlike many channels on Sky, Living tends to cater for a wide variety of tastes. I must admit, I may not be the best qualified person to write about this channel because I do rarely watch it, more on that later.

Some of the most popular shows include:

Most Haunted,
Scream Team,
6th Sense – with Colin Fry,
Charmed,
Crime Scene Investigation,
Will and Grace,
What Men Want,
...out there you’ll remember that Living TV launched auditions for a team of people to spend the summer investigating paranormal occurrences throughout the UK. I nearly applied myself and now really wish I had done! The auditions looked like great fun (well apart from the bucket test). They asked the final 10 to come into a room on their own where they were given a bucket. They had the bucket on their knee and a towel placed over the top of it. ... more

Having had Sky for quite a few years now I have come to recognise that some channels are worth tuning in to while others are a load of doggie do-do’s! You must admit, most of the channels offered by Sky are the latter. Of course they all appeal to someone out there but not everyone is into the God Channel are they?

Well, unlike many channels on Sky, Living tends to cater for a wide variety of tastes. I must admit, I may not be the best qualified person to write about this channel because I do rarely watch it, more on that later.

Some of the most popular shows include:

Most Haunted,
Scream Team,
6th Sense – with Colin Fry,
Charmed,
Crime Scene Investigation,
Will and Grace,
What Men Want,
and Dreammakers

Check out: http://www.livingtv.co.uk/ for more information.

The only reason I’m writing an opinion about this channel is because I wanted to tell you all about the programmes I watch on it, but ciao don’t have them listed individually.

So, what are these programmes?

Right well I’ll cover them in alphabetical order (don’t worry, there’s only two, see, I did say I’m not the best person to write about the channel as a whole!)….

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Programme #1
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~ Most Haunted ~

This programme is (was?) my favourite programme (well, it came an equal first with Vets In Practice!).
This programme was, as you may have guessed, about haunted locations around the UK. The team would go around and spend a night in Britain’s most haunted locations with cameras, EMF metres, etc.
The team consisted of Yvette Fielding, the presenter, Dr. Jason Karl, the parapsychologist and Derek Acorah, the psychic medium).

What was interesting about this programme was that they didn’t just limit themselves to haunted houses/castles/the usual places associated with ghosts. Some of the more unusual places included:
Blackpool Ghost Train (it really is haunted), Aldwych Station, Theatre Royal and Souter Lighthouse.

For a map of all the places they visited check out:
http://www.derekacorah.org/mhmain.shtml
There’s also a message board on here and plenty of information on his general site, www.derekacorah.org about many aspects of the paranormal.

Or check out:
www.livingtv.co.uk/mosthaunted
You have to register though for that website – registering is free, straight forward and well worth it.

I can’t mention all of the programmes (in total they covered 16 locations) however I will mention some of my favourites/most interesting parts.

Theatre Royal:

There is supposedly a ghost who haunts the theatre, many people (both staff and visitors) have seen strange things and/or felt/heard/sensed something.
Many of the crew (including Yvette) saw a pair of legs by a stair case, there was no body attached, it was just a pair of legs! One thing they did catch on camera though was a chair in the theatre. Not just any old chair though, oh no. One of the crew was sat on this chair (you know them chairs that automatically pop back up when you get up like in cinema’s?), they got up and left and then the next time they look this chair is in its down position just as if there was someone sat in it. There were EMF fluctuations around that area when they went up to it with their EMF metres. Also, on close inspection the material looked like it had a dip in it just as you’d expect if someone was sitting in it.
Having watched most of these programmes with my mum present in the room I got a great sceptic view of it all too. Like she said, they could easily have rigged the chair to stay down, true, I admit that. Also, like she said, the theatre would be so old the material would be naturally stretched through wear and so would always appear like it had someone sitting on it. She couldn’t explain the EMF fluctuations though.

Aldwych Station:

For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is an underground train station (the part they stayed in was disused).
One particular ghost had been seen numerous times crossing one particular part of the track. They set up a laser detection system (like what’s used in home alarm systems) across this particular part of the track. It was set up to be about 1m from the ground. A couple of hours passed and then all of a sudden they alarm sounded which meant something must have passed through the beam. Being 1m high it couldn’t have been a rat. Like my mum said though, one of the crew could have done it (deliberately or not) or a bat might have flown through the beam (the changes of that must be slim though, even you sceptics must admit that!).

Derby Gaol:

This was a very interesting programme. Jason (the parapsychologist) set up a wooden crucifix on a table top, he put it on top of a piece of paper and drew around the edge. They left the room and during the night they caught the cross moving on the camera they set up to watch it. This was firm evidence until they pointed out that the bottom edge of the paper couldn’t be seen on camera meaning they could have pulled the paper slightly in order to jolt the crucifix out of place. I do agree that they might have done this but then when you watch the evidence again, you see the paper rising up in a strange way (sort of as if its being blown from underneath, not quite though because it rises more slowly than it would do if you blew underneath it).

On all of the programmes they caught orbs on camera. I find this very interesting because orbs were all over the place in some locations. Also it seemed that when they were caught on camera, the machinery tended to fail (and EMF readings were seen). I do admit that it would have been easy for them to fake many of the things caught on camera and many of the things the crew saw, heard (and of course sensed) were not caught on camera. Also, to make the programme more edgy (fun to watch?) Yvette was sent off to spend the night on her own in some rooms or she’d be sent off for as long as she could cope to sit in a certain room. This did add to the programmes scare factor but it really didn’t help those of us who are really into the paranormal because, although she is a good presenter, she tended to be so scared (which I can fully understand) that she either screamed all the time, cried all the time or spent about 2 minutes there and then legged it in the opposite direction!

Derek (the medium) came up with plenty of facts that were later found to be true and some that still haven’t been proven. He gets his information from his spirit guide, Sam, sometimes he couldn’t get a full name and so trying to verify someone called Elizabeth (for example), isn’t the easiest of tasks! Of course he could have done a web search for the places first and memorised the facts associated with that location before arriving. We were told that he had no idea of the places he was being taken to from week to week though, its down to whether or not you believe them though.

At one of the locations, Leap Castle, they captured one of the best images of a spirit:

http://www.derekacorah.org/leap.shtml

All in all this programme gets an 8/10. Worthy of 10/10 if only they’d caught that cross moving on with all 4 edges of the paper visible on camera.

Most Haunted had a special programme on Halloween from 8:55pm - 1am too which I just had to watch. It came live from Dudley Castle, it was the first ever live and interactive ghost hunt in the world apparently too. There were 4 webcams set up so you could watch them live off the net (unfortunately the quality was dire though), you could then email them telling them what you’d seen in which room. They then analysed the tapes, check the time you saw it and then would announce it on the programme if something had been seen. One funny part involved “lots of people have been emailing us about a lady kneeling down…. we’ve checked the times and this lady was one of our sound people”!! Lol, oh well, at least it proved the webcams worked!
There were quite a few orbs caught on camera and also a strange shadow walking past an archway, even my mum couldn’t think of an explanation for that because to cause a shadow like the one in question you’d have seen someone walk past the archway if they were faking it. Of course it could have been done on a computer but we won’t go there.

I really do hopethat they make another series (and practically everyone on the message board agrees with me). At the very least they need to make an episode to collaborate all the evidence found (after checking the times!) on Halloween, I’d love to see what was caught on their camera’s and what people watching on the webcams saw during the night.

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Programme #2
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~ Scream Team ~

http://www.livingtv.co.uk/screamteam/index.htm

This programme is currently being shown on Tuesdays at 9pm-10pm. (Its also repeated on Sundays at the same time I believe).

For any Most Haunted fans out there you’ll remember that Living TV launched auditions for a team of people to spend the summer investigating paranormal occurrences throughout the UK. I nearly applied myself and now really wish I had done! The auditions looked like great fun (well apart from the bucket test). They asked the final 10 to come into a room on their own where they were given a bucket. They had the bucket on their knee and a towel placed over the top of it. They were then told to put their hands into the bucket without looking. All sorts of yucky things pass through your mind don’t they? Namely the things featured on “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!”. I wouldn’t mind doing that just so long as I knew it wasn’t a spider lurking in the bottom of the bucket! It was nothing of the sort (it was just a bit of jelly or a sponge) but this test was great for testing those who risk it and give it a go despite being terrified and those who chicken out.

Anyway, the final 5 were picked to travel around in ‘the silver bullet’ (a silver bus in other words!). The great thing about this programme is that they look at ALL aspects of the paranormal, not just hauntings involving ghosts and poltergeists. They are given a two day task in an envelope and left to get on with it. They meet up with locals of the area and people involved in the case (e.g. eye witnesses).

So far they’ve investigated things such as:

~ Alien abduction ~

This involved a man from Todmorden, Lancashire, who used to live next door to my mum! He was a police man and was driving back one night over the moors where he saw a strange light. He doesn’t really remember being abducted as such but he was hypnotically regressed for this programme (he’d not been hypnotically regressed since the initial occurrence about 25 or so years ago). He came out with all sorts of tales about being in a round room surrounded by bright white light while being prodded and poked by beings about 1 metre tall with strange eyes and hands.
The hypnotist said that it was very, very unlikely that he was faking it because it really is difficult to fake being in a truly hypnotic state (which he was in). The things he comes out with while hypnotised are the same as what he came out with all those years again too.

~ Big cat case? ~

This was on last week and involved a case of a wallaby at a rescue centre being found with its head and one of its forelegs ripped off. There was barely any blood found at the scene and the body itself had been drained of blood. Many other wallaby’s seem to have been victims of this sort of case across the UK too. The team investigated whether or not the wallaby had been attacked by a big cat (or similar) or had fallen victim to Satanists (or just general weirdo’s who like to do this to animals).
Other animals have been found with organs missing and all their blood drained even when there is no sign of entry.
The team witnessed a post-mortem on the wallaby (it’s a good job we don’t have smell-o-vision!) and the vet came to the conclusion that it was people who had done this to the poor creature. It had lost its leg when it attempted to hide its head away from the thugs doing it to it. The cuts were too clean-cut for a big cat (or similar) to have done it to it.

~ Blair Witch? ~

The first ever episode involved the team spending a time in a woods which hosted the work of occultists. They wanted to see if anything happened while they spent the night there camping. (The camp nearly everywhere, even when investigating somewhere that has a spare few rooms they seem to camp outside!). Anyway, back to this specific episode. There were lots of ribbons and twigs fastened to tree’s (just like in the Blair Witch film). Branches were bent and placed in the soil to form a sort of tunnel associated with the works of occultists. Many of the locals had experienced strange things in the area (including people going missing [a local vicar went missing and was found many years later in the woods], dogs behaved strangely when out on a walk around there, they tend to go missing too when they’re let off their leads).

There’s been loads of programmes, far too many to mention one by one. They really do cover all sorts though, not just ghosts.

This coming Tuesday (the 12th) they are spending a night investigating Robin Hoods grave. It is said that he is buried in Kirklees graveyard, near Brighouse, West Yorkshire.
http://www.mysterymag.com/html/the_haunting_of_robin_hood.html

On Saturday (the 9th) I visited my sister (it was my nephews 5th birthday) who lives in Brighouse. I enquired as to exactly where the grave was and so her boyfriend decided he’d take me. I think this is a good time to mention another aspect of these hauntings. There is reported vampire activity around this area too (don’t laugh, look at the evidence before you all roll around laughing ok?):
http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/The%20Kirklees%20Vampire.htm

http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Noticeboard.htm

http://www.mysterymag.com/html/uk_vampires.html

(Yes, I am of sound mind and disposition before you all think I’ve gone loony!)

Anyway, so he decided to take me to this grave (its on private land so we had to go when it was dark, great!), its by this wood over this hill, it seems miles from the nearest road.
Needless to say I’d armed myself with two cloves of garlic from my sisters kitchen and a necklace with a cross on (you can never be too prepared!). Sadly (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I didn’t see anything. I’d love to spend a few hours there though with a digital camera and a night camera. Oh well, maybe one day I’ll get to investigate it properly.

I can’t wait for Tuesday’s episode now! Don’t forget to tune in, 9pm on Tuesday!

This series gets a 9/10 (I like the fact that they cover all different aspects of the paranormal rather than just focusing on ghosts).
 

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