Hello listeners. Welcome back to Luke's English podcast. Do you like ghosts? Do you like chocolate? Yes. Everyone likes ghosts and chocolate, don't they? Well, I think so. Especially the chocolate. I'm not sure about the ghost. I'm not. Yeah. But we love ghost stories. It's nice to eat chocolate and listen to a ghost story.

Oh, yes. At the same time. So, if you like ghosts, at least hearing people talking about them. And if you like chocolate, then this episode is for you. Uh today I'm joined by Anna Brookke who is a returning guest. Third time on the podcast. Is it third time? Third time. Third time lucky. That's right. The other two were lucky too. Yeah, they went down well. Triple whammy of luckiness. Yes, absolutely. Welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you. It's a pleasure. How are you doing today? Very well. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Sun is shining. It's beautiful Parisian day today, isn't it? It's fantastic. Um, so let me just before we continue and talk about um books, uh, chocolate, ghosts, the paranormal. Yeah. I can't wait to hear more about the things you talked about last time. Actually, uh, so listeners, just a reminder, Anna is an author, a writer of children's books. That's right. I brought some with me. Do

you want me to show them to the camera? She's got loads of books here. Here I'm going to do my little self publish uh publishing advertising. Help little dicky birds. Two little dicky birds. Picture books. So these are these So Anna has just held up two books. This I'm talking to the audio listeners here who can't see things. So these are two books that you've written since and had published since the last time you were on this podcast, I think. Uh probably. Yeah. I would think so. Can I just talk about these two?

Yeah. My son loves this. Uh I don't know if we maybe hasn't got that one. Maybe we haven't got that one. But uh these are the two books I'm looking at the moment. One is called Two Little Dicky Birds. The other one is called Help. And they're for little ones. Yeah. Like 2 to six. Two to six years old. And then previously you talked about your two other books which are for a slightly higher age group. Monster Bogey, Monster Stink, which are for sort of 7 to 11s and they're kind of rockous comedies about bogey monsters. monsters with lots of snot and sticky gooey stuff and music. Lots of a few QR codes to listen to the original music

from the books. Yeah, that was Monster Bogey. We talked about bogeies and stuff that comes out of your nose. Yeah, that's right. The stuff you don't learn in the course books and also Monster Stink, which is this. Is it the sequel? It's the sequel. And we talked about farts and had a great time talking about farts. Um, and actually I wanted to read out one comment that I got that we got uh following the last episode. This is from Elijal.

Mhm. Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. Uh, and it said this. I'm a really experienced listener of your podcast and the conversation you had with Anna impressed me so much that I thought if almost all the episodes were similar to this and then the thought is not completed. Yes. So it's just if all the episodes were similar to this. Yes. That would be amazing. Yeah. And then please invite Anna again because her energy is incredible. The dialogue you've established together is incredible. I loved it. and thank you for showing it to us. In addition, of

course, I want to read her books as soon as possible. Wow, what a lovely comment. Thank you. That's really nice to know. That's made my day, actually. Thanks. So, Monster Stink, Monster Bogey, help uh Two Little Dicky Birds, all written by Anna Brookke. And the new book, which is out, only just out in time for Easter, but it will do for the whole year. It's called Death by Chocolate and it's about a girl called Cocoa Bean whose parents have moved from England to buy a tumble down house uh a tumble down hotel actually in the south of France and Koko doesn't want to go and she especially doesn't want to be there when she discovers that it's it's um it's haunted by Mus from

who is a ghost chocolatier who met a sticky end and uh and they and He she has to solve his murder in order to help him move on. And in exchange, she gives her chocolate recipes. So, wait a minute. He is a ghost chocolatier who met a sticky end. You did, right? I've got a couple of things to explain there. Yeah. A chocolatier. So, it's a chocolate maker. A chocolatier. It's come from comes from the French word. I suppose in England sometimes we say chocolier now, don't we?

I guess so. But, uh it's um if you want to do it properly, it's chocolatier. Yeah. Chocolatier. Okay. And he met a sticky end. Yes, that's a nice phrase. Yeah. So, it's sort of a play on words cuz of course chocolate's sticky, isn't it? But to meet a sticky end means to die in a in an unpleasant way usually, isn't it? Yeah. Like sort of Yeah. Maybe you're murdered. You often perhaps inexplicably there's kind of a an air of mystery. Often there's an accident.

An accident. Yeah. An accident or uh a bad death in some way. So often like a bad guy in a movie would meet a sticky end. I'm trying to think of good examples. Like for example, the Emperor in Star Wars. Uh spoiler alert. I don't know if you've ever seen Return of the Jedi, but he meets a sticky end. Yeah, he Yeah, he meets a sticky end. I mean, it's not technically sticky cuz he falls down a big hole. But isn't there I mean I suppose by the time his body splatters, it would all be sticky.

I think he sort of vaporizes. I think he vaporizes. Maybe there's like a moment in the vaporization that gets through like a state of stickiness before it evaporates. I suppose so. I imagine in I'm imagining a lot of snot boiling out of his nose obviously and then he would probably poo his pants, you know, and so he met a sticky Yeah, he probably met a sticky end before he was vaporized. But anyway, this chocolate ch how do you say it again? Chocolatio. Chocolatier. Chocolier. Yeah. Chocolatier. Okay.

He's French. He's a chocolatier. Yeah. And he's French in the story. He's French. Yeah, he's French. Mure fumb which means Mr. Raspberry. Yes. Yeah. Can you reveal any details? How did he meet his sticky end? I can't reveal that cuz that's the investigation in the book. I see. So, um yeah, they have to try and work out how he was murdered because he can't remember he's he can't remember how he died, which is of great frustration to him.

I see. Should I put the book behind here so you can see it? It's called Death by Chocolate uh by Anna Brookke. Available now from all good bookshops and probably bad bookshops as well. Yes. Um all sorts of bookshops. Okay. Right. So uh what was your inspiration for writing a book about a ghostly chocolatier? Right. So well, who doesn't like chocolate? Um I don't know. Ghosts. Well, you know, he particularly likes chocolate. So, so um I will go straight into it. So, one of the main things that inspired me for the character of Musu

Fois, what were ghostly happenings in our apartment. Yeah. So, which is which I touched upon on a previous podcast and which I think is part of um of what your listener was saying that she'd liked or he'd liked. Yeah. cuz we went into some detail actually about your paranormal experiences at home. We probably need to um you know do a summary of the story so far. Yeah. Can you give us the summary? So basically about six years ago um we heard people doing some building work in the building. We don't know whether it was in our building or in next door's building cuz in Paris all the

apartments communicate. So, you never really know where the sound's coming from exactly. And then, strangely, we started hearing children's footsteps running in the corridor upstairs, but there were no children living upstairs. And it went on for a long time. And we started making jokes about it cuz it was always like at 10:00 at night and we're like, "Oh, they've let the children out." Um, but um but any there was no one there. And so we started asking around on to our neighbors whether they could hear children running as well. And several of the neighbors were like, "Yeah, we can hear it in the apartment above us." And they were on the we're on the third floor, they were on the fourth

floor. And um and they thought it was weird because there was no one in the apartment on the fifth floor. And it was really like the pitterpatter of little children's footsteps. there's this particular pitter patter to it, particular sound to it and um that you can't it's not a dog, it's not a cat. They didn't have a dog or a cat anyway upstairs. So, we asked our neighbor downstairs whether she had heard footsteps and she said that she thought it was our son who at the time was a kind of two and a half, three, so he had the right kind of pitter patter which is the sound of children. Yeah. Running. and um and that she thought it was a hymn until

we went away for the weekend and she still heard it in our apartment. So that was sort of kind of almost like just an anecdote. It didn't really affect us particularly. I found it mysterious, quite interesting because I thought, well, you know, is it something spooky? But there was no bad there were no bad vibes. And then during lockdown uh so that was 2020 when the co um pandemic came um we were in our flat all the time and we could still hear this pa patter and one night and our son would move from the bedroom to our bed and so one night we were woken up by the sound of him running down the corridor and we had a desk in the corridor with a chair. The

chair was whacked and moved and my husband woke up and jumped out of bed and said, "Is everything all right?" But our son was in bed fast asleep. Wow. So, so he hadn't been running down the corridor. Yeah. So, that was very odd. And then also our son, he would say that he'd seen a child walking past the lounge with light coming out of his head. So he'd be in the room and he'd see a child walking past the doorway. Yeah. With light coming out of his head.

He said with light coming out of his head. He saw that once and the second time he saw and we didn't, you know, he was three. We didn't say, "Oh, we think the apartment's haunted, my dear." It's just something a three-year-old says. Yeah. He just said, "I saw it, Mommy." And one time he was sitting on his potty. Yeah. And um and he saw a pair of feet walk past down the corridor. He's like, "Mommy, I saw a child's child's children's feet." Just feet.

Just the feet. Yeah. And another time he saw a dog. I mean like and he said it went through the wall and we were like right okay. And when we tapped on the wall the place where he'd seen the dog go through was sounded hollow like there was a door. There had been a door there which in fact retrospectively would make sense because our lounge used to be two rooms that were split. Yeah. and that we put we sort of turned it back into two rooms so that our son could have his bedroom. Yeah. And um yeah, so that was that's sort of that part of the weirdness and I am getting to mus eventually. You just have to stick with me.

Um then gradually we start the atmosphere in our apartment changed. So when we moved in, we've been there since 2014. So that it'll be 12 years this year. And the apartment has always had a lovely home homey atmosphere. And then suddenly about 2 years ago, so that we're four years into this ghostly running. Mhm. Something changed in the apartment and our son was getting so scared that he wouldn't go even go to the toilet by himself. So bear bearing in mind that, you know, Parisian apartments are small.

Um, and the door to the toilet is, I don't know, five footsteps from the door into the lounge. I'm looking in the wrong place. Door into the lounge. So, um, and he wouldn't go into the kitchen. He wouldn't that he just was scared. And, um, and I started to feel frightened, too. I felt as if I was being watched. Um, and I felt as if I was becoming unwelcome. very odd and the I would so there were two parts to this section of the story. So I would when our bedroom is

right by the front door and so when you look out when you're lying in bed you can look out at the door into the hallway and I would wake up at night and feel as if someone was watching me and uh and it was just very un unsettling. Yeah. So not Yeah. unsettling. But further down the corridor where my son's bedroom is, it was really the atmosphere was thick. It was very odd. I felt almost felt threatened in a way. Very weird. And one day my husband, he didn't tell me for two days cuz because he had also noticed the change in the apartment. He So the kitchen is opposite our son's bedroom and he felt something move through him from the kitchen and go into Max's

bedroom. Like I said like how do you describe it? And he said it was just like it was almost like a um I suppose a wind but it wasn't a wind cuz wind doesn't go through you. He just sort of felt that he'd been crossed by something. Ooh. So all of this was very odd. Very And um and then last so last year so um last year probably one of the strangest things that I've ever had happen in my entire life happened. So my husband was coming back from a trip. He was in the hall putting his coat up on the hook when next to him. So if his hook is here next to him about I don't know a good 60 cm or so I saw a hat suddenly appear and fall to the th to the floor.

It just kind of fell out of nowhere. And it was a flat cap like the sort of hats that elderly gentlemen Yeah. would wear. a flat cap. A flat cap. And it was um it was like patchwork. Mhm. And I picked it up and as I held it, I got the smell of an old man. And it wasn't an unpleasant smell. It was just sort of that musky uh kind of old many smell. Yeah. And I sort of I said, "Did you were you next to someone on the train?" Because he'd been on the train. Could it have been in his hood? and you know somehow fallen out.

Yeah. Maybe he took his jacket off and it had been stuck in and it was somehow in the sleeve or something. I mean maybe he it's possible but he was like I wasn't sat next to anyone on the train and he' taken two trains and both times he'd been by himself. Yeah. Anyway, we had lots of things to do. We put the hat on the hook. Mhm. uh which afterwards made me think of that song, wherever I lay my hat, that's my home. And I thought, my gosh, I should not have done that.

Anyway, you shouldn't have put that. I shouldn't have put that hat on the hook. Um anyway, the next day, so I was so both of us, both me and my husband work from home. We were sat eating and I am obsessed with crispy chili. I don't know whether you've ever tried it. Crispy chili. It's a Chinese condiment. I suppose they have it in lots of Asian countries, but it's sort it's just oh my goodness, it's so delicious. It's sweet, it's salty, it's spicy, and my mouth is watering just thinking about it. And

it sometimes has Sichuan pepper in it, and it's just I just love it. Anyway, I was talking about how I can't get enough of this crispy chili and the pot had already been opened, so there shouldn't have been a buildup of air in the pot. It was it. Yeah. And I put the lid back on. And as I sat back down, the lid popped off and flew two meters at least through the air, like high into the air. Yeah. And it was just like poltergeist stuff you see in films. It was it really felt as if it had done it on its own accord or it had gone against the laws of nature.

Yeah. That we know about to do it. So I was quite spooked by this. Anyway, that night um we went to bed and so as I said our lounge um we had put bookcases up to split it into two rooms again. Mhm. So when you're in our bed, you can hear everything that's happening in the lounge because it's just a bookcase. A bookcase that separates the two, not a real wall. Yeah. And you are familiar with the sounds of your own house. They become part of the woodwork, as we say in English. And um and so I was woken up to the

familiar sound of our dining room chair moving when someone wants to sit down at the table. Right. So this is new stuff now. This is new stuff. This is separate from the running from the feeling the threatening feeling. Uh this is like a third and this is stuff that you didn't tell us about before. No this is Yeah. Okay. This is all new. So this is new and um and I thought goodness me we have got I felt it was linked to this hat. So wait you heard the sound of a dining room chair being dragged along the floor.

Well just like sort of moved. How you move when you sort of do this sit down? Yeah. It just sliding. You wiggle into the right place to one side or something like that. Yeah. And I thought we have got a poltergeist ghost who likes food. He wanted to taste my crispy chili and now he's sitting down at the table cuz he's listening to you talking about how amazing it is. Yeah. And he wants to try it. That was and that was my interpretation of course which I can prove in no way at all. But it led me to think of the character

of Mus from who is a um a foodie. He loves his chocolate. He in the book he paces around. He makes objects move by themsself. He takes objects away and uh and of course he loves flavor um and is frustrated he can't taste anything anymore because he doesn't have a physical body that have sort of taste buds. So he's got his motivation which is to be able to taste food again. Yeah. And also maybe to uh so a lot of the time when we talk about ghosts, one of the sort of uh from the paranormal side, the paranormal explanation, one of those is that ghosts are essentially people who are kind of

trapped or a spirit like someone has died and their spirit is somehow trapped in a space because they died in the wrong way and they something or unfinished business. unfinished business, something like that, which leaves some trace or a spirit behind or maybe the ghost is attached to a location for some reason. But so your character Mus Well, yeah, he it in the book he's attached to the hotel. Okay. Yeah. In the book in real life, I think um this I shall say ghost because this is what I think it is. your everyone is open to interpretation of course but I figured um that he was attached to his hat this hat that

appeared because we didn't have any of the weird poltergeist stuff until this hat had appeared so just quickly to end to encapsulate to end this story um the next day I took the hat away I announced to the apartment I said I'm sorry if you're here you need to go into the light I'm taking this at outside. You can't stay here. We're living here right now. And I left it on a post and that is the end of that story. You left it on a post outside two streets away. That's the end. I never saw the hat again. Nothing of that um type of activity. That kind of poltergeist energy, things moving had happened again.

None. None of that happened. Cuz I feel like there's two things here. There's the children running and you know the threatening feeling at the end of the apartment. Threatening. So maybe even three things. Yeah. Sound of footsteps, your son seeing something moving, someone moving. Yeah, that's one thing. This the very strange threatening feeling down at the end of the corridor and a different atmosphere and your husband saying that he felt something pass through him. And then the third thing relating to the

hat. the hat comes in, you don't know where it's come from, and then you get this weird poltergeist activity with the top flying off the thing and um and the chair moving and the chair moving. And also there was well the person running and pushing the chair that was the children. I think that I associate that with the child or the running. But that's odd though, isn't it? Because there's three separate things. Three separate things from an apartment that felt empty. felt great, felt homey, and so something had happened. So, so anyway, just to um So, that was the end of the hat thing. But by this time, um I was it was really starting to affect me

because I felt like I wasn't welcome in our own home. And I started asking around, asking friends um if they'd had any strange experiences. I even actually went to the doctors because I was feeling quite down about it. I felt almost like my energy was being sapped and I thought, could this me, you know, I'm 47. Could it be the per menopause? Um, could it be because, you know, you're when you're freelancing, you work a lot. Could it be that? I mean, it could have been all of those things. But at the doctors, I said in Paris, do you ever have other people who come to

you because they think their apartment is haunted? And he said yes. He said he has he has quite a few patients who have come with these with their own I he didn't go into detail obviously but with their own stories. And so I thought okay I need to try and do something about it. And I one of so one of my friends uh said that they had this medium um come into their apartment to cleanse it before they moved in. A medium, right? Yeah. So a psychic. Yeah. someone who is somehow able to communicate with the spirit world. That's right. I think medium means they can communicate with those who have passed on. They're sort of a medium.

They were a conduit between the two dimensions, I suppose. And um and so we call so I looked up this lady and she had a little section on manifestation which means entities in French. I thought that was I thought it meant uh Yeah, it does mean uh protest. It does mean manifest in French is like demonstration or protest going in the street to protest against something. But it also means something that manifests itself. Something that Yeah. Like um phenomena like unexplained phenomena. Yeah. So I thought I have got nothing to lose.

Yeah. I called her up, explain the situation, and she explained that she think that she would come round and that she would sort of check the apartment, see what she found, that we would have we had to leave it for 3 hours for so that she could um look at everything. And she sort of assessed she assessed um assessed. Is that the right word? Assesses. There you are, silly me. native speakers struggle with English too, especially when you live in a foreign country. Um, and uh, yeah, she wanted to assess sort of the energy flow in the apartment. Um,

just generally, I suppose she knew what she was doing, just generally get a feel for anything that might be there. Can I just ask one question here? She didn't afterwards, um, this is my sort of skeptical side coming through. She didn't afterwards do some sort of cold reading, tell you things about yourself. No. Okay. cuz there she was for 3 hours in your apartment. In our apartment, maybe doing research and going, you know, you don't have a, you know, have a sister called blah, do you?

Yeah. No, she didn't do anything. She didn't do any of that. No, she didn't do any. She didn't tell us anything about our lives. No. Okay. No, she was there just for that. Okay. So, 3 hours she was alone in the apartment cleansing the apartment, as you say. Cleansing the apartment. Do you know what she was doing? So she um uses Tibetan bowls to change the the frequency of so she from what I gather from talking to her afterwards her way of interpreting the world and the phenomenon the inexplicable phenomenon that happen is that we're all energy. We're all frequencies. We're all vibrations.

Mhm. And sometimes through events that happen through energy that gets blocked because of objects or because of uh I don't know the there's a new metro line or there's um there are things changing all the time, works that are happening in the apartment or in other apartments. Okay, the frequency of the space ch is altered and so it can lower the frequency and she says that entities can u be attracted to lower frequencies. So that's when I suppose that would make sense why h you know houses that look spooky are often derelictked places you know they're the places where the energy is low where I don't know there's no life pumping new stuff in and

yeah so you know you're welcome to be skeptical I mean I am personally skeptical but I'm absolutely fascinated by these stories having lived it and I have no explanation Yeah. All I know is well I get to the end is that now everything is okay. Spoiler alert. Everything is okay now. So she um so she said that so she Yeah. You said what was she using? So Tibetan bowl like one of those meditation bowls that makes a sort of humming sound.

Yeah. The sort of ringing um that's used in well in lots of meditation frequencies. Yeah. Um and she used sage and rosemary to sort of general um oh what's it called when you um when you cleanse the area. Yeah. Using sort of aroma. Aroma like the smoke cleanses the energies. Okay. I've heard that burning sage is a thing that can sort of cleanse a space from spirits. Yeah. Um and she also had worked with shamans. Oh yeah. in South America, I think. Really? So, she in her mind would associate totems to the spaces. So, she would um set up protections. I don't know.

You mean totems like sort of objects? Animals. Objects that represent animals. Uh okay. Yeah. I don't really understand. I don't I didn't really understand that part either, but that was sort of her package. Yeah. Okay. And um and I don't really need to understand it to um just have a feeling that it works. But yeah um so yeah, so she spent her three hours and what came out was quite interesting. So she knew that there was we'd heard a child running. So she knew the child part. She didn't know anything else. Um she said that she had found the spirit of a child who was looking for his mom.

and that he was in the spot where she didn't know that I woke up at night and could see yeah the thing. So, I thought that was quite interesting. And she said she he was looking for his mother and his mother didn't come, but she managed to get him to move on because his grandma welcomed him into the ether into the where the ether. Yeah. And um anyway, so that but you know, take it or leave it. All I know is that when we stepped back into this apartment, it felt different. Completely different. 3 hours later, it felt different. You could say it's

psychological maybe, but who cares? Yeah. And she also said that there was an entity in my son's bedroom and that had been a bit weird when she'd arrived in the flat because um when she stepped in, it was really like in a horror film. She said, "Oh, I can feel as if someone's pulling on my collar and they don't want me to be here." And we were like, "Oh my goodness, I don't want to be in a horror film. Please." Oh my goodness. Yeah. And um so she explained that this um person entity she didn't say whether he was linked to the apartment or whether he had traveled from somewhere else within the block or whatever.

Um because for her the energies meant you could move around. But he explained to her that he I can't believe I'm tell this sounds very odd. So stay with me. So um he had said she said that he told her he had an abusive mom. So this is another child. This is No, this is an adult who was in had sort of like a child's attitude to life. So she wondered if he wasn't disabled in some way. Okay. Um and he she said he had said he liked it there because there were lots of toys and he had an abusive mom and he died jumping out of a window.

Oh gosh. I mean, this is like that's horrible. This is real precise detail and this is really quite horrible. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. So, it's a story of a man who'd been abused as a child and who'd committed suicide. Yeah. Okay. And um Yeah. So, anyway, he didn't want him he didn't want to go. So, she put up I don't know what she did. She sort of energetic barriers or whatever and said she will come back in two weeks. no extra money. It cost I

shall say how much it cost. It was like €300 or something which to me is the best 300 I've ever spent really because it really did change the apartment. Yeah. And um she so she came back two weeks later and she managed to get him to move on into the light. And apparently he had told her that one of the reasons he'd stayed is that he couldn't understand how a mother could love their son so much. Um so perhaps if this is true perhaps somehow we had our living there and being there at that moment had helped him his soul to move on you know who knows so um yeah so after that total peace in the apartment. Wow.

Our son who um so this is like now is was six, seven, eight. No, how old is he? He was eight. Seven. He was seven last year. So eight nearly eight. Yeah. He suddenly wasn't scared anymore. He would travel around the apartment. Absolutely no problems. Did he know that this woman had come? So he knew that she'd come um to because uh but not for ghosts. We'd said she was coming to sort of remove if there was any negative energy that shouldn't be there. Yeah.

And uh that was it. Yeah. We didn't say, "Oh, we think our flats haunted son." That's fascinating as well because you might think, okay, uh it's just the suggestion of it being fixed, which then has a psychossematic effect and you know is psychological, purely psychological, and you just knowing someone telling you, "Yes, I've removed the spirit." it kind of just resets your mind and so you interpret the situation in a much nicer way. But um um but I can't understand how similar in the same way suggesting to him I don't it wasn't clearly suggested to him initially that there was a spirit or a ghost. He kind of came up with that himself.

He did. Yeah. Also I forgot one key moment of fear from his bedroom. So be obviously before she came um so we have this thing where when one parent leaves the child will sleep in the parent who stays behind's bed. So let's say your husband's gone away for the weekend in the bed. Your son stays with you in the bed. Yeah. And then when my husband gets back we he's allowed to sleep in the bed with my husband and I'll sleep in his bed cuz he's got a double bed and it's fine.

Yeah. And I and on one particular night I was sleeping in his bed. So by myself in this bedroom that I didn't feel welcome in. Yeah. And I heard a I felt watched. And then I heard a bouncy ball. So you know these children's balls that you drop and they go boing. Kind of a small a rubber ball. Solid rubber all the way through. Yeah. The sort of thing you throw it and it bounces really high. A bouncy ball.

Yeah. A bouncy ball. So, I heard it bounce in the wardrobe, which you know, there were toys in the wardrobe. The metro moves underneath. It could have moved it, but it happened three times in a row. And I don't see, and there was only one bouncy ball. I don't see how it could have happened. There were even only two shelves, so I mean, the door was shut, so it couldn't have fallen from a shelf to a shelf anyway, but it Yeah. So, that spooked me. Um yeah, but jumping back forward. So this um I suppose you could say this was quite a life-changing experience. Um just because it's opened my mind to other possibilities. Not saying where the truth lies, you know, everyone has their own

interpretation. Everyone has their own intuition. Everyone has their own susceptibility to vibrations or things like that. But um for me I it changed totally changed our apartment and changed my mood. I suddenly felt that I wasn't being I didn't I wasn't didn't have energy being taken from me. Very odd. One last detail about this medium. So our apartment again we rent it and we rent it with furniture but there's a lot of the furniture. We didn't need the furniture. So a lot of it is in the basement. And then I love antiques. So

there was a few there were a few antique objects that were there like a beautiful lamp uh with a sort of an old porcelain base and stuff like this that we kept a lovely mirror. She didn't know which objects belonged to us and which belonged to the apartment. Mhm. But every object she pointed out in the apartment um she that she said the energy around this object isn't right for you. It doesn't correlate to what you need right now belong to the apartment and not to us. Wow. Which is really interesting.

Yes. And she and we're very messy. We hate tiding. And so she did say that in order for energy to keep flowing, I suppose it's fengui, isn't it? The idea that energy flows in the right direction and makes can, you know, sets creates harmony in your living spaces and in where you work and everything. Um, she said, you know, we needed to tidy up, which I had to agree with. But yeah, I just thought just so interesting. It's it's it's almost created more questions. Yeah. Then it given answers and of course as an author all of this you know I'm feeding on it on its own level because it's for children but on these experiences these own

questions these own um all these things that have happened um there were little tiny traces of it in Death by Chocolate. I'm not surprised that it was inspiring because you know where does inspiration come from? God knows where it comes from, but it just you just feed on the experiences you that you've had and you put it into your work in some way. So, it's an inspired book and it's fascinating the story that um you've just told. I mean, you know, like I've said before, I'm a skeptic about these things. I'm completely skeptical and I tend to take the more sort of

rational scientific view. But at the same time, I'm always fascinated by stories of ghosts and I love to watch documentaries. There are loads of them on YouTube, loads of these old BBC documentaries about the ghosts of the London Underground and all these and there's so many stories. There is a fantastic podcast that I recommend. It's a ghost and sort of weird happenings podcast that from the BBC in Britain called Uncanny and it's it's sort of set off this whole community because it because of course when you talk telling people you're these ghost stories you're actually making yourself quite susceptible to crit to critique you know

because a lot of people don't believe and particular has created this safe space where people can tell their stories and there is some there's stuff that's far wilder than anything I've just said and um and it's become quite a phenomenon in Britain. They have like um Oh, really? they have huge events like uh uncanny comms and stuff like that, comms and uh yeah so I recommend listening to it. But what's fascinating is that so there are so many anecdotes, so many accounts, stories across all culture. Yeah. And it's always the people who a lot of the time the people who tell these stories are just like ordinary people who you don't get the impression

that they are making it up anything out of it. Yeah. They you might think well they're just making it up. uh but you don't really get that sense that they're making it up for any reason. They just seem and they often say, "Well, I'm not the sort of person who normally believes in this sort of thing." And then they tell a story about how something extraordinary happened to them and they encountered something. So, I find that fascinating. Um I don't understand it, but yeah, I've always been interested in these sorts of stories. Like when I was a kid, um my brother and I had these books. I don't know if you ever saw them as well. It was the Osborne book of

ghosts. Oh, yes. You know that and the Osborne book of monsters. I didn't see the monsters one, but I think I remember the ghosts one. The ghosts one. I just loved that, but it terrified me. And in the book, there were lots of accounts of different famous ghost stories and also photographs. Loads of apparently apparent photographs of ghosts. I mean, I'm pretty sure almost all of them are fake, you know. Um, but there are some pretty interesting ones.

Yeah. you see like the ectopplasm and things like that. They debunked a lot or double exposures where it's like a picture and there's clearly they've somehow added um you know a ghost on the top of a staircase or something like that. Um but what's interesting is that there are loads of these anecdotal accounts but then in terms of science there's no zero scientific evidence. But do you know there are actually a lot of um academics in famous universities who are studying paranormal experiences. Yeah. And uh and if you sort of delve into it on the internet, there's a lot of information. It is being studied.

It's just I suppose it's like UFOs, isn't it? has it's taken till um the American government has released these they um you know the videos of unidentified uh what do they call them UAPs unidentified um air phenomenon right okay uh because they're changing it from the UFO which has all the alien connotations yeah um and uh I think things are kind of coming out now and they are studying I mean the CIA has been using remote viewing for years or trying to I don't know if they ever successfully did any remote viewing. If you look stuff Well, I'll look stuff up. Maybe we can put some links into the comments. We'll find some remote viewing though. This is where one

person sits in a room and uses their psychic abilities to see what's happening somewhere else in the world. Have they actually ever done it? They've actually successfully done it really. And I recently, so all of this has made me quite interested in um in other un sort of questionable paranormal sort of areas, supernatural, paranormal things. And um and uh I have um again the um a friend who went to the states and met at this um at this conference which don't think it had anything to do with psychics necessarily, but he met a woman who had

worked for the FBI and the CIA as a um as a psychic because she was able to tell like you see in films. She was able to tell help them with cases where they weren't sure what had happened. Yeah. And uh and give information to the police to help them with their and that's real that she actually has done that. She actually had done that. Yeah. I don't know how to explain anything. And I know that because I have since talked to her um and yeah seen her we yeah her cases and things like that but um it's fascinating. So the children that was

explained. What about the old man that you thought with an old man with a hat? not explained. So yeah, not explained at all. But getting back to this idea that um the medium told us about vibrations, I suppose that if our apartment was vibrating at a rate that was attracting these entities, it wouldn't necessarily have to have just other Yeah. They just sort of I think wonder if it wasn't a place where they're just passing through almost. Yeah. that other spirits somehow kind of were brought in to that kind of crossroads or something like that.

It's really weird. Yeah. Really? And you feel okay at home now. You don't want to move. No. There were moments when I was like, I can't live here anymore. We've got to get out. Um but now I just want to redecorate. Yeah, it's fine. And also we've now got a dog. Mhm. Um does it walk through the wall? No, she doesn't. Thank goodness. But she um I she doesn't bark at, you know, at uh nothing.

Yeah. She barks at the sound of dogs outside. Yeah. She doesn't seem perturbed by the apartment. So she arrived after the medium and that Yes, she did. She arrived after and also I didn't want to get a dog until I felt that we'd sorted out the problem either by moving or by um seeing what would happen after this intervention. Wow. Yeah. Well, listeners, what do you think? I mean, I'd love to know if anyone else has ever had any kind of similar experience. Have you ever had some kind of encounter with the paranormal?

Uh, in fact, I if you write in and tell your story, maybe for the best one, I could give a book away. Oh, would there I could I would send you a Death by Chocolate signed if you'd like it. Okay. Right. So, here's what we're going to do. If you write in your in the comments section, either on my website or on Spotify or on YouTube, um write in an account of a paranormal experience and I'll collect them. Yeah. I'll send them to you and together we can decide which one we think is the best. Yeah. the best written because we're trying out for English.

The best written. So in All right. So now we have to talk Oh, are we doing Yeah, we have to talk about assessment criteria. Okay. Yes. So in terms of assessment criteria. So there's the task is describe a paranormal experience. Yeah. Um so that has to do that. Um but then it has to be well what how do you decide uh whether something is well written? It's not just about uh accuracy. No, it's not. I suppose it would be about stirring your emotions, making you feel that you're you're with you when you're reading it with the person when you're reading it.

That's in uh my professional uh arena that is known as effect on the reader. Yes. Right. So it has to have a certain effect on the reader, has to be effective, has to do the job and basically it has to be sort of moving in some way. Obviously that will involve control over language and range of language as well. But if you can clearly describe what happened and it doesn't have to be particularly long necessarily. No, it doesn't have to be long. You don't have to like feed in a thousand details just to bump up the word count.

No, no, there's no word count. Uh you can email it to me as well. Luke teacherhotmail.com. Yes, I'm still using Hotmail. uh you can email me. Um h so please feel free to do that. Um I'll find a I'll I'll find a way to add a sort of an end date to that. Yes. Okay. But we'll then judge um the entries and then we'll choose the winner. Who will receive a copy of Death by Chocolate.

Yeah. Uh and it'll be a good opportunity to sort of recap well just to get a sense of anything that's happened to other people as well because Yeah, humans have been having inexplicable ghostly encounters throughout human history. Let's face it. And there's there's a lot in Britain. Like Britain is seems to be full of ghosts, but I'm sure it's the same everywhere. So, you know, I've got an international audience, so I'd love to hear stories from around the world as well. That would be fascinating. And also I don't think ghosts always have to be seen in a negative light like um so I remember when um the first time my husband came home to England

and stayed at my parents' house. Yeah. My so when my grandma died, we she didn't leave much, but she had a little cat picture of a cat and it's happens to be on my old bedroom wall at home and it's very solidly attached to the wall and in the middle of the night it fell off and I woke up and saw the shape of my grandma at the end of the bed sitting at the sitting on the bed and I felt that she was saying this is a keeper. And so it was a I mean it could have been a dream. I mean your husband to be was a keeper. You should keep him.

Yeah. And um and I felt that was a it was a soothing sort of encounter. Very different. So it doesn't have to be negative. Yeah. Very interesting. I actually like looked up some stuff um about um explanations, the various explanations for these sorts of things. Uh most widely accepted explanations in science, psychological and perceptual explanations.

Um misinterpretation of sensory input. So apparently our brains constantly fill gaps in what we see and hear in low light or ambiguous situations. We might see figures or faces. This is called paridolia. Have you ever heard of paridolia? Yes. It's because through our evolution we need to interpret things for our own safety. So we can see we often see faces in that's why you can see a face in a rock. Yeah. Or um you know you can see a cloud. A cloud you Yeah. You'd see as a shape or something holy in a banana, you know. So it's like all sorts of um Yeah. Or tea leaves. you know, looking at tea leaves in the bottom of a cup

and the monster's face appears or Exactly. And also that works for sound as well. Hearing like white noise like you know the sort of sound that you might hear on an old telephone line. Oh yes. And you that sort of random white noise can be interpreted by your brain as the sound of a voice. You might hear voices or words in there. So that's paridolia. Yeah. a shadow in the dark or you know even when you wake up and you look uh over the other side of the room and you see your dressing gown on the back of the chair and you think and it's a person your brain sees a person.

Um yeah, I had that once when I was probably about six and I was on holiday. We were on holiday in a so staying in a in an unfamiliar place and I remember waking up and it was what it was at the time where like your um cordroy you know they had those old corduroy covers where they were sort of thick ridges on I'm talking about a corduroy cover on a bed. Yeah. Yeah. Like a thick kind of corduroy cover on a bed. Yes. And I remember waking up and it was pink sort of white person's skin color and uh and I saw this shriveled old man.

Oh. And I couldn't get out of bed. But it was just that it was paridolia. It was like Yeah. Coming from the idea that way back in our history that we uh the people who let's say looking in some trees or grass, the ones who saw the big cat are the ones who survived. And so when you look at ambiguous things, your brain automatically sees them in order to keep you alive. It's sort of ready to see those sorts of things. Um, sleepreated hallucinations, sleep paralysis. We talked about it before, sleep paralysis. I told you the story of how

one night I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't move. And actually I had it a lot of times many times in my old apartment. I used to wake up in the middle of the night, couldn't move, and I was convinced there were people trying to get in the front door. I remember and I was frozen with fear or I would be lying there frozen with fear convinced there was a person in the room standing over me. Sometimes people feel weight on their chests as well. Exactly. And that is because when you fall as when you're asleep, your brain floods your body with a chemical, I think, or stops to stop you moving. And sometimes you can wake up when

you're in that state and you physically can't move, but you're kind of half awake and that can lead to that feeling and that historically has been interpreted as the presence of a ghost or demon or a spirit in your bedroom at night. emotional and cognitive factors, just grief, fear, stress can lead to feeling a presence, hearing voices. It's especially common after losing a loved one. I don't know if you were feeling particularly stressed these last few years. Who isn't? No more than normal. Yeah. Um, memory and suggestion, the power of suggestion. Once you think a place is haunted, then you're looking out for signs that going to confirm it. you interpret

is cognitive bias, confirmation bias. Exactly. Um, yeah. And then environmental and physical explanations, infrasound, low frequency sound. Yes. Appar Yes. There've been experiments where people hearing infrasound cuz you don't physically realize that you're hearing it. Um, get scared. It's almost like it's the scared frequency. Okay. So, a very deep frequency. It's unsettling because you subconsciously register something, but you Yeah. It's not It's not like you hearing it now as talking.

Yeah. But you just get scared and you don't really know why. And maybe it's just a low frequency rumble maybe caused by like a metro line or I don't know. Yes. Who knows? Something like that. But yeah, frequencies below human hearing create unease and a sense of presence. Yeah. I actually went downstairs knowing this. I went downstairs to our um to our florists because they have um a fridge where they keep all the flowers.

A big fridge. And I wondered whether the fridges had been on during these moments. Yeah. And in fact, they hadn't. So that sort of put that aside. But um I did go I did check I did yeah think about it. I mean these are just like the scientific explanations obviously. I mean I'm not suggesting that these are all the case. But still um electromagnetic fields. Some studies suggest that strong electromagnetic fields can affect brain activity and create feelings of paranoia or presence. Building conditions. Old buildings can produce strange noises, drafts, flickering lights.

Um I don't think any of those were I the sound of the pitter patter of feet. I don't know if that I can't I don't know. And what's weird is it stopped afterwards, right? So yeah. and the conditions the o as far as we know the only interven intervention was this lady. Yeah. Um there was there w there weren't any other changes in the building that we know about See. Yeah. Um and then there's obviously the idea of fraud or tricks or hoaxes like people deliberately creating fake photographs or um finding ways to and like you were saying cold reading by psychics. And I personally believe that most of the time those people are lying and they're doing it for money but they're very good at

it. But then there are some people who are able to do it and they actually believe it themselves. Yeah. You know it's that's absolutely fascinating for me. Fascinating. Do you know what I have got something on my telephone? I wonder if I can show it to the camera. So talking about ghosts. Should I get it out to show you and I will see the camera. What have you got? A photo of a ghost. So um yeah. Well, possibly. So, I don't know whether it is this, but I like I do when I do presentations in schools about death by chocolate and

I've put this in my presentation. So, I have a friend. So, we're going to show this on camera, but for the audio listeners in audio land, we'll have to describe what's um and I have to find it. So, and put maybe switch my phone back on because I turned it off for this. Make sure it doesn't go beep. Right. So, I have a friend whose husband used to live um in a town close to where my parents are in Yorkshire. And it's it's these new buildings and they were built on the site of a hospital called the Margaret Hepton Hospital. It's already scary. That was run by nuns. It was a religious hospital.

Okay. And so scary. again. Scary. And so one day he was um hang on I have to find the right message cuz I this is spontaneous. I hadn't prepared this. Um so one day um he was um just taking a photo of his son who was doing a scooter thing on his little scooter with his helmet on riding his scooter and for some reason he noticed. So, this is the picture of the um I'll I'll I'll know that he'd want me to show his son in the picture, but I'll show you. You can blur it. Yeah, blur the And so, and in the window behind it, he noticed the shape of a religious nun.

Oh, yeah. The nurse and the Yeah. All right. I don't want to put the whole full light on my phone. Maybe it's not light enough. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if you can see it. Okay, let me just hold this right up to the camera so that people can see that. Can Okay, so audio listeners, I'm showing a picture of a window um in the distance, although it's quite clear. And there's there are a couple of leaves in front. Whoops. Oops. But then yeah, there's definitely looks like the

a nun standing with her head pointed downwards. And let me show you. I can Let me see if I can get the So, the old hospital has a blogspot thing. A blog. Yeah, blog. It just says blogspot was the old site, wasn't it? Blogs eight years ago. Uh, hang on, let me write the name down. Uh, but you see that may be Paridolia because it might easily be it might just be a few reflections on the glass.

Oh, you haven't? I can't get um internet here. Uh oh, okay. I've I've got internet if I can. We could do it here on my computer. And if you look down, they have some old photos from the people who used to work there. Can you see the nurses uniform? These nurses, they're not dissimilar uh to what looks like a nurse or a nun. And I showed it to um a friend of mine uh just the other day actually who used to be a nurse. Yeah. And she worked in a religious hospital uh at the beginning of her career. And she said that the outfit that she could make out in this picture is very similar to the special occasion outfits that they would wear for the hospital.

So weird. Yeah. But then I kind of I love sharing this. I could talk I mean we were talking for hours about it. I could talk for hours about it because I just find it so fascinating and as I said like throws up so many questions. But there's always this thing of like a photograph of some children playing in the garden. If you look in the distance at the there's a window and there's appears to be a person in the window. Why don't ghosts just appear normally? Why do they why are they like always in the background in a blurry photograph? Why aren't they just like, "Hi guys, you know, they're always kind of like in this weird ambiguous zone, you know?

Maybe there are only areas of I vibration and space that they can show up in. I don't know. I don't even know what that means. Nor do I. I just like the sound of it. Yeah. Oh, wow. I know that when um like so my father-in-law passed away four, five years ago now and I remember when so my husband he wrote a graphic novel and I remember one day he was looking at the final layout of the graphic novel on his iPad at my mother-in-law's and Max said, "Daddy, sorry. son said, "Um Daddy Kapa is standing behind you."

He saw him. standing behind your husband. Standing behind him. Yeah. And uh and but it wasn't remotely scary. And there was no reason for him to make it up. To make it up in that moment. It was just, you know, he was How old was he four years ago? Five. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Just saying, "Oh, you know, he knew he'd died." But horn papa's there and it didn't perturb him. He didn't uh he wasn't it didn't make him question life and death and he was just like he's there. Matter of fact, matter of fact, when my grandmother died, um, she was cremated and my mom, my uncle, and my granddad went to a specific place in Yorkshire,

uh, in the countryside, and they scattered her ashes next to this tree, and they walked back up to the road, and they turned round to have a look, and there was a rainbow. Oh. Over that spot. It wasn't raining where they were. There might have been some rain between them, but they turned round and there was a rainbow right over that spot. So for them, it was very symbolic. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's must be a coincidence, but at the same time, it's it was a very comforting, but then if you want to really get into it, what is coincidence? You know, it's like what? Yeah. is so the random nature of the

chaotic nature of the universe. But uh that will mean something to someone in one place and not to someone else sort of. Yeah. Can do we always look for meaning in everything we do, don't we? That's the thing like coincidences happen. They're bound to happen. Two things are bound to sort of happen at the same time. It's just in the way that we interpret it. So like two things happening at the same time becomes significant. we h it has to be significant for us whereas it's of course sign uh coincidences are going to happen they're

going to happen all the time so just um going back to something so in the next book so uh I'm so this the death by chocolate is the first in a series and the series is Coco Investigate and so I'm currently writing the second book which is going to come out at Christmas and I decided that I wanted to pay tribute to my aunties. Aunties. Aunties is my accent from Birmingham and Yorkshire. Probably. Auntie. I'd say auntie. I've got that southern accent.

Yeah. I'd say I' I'd say I have one I'd call auntie. When I individually, I'd say auntie and then their names cuz one's from the south, the other one's from the north. I know. Birmingham south. Birmingham and south. But to but collectively I call them aunties. Right. Okay. There you are. And um so my aunties and my mom are going to feature in the book.

Yeah. As the ghosts, because there are more ghosts in the story obviously. Um more chocolate, more ghosts, more adventure, more murder mystery. And I um we talked about it and I'd um I sort of felt um I felt that it was like a fun thing to do. And then there was um so we know each other through our children's school and there was a parents evening with where we were all having drinks in a bar and one of the moms is a photographer. So we went to this bar where she had was displaying her photographs and I wore my grandma's coat. So, my grandma was called Sally. And I put the coat down next to this between a mom and a lady that I didn't know. And I said, "Hi to the lady." I said, "Oh, what's

your name?" And she said, "My name is Sally." So, I said, "Oh, that's funny because my nan whose coats right next to you was called Sally." Then we were talking about the photographs on the walls and one of them was called Sally. Oh, wow. and this uh and then her so that's three Sally I was like oh this is interesting and um coincidence again yeah which you then which my brain then now wants to feed into to validate something that I'm doing going to do in the book or gave me the idea for something I'm going to do in this next book and um and so uh we're chatting and uh and my nan Sally had a very big personality. She was very hilarious. She would swear. She would

she would uh she has uh yeah, she has all sorts of great she had used to have great stories to tell from during the war because she was um she used to help deliver babies because there weren't enough doctors and nurses and she happened to be very good at it. Anyway, so we got talking about grandparents and things. The next day, um I took the dog out for her morning walk and we met. So, I've got a cockuspananiel who incidentally is in the book. Um, I'm a type of dog. Cockus, a cocka spananiel is a type of dog. Listen, there's a picture of her at the end that you can see.

Video viewers, I'm showing uh audio listeners, I'm showing a picture of the cockaspananiel. Of the cockuspananiel. Lovely little brown uh dog with floppy ears. Yeah. Our little baby. And um so I went out with my cockuspananiel and bumped into another cockpananiel and I said, "Oh, how cute. What's her name?" And she was called Sally. And so I was like, "Okay, I think my nan wants me wants to be in this book, too." I was like, "And so you put So Sally is going to be in the book."

Yeah, it's going to be Yeah. one of the characters. Okay, that's great. Yeah, it's sort of coincidence. So just to end, let me um let me just go back to the book again. Death by Chocolate. Now, it's not a scary book, is it? We've we've talked about scary stuff. Yes. No. And there's nothing heavy like the stories we've told today cuz we talked about some sort of more adult sort of grownup things relating to ghosts, but this book, it was just inspired by some of those things. But yeah, it's a fun book. It's a Yeah, it's a fun for children to 8 to 12 year olds. Um and uh yeah, I'm looking forward to reading this with my daughter. It's going to be good fun. Um,

okay. Great. Well, yes. Remember everyone, if you've had some sort of paranormal experience, anything you can think of, feel free to write in the comment section, website, YouTube, Spotify, or email. Um, then feel free and who knows, maybe I will end up sending you a copy of this book from Anna herself, signed, no doubt, by you, too. You, we can arrange that. Oh, yes, definitely. Of course, I'll sign it. Yeah. Okay. I live to sign my books. Do you love doing that? Do you love those?

I love it. Those events when you sit at a table and absolutely love it. Yeah. Cuz you get to because writing is quite a solitary activity by yourself and then when you sit when it when you finalize the text and or even while you're working, you might have back and forths of email with your editor, but you are physically very isolated. And um and then of course when you go to events be it schools because of course I write children's books so it's for children or bookshops and you get to meet people and it's the moment where you realize that your baby is out into the is out in the world.

It's kind of not yours anymore. And even some sometimes when I read it back I think goodness me did I write that. It's like wow. And um yeah so that's a very a part I love is signing it. It's like being a film star. Are you signing this one at some point? Yeah, I will. Do you know when? Oh, sorry. This one. Uh, yes. I don't know when. I know that they the bookshops in Paris have them. So, um I shall go and do some signing this week,

I think. But, uh an actual um an actual event for me. It'll it'll be in a few weeks. Probably after Easter, I think. Okay. All right. I don't know when this is going to go out, so I don't know if I'll be able to announce that, but you know, I do have some listeners in Paris who might want to come book signed. Okay, Anna, thank you very much for coming back. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Absolutely.

I can't wait to hear all the stories. Me, too. All right, then. Nice one. Thank you. And until next time. Goodbye. Ao by Right. So, you just heard me say bye. Bye at the end there. But we're not done yet because I just want to say a few more things at the end of this episode. The first thing is thank you very much to Anna for coming back on the podcast uh and uh telling us about her latest book, but also about her paranormal experiences and uh that are just unexplainable. I don't know how to explain those things. Um as always,

we're curious to know what you think. So please get into the comments section and leave your thoughts. I always want to encourage you to uh respond in some way and write a comment. Um if only just to practice your English, but also just to get responses. You know, we're always curious to know what you think. And also, you heard us talk about that competition which we launched in this episode. So, let me just kind of reestablish or properly establish the rules for this competition. Okay. Um, so what we want is a description from you of a strange, paranormal, or at least unexplained experience that you've had.

Okay? Think, have you ever had a weird experience that you can't really explain. Write your description in the comments section or send me an email. Okay? So, a description of a strange, paranormal, or just unexplained experience that you've had. There's no word count for this. Uh but there's no need to make it like really long. Um but no particular word count. You can send your description either in the comment section of this episode on YouTube, on Spotify, or on my website. And if you do it on my website, make sure you leave your comment under the episode page. Not just on the main

page, but under the specific page for this episode. You'll find the link for that in the episode archive on my website teacherluke.co.uk. So you can write your description in the comments section or you can just send it to me by email directly. Luke [email protected]. Okay. In terms of judging criteria, how are we going to judge these? So by the way, when I've received uh your descriptions, I'll read them. I'll share them with Anna. She'll read them, too. and together we will decide which one we like the best. I don't know how many descriptions I'm going to get from this because I wonder how many of my listeners have paranormal experiences

that they can share. But it's, you know, it's not that common, is it? They're quite extraordinary things. But I really want to appeal to you listeners. If you've got anything to describe at all, please do send in your description, okay? because just as much as anything else as well as just making this competition work, we just would love to know your stories. Okay? So, if you just rack your brain and think to yourself, well, yeah, that I did have that weird experience that time. Uh, put it into words, describe it for us, and send it to us. Judging criteria, then how are we going to judge your writing? We're not going to judge it very harshly. What we're looking for

mainly is something that has effect on the reader, like something that has a good effect on us when we read it. That's the main thing. We want something that's going to clearly describe what happened. And we're looking for something that's kind of creepy, that's interesting, that's mysterious. So mainly we want you to be able to communicate that strange unexplained feeling. We need you to be able to describe the experience clearly so that we understand exactly what happened and for it to have a slightly creepy feeling to it. That's the main thing basically just it has to just do the job. Um but obviously a certain level of control of English and a range of vocabulary will

help you to achieve that. Um, consider organization. Consider the way you organize your description. You should probably plan it a little bit in advance rather than just writing it out in one go. You should edit and plan and think about it. Um, but the main thing is the effect on the reader and uh, does it do the basic job of describing a strange experience clearly with a maybe a slightly creepy atmosphere? I'm aware of course that whenever I ask um learners my learners to do some writing that AI could be involved. So I'd like to encourage you to avoid using AI to just write the whole thing from scratch.

Please I'd like to encourage you to do that because well first of all I can usually tell when something has been written by AI. So if you just ask chat GPT to come up with something, you know, normally we can tell, right? Um and blatant AI obvious intelligence uh use in your writing will count against you. Okay. So we the human touch is okay. Like a few little errors is okay and it's to be expected from learners of English. So, I don't necessarily need something that's completely flawless with no errors. The human touch is okay. And if it's obvious, if it's obvious, if it's blatantly obvious that you've used chat GPT or something, that's not going to

work in your favor. Maybe you'll use it, maybe you can use it as a tool to help you develop your writing, to help you um improve it, but just from scratch. Um try to avoid doing that. The closing date for this competition is midnight of the 30th of April, 2026. Midnight, wherever you are in the world, midnight your time. So, if you're way over on the other side of the world and midnight is actually the 1st of May where I am, don't worry about it. Midnight your time of uh midnight the 30th of April, 2026. That's the closing time for this. A reminder of the prize.

The prize is a copy of Death by Chocolate by Anna Brookke. Okay. Uh I will send it to you. Uh, a copy of Death by Chocolate uh will be sent to you as your prize. Uh, and also I will read out your story on the podcast at some point and maybe I'll read out some others if we get enough, if we get, you know, some good ones. I might read out more than one, but the best one, the one that Anna and I choose as the best will receive the book as a prize. So, this is just a bit of fun, okay? It's it should just be uh a bit of fun really and a way to encourage you to do a bit of writing, but also to perhaps gather some potentially interesting stories. Again, I have no idea how many stories I'm

going to get because I wonder how many paranormal or just even unexplained experiences there are out there among my listeners. But let's see. Let's see what we get. It doesn't have to be paranormal. It doesn't have to be about ghosts. Just anything that you can't really explain is interesting. Okay. Right. So, there you go. That's that would be good. Uh, Death by Chocolate by Anna Brookke is available uh from Chicken House Publishing, available from All Good Bookshops. Um, a description from the Chicken House website of the book. Packed full of humor and chocolate, this mystery is the perfect gift for middle-grade readers this Easter.

Koko's parents have poured everything into the struggling French hotel, but the hotel is haunted by a bitter old ghost, Musure Fois, a Chocolatier who met a sticky end. He agrees to share his legendary skills with Koko and her new friend Louie in exchange for their help in uncovering the truth behind his murder. Can Koko and Louie save the family hotel and solve the mystery by Easter? So, this is a sort of creepy murder mystery with chocolate for middle-grade kids. Um, and I'm sure it's really good fun and your kids will love it. So, there you go. Death by Chocolate and a Brooke available now. Uh, that's it. That's the end of the episode.

Thanks very much for listening. Thanks very much for watching if you've been watching the video version. Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening, or night. And um if something weird, creepy, or unexplained happens to you, or indeed happened to you while you're listening to this, let us know in the comments section. Um all right, have a lovely time out there. I hope this didn't creep you out too much. It's fascinating stuff. Speak to you next time on the podcast. But for now, it's just time to say goodbye by boy