We all have our guilty viewing pleasures, and holding strong at the top of my list is Most Haunted on (ironically) Living TV.
For those who have never seen it, former Blue Peter presenter Yvette Fielding and her team - a camera crew, a historian, a medium, a few helpers and the odd sceptic - visit locations across the UK which are notorious for paranormal activity.
It's one of cable telly's biggest success stories and is recommissioned year after year- despite the fact nothing remotely supernatural has ever been caught on camera.
In last night's episode, it was the second of a two-parter recorded in a disused coastal fort.
Southport's Derek Acorah is no longer the in-house medium, and his place was taken by a sassy, bumptious American psychic who appeared to be called Johnny, but was definitely all woman.
The best bits are always the segments recorded in night-vision, which brings back memories of green-tinged footage from the early days of Gulf War reporting as the gang - a drippier Scooby Doo crew - scream and get scared (when nothing scary appears to be happening) in various cellars/attics/tunnels/wood-panelled corridors.
Apart from the occasional pebble striking the crew from off camera, a swinging lampshade or bangs and crashes in the distance, the entire premise of Most Haunted is one of suggestion.
As Yvette and the funky psychic stood in a war museum within the fort walls, absolute silence was punctuated by calls of: "Did you hear that?" after no sound appeared to have been made.
There appears to be two rules of Most Haunted:
a) All visual evidence takes place just to the left, right or behind the camera's field of vision.
b) Someone is always talking when audio phenomena occurs, so you can't quite tell if they're hearing something or not.
But regardless, it's addictive viewing, if only for Yvette's closing monologue, usually delivered in a gothic overcoat, against an industrial backdrop, in extremely earnest fashion.
And until we actually see a ghoulie on screen, we're still left with closing words along the lines of: "Although we never witnessed any supernatural phenomena here last night, I think something did touch my hair."
Don't have nightmares.
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