Phil's Adventures With the WiiU

Having ordered the console way back in September today (Friday 30th November) my WiiU finally turned up, just after 12noon.

Getting it home I unwrapped it and was impressed by how neat the package was even if inside there is plenty of stuff. I bought the premium pack and inside you get the WiiU console and game pad, power cables for both, a stand, a power cradle for the game pad, a copy of Nintendo Land and a new sensor bar, all neatly wrapped and a pleasure to open.

With all that set-up it was time to get installing and it was mostly a painless set-up. It all begins by switching on the Game Pad and then the WiiU console and tethering them together following the simple instructions on the small screen. This set-up included connecting it to your television to use it as a TV remote, setting up your Mii (with a handy transfer option from a 3DS which I used, even if I had to alter the settings of my Mii as it had copying disabled), other bits like the aspect ratio and such and setting up an internet connection, which is the only time it was frustrating as it wouldn’t connection to my Virgin Media box even though all the settings were correct.

Thankfully a quick Google search took me to http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/19/wii-u-wont-connect-to-internet/ which clearly explained the settings and then it connected all fine for the, reportedly massive update, which kicked off once it had the connection.

My thoughts on the controller so far is that it’s light and easy to hold and the screen is crisp and clear and the menu intuitive and simple to operate, but I think the flicking between two screens could take some getting used to. I don’t, so far, agree with the reports of the pad feeling cheap though it is gathering fingerprints on its shiny surface.

So now I’m ten minutes into the download and waiting for it to finish, nervous about reports of a failed update ‘bricking’ the console. I’ve had one heart-pounding moment where the controller, now sitting in its charging cradle, switched to power saving mode and dimmed, but otherwise all is going well, even if I have to listen to the repetitive music that bumbles on as the download, well, downloads. Thank God for the volume control.

With the download having taken, on my Virgin Media L package, a scarily precise sixty minutes, I was ready to use the console!

With a few more ticks of menus you can now log-in as your user on the WiiU and then I jumped into one of the options to use, YouTube. Sadly, now seeming to be a regular thing, it waited while another update was installed with a time remaining value that was as libellous as anything Microsoft Windows throws up; either that or seconds are twenty times longer in Japan. And, irritatingly, once I’d done this it said I couldn’t do it as I needed a Nintendo Network ID so had to head to another menu to do this!

Oh, and then I started playing the new Super Mario game and there was another wait while it updated. And then another prompt for setting up the Miiverse which I couldn’t do in game.

On the plus side Super Mario U looks gorgeous in HD even if it does play like every other Mario game recently (and I keep trying to collect coins like I’m playing on my 3DS) and my bedroom is within range to play it in bed. Result!

Opinion so far? Great console, graphically impressive but the set-up is long and irritating.

Transferring from the Wii to WiiU

On Saturday morning, after briefly playing more of the new Mario game – which, after my lukewarm reaction of yesterday, is starting to show its brilliance with its fun to play levels and impressive map but it’s the challenges menu I discovered which is really brilliant.

I also tackled the Wii to WiiU transfer and it was surprisingly easy and straightforward even if the amount of text thrown at you from the menus is ridiculous. You basically put an SD card in the WiiU which has some software installed and then you transfer it to the Wii where all your save files are moved across with most channels – in the same ratio they did with the DS > 3DS. You then return the card to the WiiU and they’re moved over. It’s long and tedious – though you do get a fun Pikmin movie – and not perfect: some games have to be reinstalled from the e-store, including those you had on your SD card which, mostly, won’t work so you have to delete them and reinstall them. I gave up re-downloading them as it takes ages but will reinstall them as they go.

Lots of people have complained about the Wii element being an emulator. It’s not much of a problem really for me with all the saved games moved over, though it would be nice for all digital content to be included on the WiiU dashboard and I hope this comes into place soon. Also, it would be useful for Wii Miis to move over to the Wii U Mii area…

Now onto ZombieU…

Bradford Christmas Lights Switch On

Bradford Christmas Lights Switch On
Saturday 17th November 2012

This weekend I chose to stay around in Bradford for a handful of reasons. Firstly to catch up on some personal business I’d not yet got round to doing; secondly to see Aardman’s excellent Claymation film ‘The Pirates’ at the National Media Museum in 3D as part of the Bradford Animation Festival (I’d not caught it in the third medium on the original showing and was worth seeing again on the big screen even if the 3D wasn’t anything incredible); and, to cement how Bradford has improved over the last few years with lots happening in it, the switching on of the Christmas Lights with an event in the City Park.

Now I’m a big supporter of the City Park. It might have cost plenty of money (money, you could argue, that could have been spent on revitalising the city centre shops or on youth projects or on revitalising the Odeon) but it’s a beautiful piece of design and a great central focus for the city and never have I seen one location in Bradford bring so many people together in one place for key events. I’ve been in the park for the Olympic Torch Relay; the outdoor showing of Coraline; and the opening event of the Park, all great events and worth seeing, alongside the regular water and light feature that I walk home through most nights, so it was natural to expect big things for the switching on of the Christmas lights. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the most exciting of the dates they’ve schedule on the park and was a little bit of a disappointment after such excellent gigs held in the Park recently.

Leaving Pictureville as the credits of ‘The Pirates’ rolled we got to the City Park to hear the first of two choirs we saw, positioned on a stage on top of the “visitor’s centre”. Sadly, without a big screen or a better vantage point in the absolutely rammed City Park, it was difficult to see the choir but the sound was great in compensation, with the children’s choir moving through some great versions of songs including Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’ and McFly’s ‘Star Girl’, ticking the boxes for all ages. They were followed by another choir, doing a mixture of more festive-themed tunes, which were also well sung and composed, but equally not as visible. The weather helped though with only a little bit of drizzle and it didn’t feel as cold as events have been there.

There had also been other attractions throughout the day including some street theatre Santas, but it was just before 5pm that the main event began.

The main attraction for the Christmas switch-on, in the lieu of an expensive b-celebrity switching them on and no surprise appearance of the rumoured Zak from One Direction, regularly denied in the week leading up to the event by the council, was a French trapeze troupe called Trans Express. There was a large, impressive construction in the middle of the drained mirror pool, held up by an equally large crane. The members of the troupe came out and started performing on smaller mini-stages dotted around the pool, lighting up beacons and speaking but it was impossible, unless you were near them, to hear what they were saying. They then proceeded to continue dancing and make their way to the central construction, a trapeze and performance structure that slowly raised up into the air with the group making music on drums and other instruments, creating an ethereal soundtrack that echoed around the park. Several trapeze artists also did some mid-air acrobatics and a counterweight-like device at the bottom set alight with red flame as the music continued and the structure returned to the ground where there was a bit more dancing.

The display was amazing and the skill on show was great and to see it happening in front of you was exciting. Or at least it would have been compressed into twenty minutes instead of the forty-five minutes it was dragged out for with awkward pauses where nothing would happen with no music or commentary to fill the gap or at least to put the action into context. At times it felt more like an intimate performance playing to a larger crowd with only those nearer to the performers getting the full impact. It was a shame when, attractions such as the large balloons at the City Park opening were so successful, that these dragged on. Unlike those balloons, which were up and demonstrated and then wrapped up, this performance just seemed stretched out.

Thankfully, the end of the event was rounded off nicely with the Lord Mayor – looking distinctly pirate-y in his red coat, or maybe the film was still with me – leading a countdown to the lights switching on and an impressive double-location firework display which included a neatly put together festive-based soundtrack that was the best bit of the whole thing. It was just a shame that someone hadn’t got the memo and switched on the city centre Christmas lights a good ten minutes before the countdown took place, with only the tree lights switching on as the countdown hit zero.

Overall the acrobatics on display were impressive and the fireworks and choir nicely rounding off the attractions, but it felt like what could have been an impactful thirty minute performance piece and switch-on was dragged out for three times that long. A rare misfire after the excellent 'Garden of Light' last month in what has been an impressive set of City Park attractions so far and hopefully next year we get more things like the choir and fireworks and something a little sparkier between.

BUSOM Presents Scratch-enfreude! [Review]

BUSOM Presents Scratch-enfreude!
Amp Bar, Student Central, Thursday 1st November 2012

Relocating from the snug black box of the Theatre In The Mill to the larger, more spacious Amp Bar for this Scratch production based on hit American puppet musical Avenue Q, I was glad to be able to continue my unbroken run of seeing the productions by student-led society BUSOM – Bradford University Society for Operettas and Musicals. Featuring a mixture of students and graduates, Avenue Q would seem on paper to be a challenge for the society to put on, based as it is around puppets.

And naturally, the puppets weren’t exactly up to the scale of the creations of Jim Henson with most of them variants on sock puppets but all with the necessary arms and legs and they were, surprisingly, very good and varied and brought an added element to the production and though their creator, musical director Alice De Jong, admitted to me that they weren’t perfect close-up, from the audience perspective they looked great and mostly remained the focal point rather than the actors playing them. Only the larger Fozzie Bear like ‘Trekkie Monster’ was perhaps not as convincing, with the fun mask off-set by what looked like to be a rug over Dave Jennings’ chest.

With the stage bathed in a purple light and some nifty spotlights to highlight the key acts, the musical tells the story of puppet Princeton, played by newcomer Danny Sweeney, who falls in love with school teacher Kate Monster, played by Elly Parkinson, who suffers discrimination in her life through her being a Monster. Played alongside this story is the will-they won’t-they gay relationship of puppets Rod and Nicky, played by Nick Smith and Ben Bell respectively, and the blossoming inter-country relationship of Brian and Christmas, acted puppet-less by Jon Carter and Danielle Nash. As the story progresses songs are sung, relationships formed and loss, and temptations put in the way of the characters in the form of puppet Lucy the Slut, performed by Rachel Mitchell, and the Bad Idea Bears controlled and voiced by Poppy Brooks and Emily Grace Bennett. There is also room to throw in the Trekkie Monster performed by Dave Jennings but voiced by the ever vocal Anna Garlick and Joel Blakemore playing Rupert Grint and stealing a lot of the funny lines in the play as the ginger actor to the original’s black Gary Coleman, sadly no longer with us. In the tradition of the original all puppeteers appear on stage.

With a quick glance over Wikipedia BUSOM successfully crammed the production and most of its numbers into a ninety-minute piece, split in two with an interval. Though the musical felt the rustiest of the productions I’ve seen by them, with some cues missed and the occasional struggle to match the backing music, it was also one of their most ambitious and was placed in a new venue.

Lead actors Danny Sweeney and Elly Parkinson lit up the stage and were strong as the two main characters, both possessing their puppets with much personality. They would have been the strongest actors in the production if they didn’t find themselves over-shadowed by Nick Smith and Ben Bell as gay puppets Rod and Nicky who, out of all the people in the musical, embodied their puppets most wholey and at times I found myself forgetting them as actors behind. Both put on some great voices – Ben’s very Kermit-esque in its delivery – and their acting with the puppets was brilliant and stole the show really for me.

Jon Carter and Joel Blakemore held the production together from a “human” side, adding some good presence to the stage and providing lots of the humour, Joel once more revelling in the jokes at the expense of Rupert Grint and their matching hair colours, and though their musical numbers weren’t the strongest over the ninety minutes they brought the script to life. Danielle Nash as Christmas Eve was a good debut by her but she struggled to be heard on stage, though that was possibly down to the larger, more open venue, but she worked well with Jon and they made a convincing anti-couple. The sound was an issue for a few other performers occasionally, such as Ben and Jon, but it’s the nature of moving from a more intimate venue to a larger bar area.

If Nick and Ben as Rod and Nicky were the two best puppets, then they were challenged by Poppy and Emily as the Bad Idea Bears whose voices were spot-on and their operating of the stuffed-bears brought many jokes to the production and they were good throughout, especially in adding background jokes. It was also great to see the return of Rachel Mitchell to BUSOM after her great work in last year’s Grease and, though she was perhaps a little underused as a periphery character, brought her puppet to life well and was a great supporting character.

Anna Garlick was as great as always and, though like Rachel didn’t have as bigger part as she really deserves, her voice work and characterisation was great, combined with Dave Jennings acting though he was hampered by being hidden behind a mask for the performance.

Supporting the ensemble was the chorus made up of a lot of the cast plus Joanne, Christine and Lyndsey, who also had small parts in the production and were as fun as ever in the roles, Christine and Lyndsey in particular delivering their lines with confidence.

Piano duties were done by Freya Plummer and Daniel Swatridge, with the aid of a couple of pre-recorded tracks, and sounded on top form though sometimes the accompanying singers did lose their way. On the whole the songs, that were the backbones of the production, were delivered with gusto. Naturally it was the funnier songs that got the biggest response from the crowd, songs such as ‘If I Were Gay’, proving that Nick and Ben were good singers as well as great characters actors, and my personal favourite ‘The Internet Is For Porn’ which sounded every bit as good as the cast performance I’ve previously heard, with Anna Garlick adding her own unique touch to that.

‘My Girlfriend, Who Lives In Canada’, which previously appeared in the ‘Around The World’ concert was another highlight from Nick Smith and ‘Schadenfreude’ was well received thanks to its well-delivered and funny lyrics.

Overall, BUSOM’s take on ‘Avenue Q’ was another show well worth seeing. The puppets had been well put together and the actors behind them helped bring them to life, in particular Nick Smith and Ben Bell who were my personal stars of this particular show. Leads Danny Sweeney and Elly Parkinson were great choices for the larger roles, and Jon Carter and Joel Blakemore brought their great brand of humour to their production as always. Anna Garlick and Rachel Mitchell, who always excel whenever I’ve seen them continued to do so but felt a little underused here, and Poppy and Emily similarly had not as much stage time but lit it up when they did. Danielle Nash made a great impression as part of her role and Alice, as director, Catrina Lodge as Musical Director and Naomi Fowler as Producer, pulled it all together into a sharp and punchy ninety minutes that took the essence of the musical and captured it well with limited props, puppets and stage decoration.

Plus the interval raffle was a laugh even if I had two chances to win FND tickets!

Though the ensemble could have done perhaps with another technical rehearsal in the actual venue to ensure smoothness, it was another cracking piece from the student group and they rose to the challenge of the puppet-led production and, as always, I await their next show, the Winter concert based around a variety of musical tunes on the subject of ‘Villains, Minions and Monsters’ on the 11th December at 7:30pm in Escape, Student Central.

6.5/10

The New Prescription by Philip Lickley

The little bell that signalled a new customer tinkled away as the door was pushed open by a gentleman in his late fifties. He was dressed casually in a striped jumper from Marks and Spencer, a pair of comfortably fitting chinos and a pair of scuffed leather shoes. His look was completed by a pair of aging spectacles resting carefully on his nose. The man walked confidentially and with purpose into the business – a light, airy, open room containing walls and walls of different styles of glasses – and, after glancing around at the large choice of spectacles, walked over to the counter, staffed by a young girl with her hair in a bun and a wide smile on her face.

“Good afternoon, sir, how can I help?”

The man smiled back. “Hello, the name’s Terry Chamberlain. I’m here for my ten o’clock appointment.”

The girl’s eyes flicked over to a computer screen, her pupils moving down a list she was reading. Her smile faded as she looked but then returned as her eyes came across his name.

“That’s fine, sir, if you’d like to take a seat.”

Terry returned back to the main body of the shop and took a seat in the waiting area, resting his hands on his legs and fidgeting with his thumbs. He looked up and down the shop, drinking in all the details and occasionally looking at himself in one of the many mirrors, before returning to staring at his shoes.

He didn’t have long to wait before a middle-aged man in a tidy white coat and smart shirt and tie passed the reception counter and into his field of vision.

“Mr Chamberlain?” the man asked. Terry nodded and got up slowly to his feet, walking over to the man, the optician.

“How are you today?” the optician asked.

“Oh, you know,” Terry replied. “Doing OK.”

Terry followed the optician into a small side room, a room dominated by a large chair and a movable machine on a bracket that was used to test customer’s eyesight.

“If you could take a seat in the chair,” the optician said, loosely gesturing in the direction of the seat. Terry fulfilled his request, shifting into a comfortable position.

“How has your eyesight been recently?” Terry was asked. He coughed to clear his throat before speaking.

“Not so good,” Terry replied. “I think I’m in need of a change in prescription. I had a bit of an embarrassing time last week if I’m being honest.”

“Go on.”

“Well I got on my bus as usual, sitting in my usual seat, reading my usual book, well at least the one I’ve been reading for a few weeks. Nothing really unusual there, apart from the price of the bus fare. It’s only gone up again!”

“Hmm, tell me about it.”

“Well I’d planned to get to the library, pick up some new books, and that means swapping rides at the bus station. So I got off outside the coffee shop and went to the usual bus stop and waited and then got on what I thought was the right bus.”

“I take it it wasn’t?” the optician questioned, rootling around in a drawer for some tools of the trade.

“No, I thought it was the 676, but I’d got on the 616. Instead of heading to the library I was on my way to out of town. Of course, having a day ticket, I didn’t need to tell the driver where I was going so as I sat down at the back I was none the wiser. Plus, being engrossed in my book I didn’t spot we were going the wrong way until it was too late.”

“So what happened?”

“Well by the time I realised I was practically at the terminus, a little village outside the main city. A lovely place, not been there in years. Anyway, the long and short of it is that my next bus wasn’t for an hour or so, so I thought I’d make the most of the day out and headed to the local pub. A lovely pub it was too – the Red Lion. They had some real ale on from the Dales, beautiful stuff. The landlady wasn’t too bad either!”

The optician laughed as he tapped some details into the computer in the corner of the room.

“So there I was, enjoying the pint with a nice packet of crisps when I spied one of those gaming machines in the corner. Now I don’t usually bother with those. Usually a rip-off. I’ve fed more money into those things in my life, I tell you. But something made me get up and put a couple of quid in and though I lost on the first go I only went and hit the jackpot on the second. Won fifty quid!”

“Fifty? You hit lucky there.”

“I know. So I grabbed myself another pint and still had time to sup that and catch my bus. I might have been a couple of hours late to the library but I was nearly fifty quid up!”

“Sounds like it was a good day out for you.”

“It was.”

“Now,” the optician said, readying his tools for the eye test. “Let’s take a look at the problem.”

The eye test was done and dusted within just shy of ten minutes and, with a new prescription in hand, Terry was back out into the main reception area. There he was met by another member of staff who had appeared from the back. She had long, auben hair resting neatly on her shoulders and a long green dress on.

“Mr Chamberlain?” she asked. Terry nodded. “What sort of glasses are you after?”

Terry paused and thought.

“You know, I’m not too sure. Something modern but not too big. I don’t want any bottle bottoms!”

The assistant laughed.

“Well I’d say for your face shape you need a pair like this,” she said, reaching for a pair of rectangular spectacles with tapered corners, high up on the display board. She passed them over to Terry who slipped them on in exchange for his current glasses and looked at himself in the mirror.

“The problem with this,” he laughed, “Is I can’t see how I look in these without my glasses on!”

“I know,” she said, “That’s always the tricky part. What do you think?”

Terry moved his head left and right to get his impression from all the angles.

“Yes, I like them, and they’re much tighter than my last pair. You’ll never guess what I did a few days ago?”

“What?”

“Well I was in a local shop and I dropped some coins on the floor so, naturally, bent down to pick them up. Of course my glasses were loose so, bang, they slip off my nose and onto the floor, only now I can’t see where they’ve gone, and my back isn’t what it used to be.

“Luckily a young lad came by and saw what had happened and grabbed them for me, which was kind of him. So we got chatting and it turned out he has quite the interest in photography just like me and my grandson, so we’re meeting up with him and his father next week to go out to the countryside to take some snaps. Overall, it was quite a good chance encounter.”

“Sounds like it. So what do you think of the style?”

Terry nodded. “It looks good. I’ll take these.”

“No problem,” said the assistant. “If you just follow me to the counter we can pay for them there and your new lenses and frames will be ready by the end of the week.”

The assistant walked swiftly off to behind the counter, passing some information to the young girl at the till. Terry took his time more and took a little longer to reach the other side of the till.

“That’ll be £30 for the appointment and £59.99 for the new glasses Mr Chamberlain,” the assistant said. Terry reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather wallet. From this he pulled out a slightly tarnished debit card, which he was prompted to insert into the card reader on the desk by the assistant. The LED screen flickered into life and asked Terry for his PIN. The corners of his mouth curled as he entered the four digit number slowly and awkwardly before pressing enter. The machine rejected his PIN with a loud beep.

“Oh blast,” he said, “I always have trouble with these bloody things. Only yesterday I couldn’t get it to work when I went out for that meal with some friends. The bloody thing wouldn’t recognise my PIN number and I had to pay by cash. To be honest I can never read the numbers on the things what with my eyesight.”

He paused for a moment and entered another number. This too was rejected with a beep.

“Bloody thing.”

He tried again. It was rejected for a third time.

“Oh never mind. Can I pay by cash?”

“Certainly sir.”

Terry handed over five twenty pound notes and waited for his change.

“Yesterday wasn’t too bad though,” he commented, referring back to his previous thoughts. “I had to go to the cash machine to get some more cash out – that seemed to be happy with my number – and found someone had left their purse on the shelf. Luckily for them they had an address inside it so I could return it to them. The lady was quite chuffed to get it back and she’s invited me to lunch next week, so not half bad.”

The assistant rung the transaction through the till and put out her hand with the change. Terry looked at it and thought.

“You know what, I think I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “These glasses have helped me get £50, a day out doing something I love and a free lunch this week already. Maybe 20/20 vision is not all it’s cracked up to be. I think I’ll knock the new prescription on the head if that’s alright with you?” The assistant looked bemused, glancing over to her colleague, before cancelling the transaction and returning Terry’s £70. Terry smiled, wished them both a good day and left for the door.

The bell tinkled once more as he headed back out into the world to see what other adventures he could get up to with his not so perfect sight.

#Ghost by Philip Lickley

Scott was bored. So bored he was now staring blankly at his computer screen hoping that something exciting would happen. It hadn’t so far and he knew that, unless he fainted with boredom and knocked the mouse on his journey to the floor, nothing would. It was the summer holidays and he was between two years of college with nothing to do. There were no jobs to be found anywhere in the area and his desire to do anything more than sleep in until mid-morning, get up and surf around Facebook and watch a bit of daytime television had left him. His friends had all scattered around the country and further afield on holidays with his parents, whereas Scott’s parents were at work and if he had wanted to go anywhere with them it would be just to get the kudos for checking in at locations on his mobile phone.

He’d only achieved three things so far that summer: a personal best on Countdown, a short self-inspired poem entitled ‘Bored’ and having a tasteless joke he’d written re-tweeted by one minor celebrity. In short, it had been an unproductive summer.

Having grown tired of endless streams of half-hearted jokes and captioned pictures that streamed past his eyes, Scott decided to visit the website of his local newspaper. Yes, boredom had driven him to check out stories of drunken teenagers falling in lakes; post arriving thirty years later to an address to someone who had passed away years earlier; and complaints about the council. But amongst those was a story that did grab his attention. “Building Haunted by Grey Lady” it said, next to a photo of a man staring towards an old building complete with crumbling brickwork, rusting iron gates and gnarled trees. If a child was to draw a picture of a haunted house that would be what it looked like.

Scott scrolled down the story, skim reading the words and taking in the accounts. Mysterious creaks... drops in temperature... strange phantom seen over the last three weeks. It turned out the owner of the house – a Mrs Atherton – had passed away a few years previously and since then the building had fallen into disrepair and become the picture postcard for a visit by the Most Haunted team.

Normally Scott would have dismissed such a story as a bit of light-weight summer filler or an estate agent advert masquerading as a press release to try and shift the property, but as mentioned before Scott was bored and he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to explore a haunted house, especially as it was a mere five minute stroll from where he currently lay slouched.

Closing the web browser with as much effort as he could be bothered to muster, Scott lifted himself from the desk chair and sauntered out of the room and to his bedroom, where he scratched his chin in mock contemplation and considered what he’d take to investigate a haunting. His only experience of ghosts were from cheap b movies and a few television shows he’d stumbled across whilst channel surfing in a moment of even larger boredom. They often had everything from handheld devices that measured all sorts of frequencies and temperatures and such like, ranging up to full ghostbusting equipment that would involve futuristic looking satchels, tubes and computers. All Scott had to hand was a smart phone, a torch and a cheap camera his auntie had bought him several Christmas’ earlier. But that was all he needed, he figured, and frankly with a smattering of apps available on his phone he could probably just get away with that.

But it was approaching late evening so a separate torch was probably a good idea.

With his jean pockets filled with the phone and torch, plus his keys and wallet –he planned to stop off for an ice-cream on the way back – and the camera hung loosely around his neck, Scott headed out of the house and down the road, watching as the sun started to dip below the horizon. It was still, warm though, so his ragged t-shirt and jeans were enough to keep him comfortable.

It wasn’t long before Scott reached the building mentioned in the article, the old place staring back menacingly at him. It looked like a haunted house so perhaps the journalism in the local paper was correct.

It also wasn’t long before Scott got into the grounds of the building as the heavy iron gates that stood in front of the house were rusted and unlocked. They creaked as they were pushed open – so far, so cliché, he thought – but otherwise put up little defence allowing Scott to breach the grounds. It was twilight now and the shifting light gave the garden an eerie look with shafts of orange light passing between the overgrown trees and shrubbery, creating areas of glow but also areas of ghost-concealing shadow. It was eerily quiet with only the distant sound of traffic and a few rustles puncturing the silence. Scott could feel his heartbeat speeding up, which was absurd as he knew the place wouldn’t be truly haunted, but he was, after all, here to break the boredom so a little tension wouldn’t go a miss. And what was wrong with letting his imagination loose a little?

Scott began to circle the perimeter of the building, carefully placing his feet as he walked to avoid branches and loose parts of the flooring. The windows of the house were dirty and covered in cobwebs and the house, which must have already been a little run down when occupied, was now fully on the way to being worthy of demolition.

Finally coming to the front door of the building, which was ironically at the back of the house, Scott tried the handle but it was firmly locked. A few envelopes poked out of the letterbox having been delivered a few days earlier. Somebody was obviously checking on the house periodically: the handle was clean compared to the soiled door, but still nobody had been through it for a few days.

Continuing his trip around the building, Scott found one of the downstairs windows to be slightly ajar. He placed his fingers underneath the rotting wood and gently pulled it open, giving him enough space to squeeze his, thankfully, lanky body through. Slithering through the space he’d created, Scott landed awkwardly on the floor of what he deemed to be the kitchen, before getting to his feet and brushing down his jeans.

Scott took the torch from his pocket and switched it on, the bright beam illuminating the walls as he moved it around. The insides of the building were as dull as the outsides, not helped by the dark colour of the wallpaper and tiles. He began to explore the house, the carpet sodden in places from leaks in the roof from when it had been a more rainy part of summer, and a strange draft was circling around his legs. Was this the drop in temperature expected in a haunted house? With a quick load of the thermometer app on his phone it certainly was cold but that was more down, Scott considered, to the on-set of night and the fact that, on exploration upstairs after scaling the creaking staircase, the large window of the master bedroom being open and letting in cold air, leaves and, as he found when accidentally standing on its tail, a stray cat. The screech it let out was scarier than any grey lady and Scott stumbled back as he watched the cat dart across the room and through the open window. His heart was now racing. He caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby smashed mirror and smiled. He was generating the excitement now.

Satisfied that there was no grey lady within the walls of the house, Scott glanced out of the back bedroom window to the unkempt garden below. It was truly a mess.

And that’s when he saw her, moving slowly across the garden, a young girl, probably about Scott’s age, dressed in a grey top and lighter trousers, with an ashen face. She passed smoothly behind the tree and disappeared behind some bushes.

“The grey lady,” he noted, almost tripping over his feet in charging down the stairs and out of the window through which he’d entered. But on arriving at the spot between the two large bushes he’d seen her vanish there was no sign of her. Scott cursed under his breath, switched off his torch and placed it back in his pocket. His thoughts of further exploration, though, were foreshortened as he heard the approaching sounds of sirens. Not keen to relieve his boredom with a night in the cells he hopped over the back well and into an adjacent alleyway, jogging home as light faded, trying to put on his best innocent face.

Eager to get back to explore the house the next day, Scott’s plans for a daytime visit were curtailed by his parents dragging their reluctant son along for a day shopping. By the time he was free – though with some much-needed check-ins now under his belt – it was early evening again. Sneaking out after a pleasant dinner of roast beef, giving his parents the excuse of meeting up with friends, Scott was back at the gates of the house with his torch in hand. He squeezed through the gate again and to the back of the house, where he made much easier work this time of going through the window, choosing to land more carefully on his feet.

The light of his torch bounced off the work surfaces as he passed from the kitchen to the hallway and then up the stairs. That’s when he caught a glimpse of something passing gracefully along the corridor upstairs. His eyes wide and his heart racing, he glided up the stairs and into the main bedroom, where a figure in grey stood, looking out of the window. “It’s the grey lady,” his brain screamed at him. “A real ghost.”

His hand shaking, he reached around his neck and grabbed his camera, shaking as he switched it on. He pointed it, adjusted the focus and took a shot. The flash clicked and went off, capturing the photo. At this, the grey lady turned and saw Scott, letting out a loud scream. This, naturally, took Scott by surprise and he stumbled backwards.

The grey lady stopped screaming and looked at Scott, smiling.

“You gave me the shock of my life” she said, pulling her grey top down as she smartened herself up. Scott lost the power of speech and could only mutter something about a grey lady.

“Sorry to spoil your adventure,” she said, smiling. “I’m not a ghost. The name’s Kat, Kathryn. I live down the road.”

Scott regained his composure.

“So what’s with the ghost get up?” he asked, standing up straight and trying his best to look nonchalant.

“Oh you know,” she said, walking casually towards Scott. “Summer holidays, no one around, a girl’s got to do something exciting. And what better way than making up your own ghost. Sure beats sitting around on bloody Twitter all day and becoming paler from staying in all day. You’ve seen the local paper?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. Well, on both counts. I’ve been doing nothing but the internet all holiday.”

“Sounds like we have something in common. The ghost and the ghost hunter, both keen to get out a bit and try something different.”

“Yeah,” Scott mumbled, taking Kat in for the first time. She was quite attractive for a ghost.

“Fancy maybe doing something a little less Exorcist and more like the cinema?” Scott asked awkwardly. Kat smiled.

“I’d love to,” she replied, smiling cheekily, walking past Scott and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll meet you back here tomorrow night.”

Scott smiled. Looks like summer wouldn’t be too boring after all.