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Spirits moving with the times

I've long wondered why spirits communicate through mediums. It seems a remarkably inefficient and old-fashioned method of contacting the living.

Just imagine that you found yourself in the afterlife and were able to move freely through time and space, unencumbered by the restrictions of corporeal form. If you wanted to make a guest appearance in a haunted house or historic National Trust property, I guess that would be your prerogative. No one would be surprised if you decided to move some furniture around or maybe wander up and down a staircase. But when it comes to conveying a meaningful message to an earthbound former acquaintance, it seems that you're stuck. It's a case of join the queue at the Living TV studios and hope that Colin Fry doesn't get held up in a traffic jam.

Very often, if you do make contact, you only come through faintly. It must be a little like shouting through a brick wall with a sock in your mouth. Odd snatches of conversation make their way through, but they're pretty indistinct.

I can't understand why there haven't been more protests in the spirit world, particularly from those who have passed in recent years. "Look, mate. This medium thing. I know it's the way you've always contacted earth, but it's too much like hard work. Six months ago I was using an iPhone 3GS."

It seems to me there should be a mobile app for this kind of instant messaging between the living and the dead. Spiritworld v2.34 or something. Ghosts could search us and we could search them. "Leonardo da Vinci would like to be your friend. Do you know Leonardo?"

My old friend Hoffy says that someone called Barry Sheene is following him on Twitter, an honour Barry only bestows on Hoff and BBC Question Time. This could potentially be the first evidence of heavenly microblogging. On the other hand, it may be just the evidence you need to confirm that you shouldn't be on Twitter.

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