Competition extended!

From Mike Kazybrid’s recent interview with Rony Robinson on BBC Radio Sheffield:

Rony: Have you seen any good ghosts lately?

Mike: No.

Rony: Have you ever seen a ghost?

Mike: Erm … no.

Rony: Isn’t it a bit odd to be a hunter of ghosts if you’ve never seen one?

Mike: (mumbles a half-hearted embarrassed defence)

As you can see, Rony rumbled us immediately, live on air, and Mike’s insightful, eloquent and well-thought-out responses did little to convince him. So, if we haven’t found any ghosts yet, we need you to tell us about your ghost encounters. Doesn’t have to be long – just a sentence or two. Either comment at the bottom of this blog, or bung us an email at twomenandaghost@hotmail.com.

Out of all the stories received, we’ll turn our favourite into a comic strip, like the one above which relates to our adventure in Bunting Nook (you can read about it here and here). For more examples of Mike’s excellent artwork, see his latest graphic novel about the legendary Humph the Cat, completely free to download here.

Just imagine, your story can be illustrated by a top UK artist (Mike is currently drawing the Wallace & Gromit strip for The Sun), and you will also receive his original artwork through the post, signed personally to you.

Our original deadline for this competition was the end of June, but we so love reading your stories (they turn us green with envy) that we’ve extended the deadline to the end of the summer hols (last day of August). Many thanks for Martin Dawes of The Star for promoting our competition here.

Please get scribbling and scare us with your true-life tales!

The year so far... (by Andrew Wooding)

Being April Fools’ Day, it’s probably appropriate to take a quick look back at the year so far for two fools in Sheffield (three if you count the ghost).

2010 started out rather encouragingly, with what you might call a media frenzy. Our friend Martin Dawes of The Star gave us another nice write-up, which you can see here. He says: ‘So far, despite their best efforts, the duo have been spook-free. But that doesn't stop them trying.’

We also did an extensive interview on The Paul and Spike Show, but unfortunately a gremlin (or was it a ghost?) crept into the Skype line, rendering the entire interview unusable. The proof of the pudding can be found in the short extract 24½ minutes into the finished podcast (which can be found here), in which Mike and I sound like we’re gabbling in tongues or channelling the spirit of the late lamented Pingu.

As for the rest of the media frenzy, well … er … that’s it.

But to compensate, we’ve started bunging stuff up on YouTube. (Check us out on The 2MG's Channel.) There’s our two-part visit to Sheffield General Cemetery, including reader feedback and an exploration of Egyptian mythology. The visit seemed like a good idea at the time, except Sheffield General Cemetery turned out to be the muddiest place in Sheffield that evening, and it was so dark that you couldn’t see any of the background in the finished videos, just our noses as we shone torches at each other. Actually, big secret now: we shot the whole thing in the broom cupboard at 2MG Mansions. (And if you believe that...)

There’s also our three-part video set in the basement (or ‘the stacks’) of Sheffield Central Library. Watch Mike explain the music hall background of the library’s location on Surrey Street; see us get distracted by various titles on the shelves, including an exhaustive book on tripe; and look out for various ghosts hovering in the background of the video (or are they just random librarians trundling along with trolleys of books?).

That’s it so far. So what about the remaining three-quarters of the year? Rest assured, there’s lots of good stuff to look forward to, and we might even finally spot a ghost.

In the immediate future, there’s more YouTube videos in the pipeline, the start of a regular lively podcast with a brilliant spooky theme tune, more ‘Real or Surreal?’ features from Mike, and my spine-tingling account of our recent nocturnal excursion to Hagg Hill in Sheffield. There we found our new nemesis. Move aside, Mad Monk of Stockbridge. Our latest foe is…

Ah, but that would be telling.

Competition coming soon...

For those of you who listen to the excellent The Paul and Spike Show - broadcast weekly over the airwaves by radio six international then made available as an extended podcast on iTunes - you'll be expecting a very special Halloween competition right here on this very blog.

Rest assured, it is coming soon. It'll be here sometime this weekend, just as soon as we've polished to perfection the unique, special prize, fine-tuned the wording of the challenging competition question, and ... er ... been to the toilet a few times, picked our noses and watched a few movies.

In the meantime, you could do worse than read our third mention (no less) by Martin Dawes in The Star newspaper in Sheffield - check it out here. Thanks, Martin!

You can also listen to us on the latest edition of The Paul and Spike Show. We're 22 minutes in (ish) ... but the rest of the show's quite good as well! Also, big thanks to the good folks at radio six international who will be running promos for our competition all the way through October.

The Paul And Spike Show: Friday October 9th, 2009.


Click here to download the show mp3.

And click here to subscribe to the Paul And Spike Show, using iTunes or any feedreader.

The Star and Beauchief Abbey (by Andrew Wooding)

Mike emailed me the other day with some joyous news: ‘To bring good cheer, check out the Sheffield Star website. It appears that yesterday we received another mention that we're becoming big down under!’ I’ve never been accused of being big down under – more so round the waist. So, in the absence of a link, I googled ‘Sheffield’, ‘Star’ and ‘ghost’ and found this – not quite what I was looking for, but interesting nevertheless.

It’s an article about a ghost from Barnsley that’s obsessed with flushing toilets. The question one has to ask is: ‘Why?’ What trauma from their mortal existence would lead a ghost to compulsively flush the bog? Is there a dysentry pandemic in the spirit world? Do they get the squits in the nether regions? Or could it be Elvis from beyond the grave, regretting that one last cheeseburger?

I googled again, a little more precisely this time, and found our mention here, under the heading ‘Ghosthunters a hit Down Under’. The piece was written by Sheffield journalist Martin Dawes, the same nice person who kindly gave us a plug when this blog was just two weeks old. His write-ups are much appreciated, but he seemed to end this one with a sarky comment: ‘Their site is full of funny cartoons. But not, as yet, a single ghost…’

Really? What about our malfunctioning mileometer on the Stocksbridge bypass? And Mike’s childhood reminiscences of his levitating cot and haunted piano? Maybe he reckons these can all be explained away. Maybe he's looking for conclusive proof?

Well … here, especially for you, Martin Dawes … is the account of our trek to Beauchief Abbey.

It was a peaceful evening, in lovely grounds surrounded by a golf course. The abbey was founded in 1175 by Robert FitzRanulf de Alfreton. Old FitzRanulf (or 'Fitz' for short) was High Sheriff of Nottingham and Derbyshire. Some believe he played a part in the shameful death of Thomas Becket in 1170.

The theory is that Fitz, racked with guilt by his misdemeanour, attempted to redeem himself by funding a religious building. Back then there was no Children in Need or Comic Relief for conscience-easing acts of charity, so Fitz had to build an abbey instead. Slightly more expensive, perhaps, than writing a cheque to Pudsey Bear, but at least he didn't have to put up with Terry Wogan. Or wear a red nose. (Or maybe he did. Who knows what fun-loving High Sheriffs of Nottingham and Derbyshire got up to in those days? There's nothing in the history books to prove otherwise.)

As for paranormal activity, there's supposedly a ghostly monk in the vicinity. Maybe a friend or former colleague of the 'mad monk of Stocksbridge'? Our Beauchief Abbey monk wasn't mad - at least, not this evening. We didn't see hide nor habit of him. He probably couldn't be bothered to do a haunting tonight. Perfectly content with his lot, he was quite happy to put his feet up in the great beyond while chanting in Latin ... or contemplating ... or painting over his bald spot ... or whatever ghost monks do on their evenings off. (Wonder if ghost monks have a union? The GMU perhaps?)

There have also been sightings of a lady in white, who sometimes roams the ruins of the abbey. We didn't see her either. All I can say is I'm glad she didn't wear red, otherwise that annoying Chris de Burgh song would have gone round our heads all evening, over and over again. (Wish I hadn't mentioned it. It's going round my head right now.)

For what it's worth, it's been written that the abbey is built on ancient ley lines, but no matter how hard I looked I couldn't see them. What does a ley line look like when it's at home anyway?

Desperate for something strange to happen, we ascended a large grass mound and surveyed our surroundings. Mike started to theorise that the mound was home to a mutant giant mole that only came out at night, and I believed him ... for a milli-microsecond, that is. Mike was clearly gibbering, so it was time to call it a day.

'It's a day,' I said.

'No, it's not,' said Mike. 'It's a mound.'

I tripped on the way back to the car. Had I stumbled across an ancient ley line? Closer inspection revealed it was a can of Irn-Bru.

So, Martin Dawes of the Sheffield Star, you'll be pleased to see that there's no conclusive proof again this week. But hope springs eternal in the human breast and maybe in the ghostly breast as well - or breasts, in the case of the lady in white.

Better luck next time? At the infamous boating pond of the ghostly Graves Park?

In the meantime, how can I free my mind of Chris de Burgh's incessant warbling? Got any bright ideas anyone? Where's that packet of Anadin...

Blanket media coverage for Two Men and a Ghost! (by Andrew Wooding)

What a phenomenal week it’s been! With our Sheffield ghost-hunting blog barely two weeks old, we have been the proud recipients of what can only be described as blanket media coverage … a veritable whirlwind of publicity in a frenzied Sheffield media storm.

In short, we had blanket media coverage at the bottom of page 10 of The Star on Thursday … and on Saturday morning, on BBC Radio Sheffield, we had blanket media coverage for 9½ minutes at 7.45 in the morning, between traffic reports and an interview with a vicar about trespassing sheep.

The Star article, expertly scribed by columnist Martin Dawes, can be eyeballed here:

http://www.thestar.co.uk/diary/Comic-writers-get-in-spirit.5353540.jp

As for our radio appearance – on the Saturday Breakfast show, hosted by the effervescent Gareth Evans – I was hoping to provide a ‘listen again’ link, but there isn’t one. Too bad, as there seems to be a ‘listen again’ option for just about every other Radio Sheffield programme, including Sunday Breakfast, and Gareth Evans’ weekday shows.

Was it ghostly intervention that prevented our interview from being archived? Even though we’ve just started, are we getting so dangerously close to the truth that spooks are scared of us and need to intervene with BBC mixing desks and digital recorders? Naah … I didn’t think so either.

I’d like to report on one spook, though … the subject of our first investigation, the mad monk of Stocksbridge, a ghost that purportedly interferes with the inner workings of cars because he isn’t happy about his eternal rest being disturbed by the sudden new influx of noisy traffic thundering along the Stocksbridge bypass.

You may recall that our first outing to Stocksbridge was in Mike’s car, the mileometer of which inexplicably packed in for the entirety of our exploration and only started working again when we headed away from the so-called haunted area.

Trying to be scientific – we decided to pay a visit to Stocksbridge again – but this time in my car. Cynics could say that maybe Mike’s mileometer was faulty and it was all just coincidence. But if the mileometer stopped in two separate cars on two different journeys, then we would really have something worth writing about.

Our experiment paid off. Sure enough, as Mike hopped into my passenger seat and we set off from Meadowhall car park to the busy Stocksbridge bypass, my mileometer…

…worked perfectly, and it did so for the remainder of the evening. Ah well. At least it was nice getting out for a drive, as well as pigging out on a family pack of Gold Bars, kindly supplied by Mike.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe, just maybe, the mad monk is pleased with us for spreading the word about his frustrations. He only does his stuff with people he’s narked with, but by sticking up for him we’re now in his good books and he’ll leave our cars alone. So the fact that our mileometer worked perfectly might still be definite proof that the mad monk exists. Not convinced? Don’t blame you, but I’ll leave you with this final true fact.

After dropping Mike back to his parked car at Meadowhall, then heading for home in my own car (in Waterthorpe near Crystal Peaks shopping centre), I put my iPod on ‘shuffle’ mode. There are hundreds of possible songs on there, but just minutes from reaching Waterthorpe, shuffle threw up Rasputin by Boney M again, that celebrated hit single about the most famous mad monk in history. What are the chances of that, eh? Was it a sign from the mad monk himself? It makes you think, doesn’t it?

The mad monk of Stocksbridge might be pleased with us, but he has a terrible taste in music.