Morbid Curiosity

I shouldn't have watched it. Complaining about it now, I realise that the simple solution would have been to not watch it. I may be turning into my Auntie Dorothy who used to purposefully watch programmes she would find offensive so she could complin.

And so long as people like me are willing to watch these things, so they will continue to exist. We have stooped to a new low and I am partly responsible because I watched some of it.

I'm referring to the Michael Jackson Seance.

Why did I watch (some of) it? The OH was out for the evening, to watch boxing, which in retrospect I may have enjoyed more as unlikely as it may be. So I drifted to watching rubbish on television and after two old episodes of "What Not to Wear", I watching this rubbish.

I was not a huge Michael Jackson fan (I'm writing this extremely cautiously as the last time I wrote about him, elsewhere, I was attacked by legions of fans). He was talented. The Jackson 5 were great. I liked a lot of his early stuff, although its not really my cup of tea. Equally, I don't usually watch these television ghost hunt type programmes. I don't think I believe in ghosts, but I am not certain. What I am certain of is that if they do exist, they are not communicating with this world through Derek Acorah.

The seance was a combination of exploitation and bandwagon jumping, never a good mix. It involved a known fraud, some emotionally vulnerable people and a couple of celebrities who would do anything to appear on television more. The programme started badly with David Guest complimenting June Sarpong on her beautiful lips and white teeth, and it went downhill from there.

The seance participants were four Jackson superfans. At least two of them seemed disturbed before it started and were sobbing uncontrollably once things got going (FACT: no matter how much you like someone's music and feel it is talking to you and you feel you know him through his lyrics and think he is a good person because of the things you know about him, you did not know this person - they were not actually your friend or your family, and if their death affects you as if they were, then things have got out of control). Even Sarpong seemed troubled when one of them brokedown when in "communicating" with his idol. I turned it off before the other two received their messages. I never did find out if Jackson's hat flew around the room as a finale.

Why couldn't there have been a cynic thrown into it? Or someone who believes in the paranormal but without the attachment to Jackson? And the introduction stated that they would not be getting into the legal area of who did what on the night he died. How could they know that? Ok so Acorah might not ask those questions, but how could he control what Jackson wanted to talk about? He might have been angry and want to point the finger at the guilty parties? But happily for Sky's legal department, he was compliant and didn't stray into slanderous territory.