Alison Spittle’s Top Three Spooky Experiences
Alison Spittle is doing a chat show. She’s nervous. It’s in the Workman’s in Dublin at 8pm on Friday the 30th of October (spooky). It will have Tara Flynn, Aidan Power and her friend Giles who can do a great Pierce Brosnan impression. Andrea Farrell will be the warm up. She can’t wait. She was going to do an article about talk shows and try and sneak in a plug but it’s Halloween soon so she did one about spooky experiences instead.
What are you dressing up as for Halloween? I once dressed as Mary Bale, the lady who put a cat in a bin and became a star on YouTube. I shifted a lad dressed as the Hulk. It’s my greatest achievement to date.
I need a new look this year, I’ve seen a sexy Starbucks worker outfit, a sexy bee and a sexy remote control (all real please google it). As a lady this makes me sad, Emily Wilding Davison did not die at the Epsom derby for this. This year, I’m dressing up as a sexy U.N.E.S.C.O executive as a statement.
Here are my top three spooky experiences.
3. The Banshee
While walking home from a Brian Ormond concert with a friend on a dark, wet and windy night in Moate, we heard wails and screams. The sound could only come a banshee. We screamed and ran but the sound got louder and shriller. We panicked and ran more until we realised the sound came from the wind blowing through our hoop earrings.
2. The Ouija Board
One Halloween my friends and I tried the ouija board, there was a goth in our friend group and she seemed to know what to do,. She used a shot glass and put a ring of salt around us to ward off bad spirits.
We did it in my friends house. He was worried that if we brought a bad spirit to the house his parents would never let him hold a house party again. So after a lot of preamble and preparation we readied ourselves to talk to the other side.
We asked if there were anyone there, the shot glass went straight to X. This was too much for me and I no longer wanted to speak to the dead. However, as there were no adults in the house I didn’t want to eat Pringles and watch Ninja Warrior in the sitting room as my friends summoned spirits in the kitchen, I volunteered to take notes like we were at a residents’ association AGM.
So they started again.
“Anyone there?”
YES.
“Are you a man?”
YES.
“What is your name?”
A-D-A-I-G-H………
“Er Adaighm? Adam? is your name Adam?”
YES.
We felt smug at our guessing.
“How old are you?”
5-6.
“What year is it?”
1-9-3-6.
We paused and looked at each other.
“Ooooh what an interesting year, did you fight in a war?”
The cup moved very strongly towards YES. We got scared, from then on we complimented Adam and thanked him for his time.
We found out many things, Adam liked tea, he liked playing Gaelic football, he liked biscuits and he was also lonely, the last answer made us sad so we said goodbye.
We all felt spooked. Then we watched Derren Brown, who told us we were eejits in a hive mind. We were all relieved. The house cat kept making noise all night and shat in the sink, it’s like he knew what we did and was punishing us.
1. The Spotlight
I am a stand up comedian now and one Halloween, I recounted the seance experience mixed with anecdotes about wearing bin bags as a child (ha, so original, what a fresh take, those were the days), during my bit where Adam was asked if he was lonely, a beat after the question, the audience were quiet, the room was dark. Suddenly the spotlight fell from the ceiling and swung towards me. The audience screamed, I screamed and ran out of the room. I hadn’t been that scared since Richard Hilman drove Gail and the kids into the canal in Coronation Street. So the moral of this story is I don’t believe in ghosts unless i’m at a seance. It’s like my faith in god, I only believe there’s a god if I’ve bought a scratch card.
