Acorah's Confession

As yesterday was a public holiday, I busied myself with scouring the streets for discarded receipts. This pleasant activity eased my restless mind and produced a bountiful yield: amongst the treasures collected I found a rare Morrison's till receipt for the purchase of Ragu pasta sauce, hummus, and a packet of ice-cream wafers. As you know, examples like these are akin to Venus's arms and you had better believe that this will take pride of place in my collection.

On a high for the rest of the day, I flattered myself with increasingly outrageous compliments until I began to blush furiously and I had to retire to a darkened room to compose myself.

This morning, a discordant rendition of Onward Christian Soldiers signalled the return of Father Bouffant. I had earlier determined that I would openly confront him about his true identity (fraudulent TV spiritualist Derek Acorah). When I did so, puffing out my chest and angling my thighs to the right to appear more demanding, he looked crestfallen and sheepishly related the following fantastical account:

"Well Mr Carew...or may I call you Clive?" he began. I agreed that he could call me Clive. "My story is a strange one. In 1950 I was born to a Liverpudlian drudge, the unhappy product of an ill-judged but passionate affair with an unnamed peripatetic gypsy. My mother will tell you that on the day of my birth, the midwife mistook me for a lung and almost cast me to the flames in horror. Such was my ignoble start in life.

"Until I was 27 years of age I worked with my mother sculpting marzipan fruit for tourists. On my 28th birthday I became aware of my Gift. My grandmother had it, my mother had it, and by all accounts, every gypsy ever born has it too. It is that fabled, heaven-sent ability to trick simpletons into believing you can commune with the dead in exchange for cash. Two avenues were thus open to me - the spiritualist circuit, or the priesthood (where I might pretend that I could specifically contact one dead man, Jesus H. Christ).

"Seduced by the glamour of dark robes and wine, I picked the church. In those days the Catholic church would not ordain Scousers, believing them to be altogether too sinewy, so I was forced to change my name and adopt the persona of a meek Scotsman. To this day, I still practise as a priest under the name Father Onesiphorous Bouffant in the small township of Tongue.

"When Living TV was devised in the late 90s, they put out a call for those with the Gift, and I readily applied because at last the stage was set for those with the Gift to make serious money, where previously they were limited to paltry donations at garden fetes. I returned with pride to my true name and accent, and in my interview put on a tremendous show wherein I pretended to be possessed by the spirit of a long-deceased basking shark. The TV folk lapped up my performance and hired me on the spot.

"This is now my lot in life - in exchange for large quantities of money, I pretend to speak to people who aren't there, and occassionally feign possession. Possession is tricky because although I have developed a variety of different grimaces, I can still only do the one voice, which sounds a little like a pirate, but if I start to struggle I simply pretend to faint, which is usually enough to fool Yvette Fielding.

"I will not deny that I am an incredibly wealthy man. But this has its downsides - I now expect the very best in life, such as brand-name cornflakes rather than the generic 'Tesco value' ones, which proves somewhat costly. Whenever Most Haunted or Ghost Towns or The Antique Ghost Show is not on the air (sometimes as much as one full week of the year), I am forced to return to my old disguise as Father Bouffant and perform exorcisms in order to support my flamboyant lifestyle and lust for new earrings.

"I can only apologise Clive, for attempting to trick you. I see now that you also have the Gift, so I will leave you - it is not the done thing to attempt to fool one of your own. Before I go, however, I will have to ask you for £300 for services already rendered."

I gave him the money, plus a 10% tip, and wished him well. What a nice man.