There's a house of ill repute in my street!

I've been reading the local paper. Apparently there has been a brothel operating in our street, not 100m from our front door. Can you believe that? Why didn't anyone tell me? I'd have been out there with the old binoculars. Doesn't matter now, it's been raided and closed down. I'm going to walk that way home and have a butchers though. I haven't noticed any ladies of easy virtue walking the streets. We can do without that and the mayhem they bring with them.

There seems to be a lot of fuss about the repeal of the fraudulent mediums act that is due to happen this month. It looks very much like the act will vanish and that people claiming they can contact your dead relatives (for a price) are going to be treated in the same way as any other trader that offers a service or product for a price. That is to say, if you claim you can do it and you take my money, you may end up in court trying to prove you actually gave me what I paid for.

The mediums and mystics are running scared and intend to deliver a petition to Downing Street. They claim that recognised religions are not required to prove anything, so why should the spiritualist movement? I can amswer that question. Think of it like this; if your local minister stood up in front of his congregation and promised to show you a miracle for £10, he would be required to put-up or shut-up, the same as any other trader.

But churches don't promise miracles in exchange for money. Derek Acorah does, and he's been caught cheating so many times it's getting embarrassing. That Kreed Kafer incident was excruciating. Colin Fry, the one with the magic trumpet, offers miracles in exchange for money. And if you don't know about the magic trumpet, it was a rather embarrassing incident at a seance Colin was performing many years ago. A glowing trumpet was flying round a darkened room all by itself, until someone turned the light on and Colin was seen standing in the middle of the room, holding the thing in his hand. That was down to a "mischievous spirit" apparently. He changed his name after that. He used to be called Lincoln.

Sylvia Browne, the convicted fraud, offers miracles in exchange for money. She's the one that told Shaun Hornbeck's parents he was dead. Then he showed up, looking very alive indeed. In fact she makes mistakes like that on a regular basis, but people still pay her because she says she can perform miracles.

And that's what irritates me about the psychics, is not so much that they are peddling a service and then not delivering, it's the fact that they take advantage of the most desperate and vulnerable people, people who have just lost loved ones and would give anything to contact them again.

The sad truth is, we don't live in a world where wishes come true. We live in a world where chance and chaos dictate the outcomes. Anyone who says different needs to grow up.