Units of Forgetfulness

You and I have been out and about a lot in recent days - you've been working, I've been going to parties - and nothing paranormal has happened. That, in itself, seems quite paranormal, unless you take the view that paranormal things only happen to people who stay in most of the time by themselves.

One thing that caught my eye last week was the report in the Guardian newspaper that West Midlands and Surrey police are offering a £1.5bn contract for private firms to investigate crime and detain suspects. Do you think we should tender for it? I would enjoy the investigation but I wouldn't enjoy detaining suspects. I imagine it would be a bit like having builders in the house - lots of cups of tea and coffee, and trips to Tesco up the road to buy them chocolate biscuits and muffins. Of course, builders are usually here by consent. What is the etiquette when detaining suspects? Presumably the promise of a blueberry muffin would not be enough to keep the suspects here if they didn't wish to be detained. I could lock them in the cellar. But actually I'd hate to keep someone here against their will. You know how I feel about animal rights. It would not be possible to speak out so vehemently against the imprisonment of animals in circuses and zoos while keeping suspects detained in the cellar on behalf of the West Midlands or Surrey police.

No sooner had I started writing this post, complaining that nothing paranormal had happened, than something occurred that was very mysterious (frightening, even). I went to make a bread-based snack to keep my spirits up, to help me finish writing the allocated 1000 words of my novel today. I found the bread easily enough, but I couldn't find any almond butter to put on it, even though I'd bought a jar of it the other day. It ought to have been in the 'dry goods' cupboard by the washing machine but it wasn't there. I looked in the fridge and found it in there, of all places, with the cellophane wrapper still intact. And yet I knew I had opened it and eaten some of the contents (very almondy, if you 're wondering how it tastes.) Weird! Self-healing cellophane! We could make a fortune... However, further investigation revealed a second jar of almond butter in the fridge. This one had been opened.

Remember when I thought I had bought a jar of almond butter, couldn't find it and went out and replaced it? Now I have two jars of almond butter. But why? What does it all mean? One possible explanation is that the original jar disappeared in some kind of 'Brigadoon' circumstances for 17 days, only to reappear this afternoon. Another is that the universe is calling out to me, telling me that there is plenty of paranormal activity, if only I look closely enough. Another explanation is that it's a sign of forgetfulness. I don't know how many jars of almond butter I would have to buy before calling in medical professionals, or even if such people measure forgetfulness in units of jars of almond butter.

I would like to do further research on units of forgetfulness. I think of the heyday of science as being the time when scientists were inventing new units of measurement, don't you? The kelvin, the watt, the pascal, the ampere, the ohm, the volt and the joule. I would like to give my name to a unit of forgetfulness, or to anything scientific and esoteric.

What next?

Our first case was successfully concluded, and we have had a good reception from family and friends on Facebook - where I posted news that we had established a detective agency - so in some ways it's tempting to just retire. Can things at SBI ever be as good as this again?

Yesterday I bought some half-price false eyelashes in case we do a podcast, so actually I don't want to retire before attempting one of those. And I saw several instances of anomalous activity after I left you, though I can't bring any of them to mind as I didn't write them down when I got home.

I do remember that as I stood in Sainsbury's at the 'fancy foreign goods' shelf, looking for Almond Butter because my friend in Seattle mentioned that she eats it with a banana for breakfast sometimes and I desperately wanted to try some, I saw some very strange behaviour by three Spanish people at the spice rack next to me. I think they needed something to make curry (they pointed out a packet of bombay potatoes to each other) but didn't know what to buy. They picked up some garam masala (which would have been just when they needed, and I was about to intervene to say so), then they took the cellophane wrapping off a pot of turmeric and one of them sniffed it, and then he opened the top and passed it round, and then the others sniffed it, too, one of them putting his nose right into the jar. Then they put the jar back on the shelf. This isn't paranormal activity but it is anti-social.

One day, when we have established our reputation at SBI, I'd like to think that we could act as marshalls as well as investigators, and be allowed to use weapons on people who drop litter in the street and behave irresponsibly in supermarkets.

[n.b. I just tried to find the Almond Butter to take a photo of it but it seems I didn't buy any. Did I decide it was too expensive at £2.63 compared to 93p for the 'value' peanut butter that I usually buy (which by the way up until a few weeks ago used to be 64p, Sainsburys, you robbing bastards)? Did I think I would just eat it on bread and that would make me fat? Did I get distracted by the Spaniards? Did I bring it home and put it somewhere where I will later find it? Maybe the Spaniards were special agents whose sole purpose in being there was to stand about and distract people from buying Almond Butter with their 'nose in jar' pantomime? I just looked it up on Wikipedia and Spain is the second largest producer of almonds (at 220,200 tonnes per year) after America. So... 'quite paranormal', then. Possibly. If they are Spanish Secret Agents. Why do they do it? To keep prices artificially high by restricting the number of jars sold? Or do they want to keep all the almonds for themselves? We need to look out for Spanish Secret Agents to gather more data, to be sure of who they are and what they're up to. Can they really beam themselves from Spain to anywhere in the world where people are standing about debating whether or not to buy a jar of Almond Butter? Because if so, that's 'very paranormal'.]

Because of the false eyelashes and the Spanish Secret Agents, I don't think we should retire. I feel we should press on.

What are you thinking of working on next? I'd quite like to invetigate the case of Britain's Only Black Woman, Bonnie Greer. If the BBC need a black woman (Newsnight Review, Question Time with Nick Griffin of the BNP, any discussion about Whitney Houston's death that isn't being addressed by Paul Gambaccini, and so on), they seek out Bonnie Greer. I look around me and I always think that London is a harmonious, multi-racial, multi-cultural city. I see black people. We have black friends. Some of them are black women. The question is this: Am I hallucinating? Or is Chicago-born Bonnie Greer really Britain's Only Black Woman? c.f. Britain's Only Disabled Man, Mat Fraser.

I'd also like to write up the case of the painting of Katie Pitts by Sebastiano del Piombo in the National Gallery. As Katie Pitts is alive and well now, and the painting is from 1510, this can be categorised 'wonder' and 'time travel'. One of the questions that needs asking is whether Katie travelled back in time or Sebastiano del Piombo travelled forwards. But the painting isn't that flattering. KP is an attractive young woman. I don't want to offend her. I'd like to know your thoughts.

I would also like to investigate whether the boiler in a person's house could be connected to the cycles of the moon. I do understand that combination boilers are not tidal but twice, now, in the space of two weeks, the boiler has dumped water onto the floor and then stopped working, and I have had to refill it and start it again. The first time was on 7th February, during a full moon. The second time was yesterday when, as you pointed out, the moon was waning. The question (as with almost every other unexplained phenomenon in my life right now) is this: Is the erratic behaviour of my boiler a signifyer of impending menopause? By the way, this is not an old boiler. It is relatively new.

Are you going to write up the Case of the Giant Rat? I think you'd need to do a reenactment of the circumstances of finding it, so we can understand what happened.

What else? What next? Exciting times. I love you very much. I like being a detective.