A Friendly Ghost?

I've always wanted to own a haunted house. As a magician, there are all sorts of fun things that you could do with ghosts at your disposal. Imagine yourself sitting around chatting with fellow magical practitioners, and out of the blue pointing to the kitchen and saying "soda!" - and suddenly a can comes floating down the hall to rest in your hand. You'd get extra mage points for treating it as nothing out of the ordinary and going right back to whatever conversation you happened to be in. Too cool!

Unfortunately for me and my desire for soda telekinesis, even though the two houses that I've owned were both built in the 1880's I've never come across much evidence of ghostly phenomena. Haunted houses are actually pretty rare and on top of that I suspect regular magical practices tend to chase ghosts away. It's not like earthbound spirits are the geniuses of the paranormal world, after all - usually they are either the ghosts of people who haven't figured out that they're dead or haven't figured out how to move on, neither of which is a mark of superior intelligence.

Still, ghosts and people do apparently sometimes get along despite what you see on documentaries about hauntings. A British woman claims to have a ghostly friend who has saved her life twice. That's sure a lot more useful than any flashy party trick.

Louise Wright, who began seeing a ghostly young girl after buying a flat in a converted orphanage, was first woken by the spirit after leaving her oven on.

The second time, she felt a strong gust of wind through her home which blew out a fire started by a candle – despite no windows being open.

She also claims that the ghost found her a boyfriend.

Miss Wright was told she would meet a man called Paul at a party. She did and is now dating him.

'It was eerie but not at all frightening,' said the 25-year-old from Portsmouth.

So is this a genuine case of ghostly friendship, or just a woman with an overactive imagination? That's hard to say, though if Wright's ghost can levitate a can of soda that just might settle the issue.