Hold hands, close your eyes. It's half past midnight, and you're listening to the ghost story of death.

Welcome to the ghost story, guys. I'm Bren in store. I'm Paul Bestow. And this is the show where we talk about spooks,

spectres, and all the other things watching us from the shadows beyond the campfire.

Some conversations only make sense after the sun has set, and this is most definitely one.

Thanks for tuning in. This is episode number 163, and we're coming to you from that tiny mountain cabin you dream about, but can never quite reach.

Paul, my friend, how are you doing?

I'm doing very well. Thank you. I'm enjoying our early burst of pre-summer summer that seems to be happening here.

It's quite good. It hasn't rained for a week. Magnificent. And you survived what sounded like a fairly epic hangover.

Yes. Yes. That's what happens when you go to a 21st birthday party and young people try to buy you shots all night.

Is it just that thing where they thought, all right, we're going to destroy the old guy by buying in booze.

I wasn't the old guy. I was the middle-aged guy.

Right. Right. You took great pride in telling me that. I was not the oldest person there.

Certainly wasn't. His mom's older than me. So that, you know.

That will show him.

Yes. So that was quite fun to be at a 21st birthday party where everybody's dressed up and wearing platforms and contacts and stuff.

So it was, it was marvelous fun. Very cool. I had my own battle with a hangover recently.

Of course, last weekend I was in Toronto. I was at the signing event for, or the, I should say, I was at the celebration of Andrew Piper's The Demonologist.

It's a 10th anniversary. It was a little ghost bookstore in Toronto hosted by Steve Stred, who's a friend of the show.

Afterwards, we all kind of decamped to this bar. I think it was called Bob operas, a little ways up from the, from the bookstore.

And I found out when we got there, because I was pretty low on food as I told you.

And then they told us, yeah, the kitchen's not open.

So I just literally, the rest of that day, I had about 13 pints of beer, a shot of tequila, and that was all I had.

...