The Waterboys, a mobile phone and Alexa. A weird story?

[Alan Medic]

Last Sunday, quite early in the morning my phone started playing Fisherman's Blues by the Waterboys. I was just leaving the room without the phone and thought who could be ringing me at that hour. Though I have that song on my phone it wasn't even my currently selected ringtone. I went to the phone and found that I wasn't receiving a call, it was just playing the song. The only way I could stop it was to turn the phone off. I turned it back on and all was good until a while later it started playing it again. Same procedure stopped it.

A couple of hours later I walked into the kitchen where Alexa (my Amazon Echo device) resides. She obeys instructions by saying her name first. Well I didn't even say 'Alexa, good morning' upon which she will usually tell me some interesting historical fact about the day in question. Unrequested, she started playing the same song, Fisherman's Blues. Not only that she wouldn't respond to her name. I couldn't get her to stop. I had to pull the plug out.

That was pretty weird. Can anyone explain how this might have happened? As an afterthought and probably entirely meaningless unless you believe there are spirits out there who try to contact you, I recalled why I liked that song. On Sunday mornings at 6am, there is a radio programme about fishing called Fisherman's Blues and it starts by playing this song. As an early riser I sometimes used to listen to it even though I have no particular interest in fishing. However it reminded me of my long departed Dad who fished as a hobby and quite well too. He was national champion on two occasions and an international. I had a radio next to the phone, though it was turned off. However I realised THAT programme was probably just starting when my phone starting playing the song.

All logical and illogical theories would be of interest to me. Do I download Frank Sinatra's My Way on my phone in case Mum wants to make contact?

[Lynne]

I don't think it's a message from the great beyond, more likely someone's hacked into your system.

[Alan Medic]

I don't know that the beyond is 'great' but neither do I know what 'system' might have been hacked.

[MSA]

http://lovemyecho.com/2016/07/12/strange-voices-coming-echo-theres-one-reasonable-explanation/

[malumbu]

Amazingly I often find out a bit of history by chance, to then have a question on the subject in a following episode of University Challenge. There clearly is someting strange going on.

We were in a bar once in France and everytime we talked about a piece of obscure music, it would come on a little later over the bars PA. This brought us back to gigs we'd been to an my mate said that he really liked the

acid jazz groups Weekend, who later changed to Working Week. I said that I'd seen them on Glastonbury. On the ferry back, we'd been diveted to a very slow one, we are listening on 5 live to the last match of the season. This bald jolly chap asks if he could listen. We got chatting and I found he'd been doing a gig - a sort of world music meets folk. I say I'm going to the Cambridge Folk Fest, he says that he is playing with his band the Afro Celts.

For some reason we talk about earlier festivals and stuff and find out that this chap, Simon Booth (aka Emmerson) was in Working Week/Weekend. Also now known for the Imagined Village.

And finally I was camping rough in Spain in 86 and went to a local bar for food and drink and they played Whole of the Moon by the Waterboys. Little did I know that I'd be listening to Mike Scott on the Chris Evans Show over 30 years later, and what did he play? Whole of the Moon of course.

All very spooky.

[Alan Medic]

Wow. That's freaked me right out malumbu.

[rendelharris]

You don't have to believe in the afterlife to say that your dad was saying hello, courtesy of the obviously fond memories he gave you while he was alive - nobody fully dies when their memory still lives on. Rather lovely.

More prosaically, has Alexa got some "favourites" glitch and is giving you what she thinks you want to hear?

[Lynne]

It's no fun at all, MSA, when someone posts a sensible reply.

Far more entertaining to say it's ghosts, MI6, or little green men

[TheArtfulDogger]

Ghost in the machine !

[malumbu]

Waterboys' Fisherman Blues was also on the groovy flickers thread too. They aren't in my list of songs for my funeral though. Time for a new thread.

[bargee99]

The Waterboys "Whole of the moon" is one of my all time favourites. I would definitely put it on my funeral list of songs. Pity I won't be able to hear it then.

[JohnL]

Alan: Alexa, Open the pod bay doors

Alexa: I'm sorry Alan, I'm afraid I can't do that.

[malumbu]

Alan, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

[Alan Medic]

Don't knock it. You've achieved enlightenment ☺