Monday, 17 November 2003 - 4:27 PM GMT

Degenerating portraits are quiet. You can at least cross that off the list.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 4:29 PM GMT

A few gins, that's bottles of, always seemed to help the alter ego of Mrs Rochester (http://www.web-frog.com/2003/10/12.html), but if there's no blog tommorow we can call in the cops for ya!

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 5:34 PM GMT

I remember many years ago reading a news story about a family who gradually became convinced that there was a (trespassing) Pakistani family living in the roofspace above their rafters.

And indeed there was.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 5:42 PM GMT

I think we can rule out the possibility that it's Anne Frank.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 7:21 PM GMT

If you discover a camera in your bathroom with a satellite linkup broadcasting to Michigan, I just want you to know I had nothing to do with it. I swear.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 8:53 PM GMT

I know it's my legendary vomitarium secrets that you're after.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 8:55 PM GMT

Yeah, I found the portrait's earthly manifestation in a tupperware container two years ago.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 8:56 PM GMT

This is the version where she's a real person and not a Freudian horror witch, yes?

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 9:00 PM GMT

I half hoped all the attics in this Georgian terrace were linked, as in The Magician's Nephew, so I could disappear through a fur coat-stuffed wardrobe into another reality where a Divine presence existed in the form of a really cuddly lion who rescues you, eventually, but I fear not.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 9:02 PM GMT

A Borrower who makes his living as an Anne Frank lookey likey? A three stone Borrower, mind you, from the weight of the thumping.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 10:02 PM GMT

Maybe it's Farrah Fawcett and she's waiting for you to go up there so she can kill you while rocking out to "Hungry Like A Wolf". Well that's what I would think if I heard strange noises coming from my attic anyway.

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 11:58 PM GMT

Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me Can't sleep - Farrah will get me

Monday, 17 November 2003 - 11:59 PM GMT

After careful consideration I've concluded that a substantial lost rabbit is the only realistic option. It probably wants some food, maybe some carrots or green stuff, hence the thumping (a spook or spectre would have rung down with a room service style request, whereas rabbits aren't much good with their paws and tend to avoid telephones, so the only method of communication they have left is thumping).

Large hungry rabbit. Obvious when you think about it.
Do you want a hand getting it down?

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:04 AM GMT

Watership Down gave me at least four solid years of night sweats. The rabbit stays there till it's dead.

Actually, I'm really really scared of spiders, and there's a HUGE dead one on the ceiling in the hallway, near the attic door. Tonight, after 8 months of inactivity, it was suddenly hanging on the end of a thread. For a few petrified minutes, I decided it had reanimated itself, till I realised it's spider hooks (ew) had finally failed, and it was teetering on bum-silk alone now.

And then there's the brown oily substance that keeps coming out of the hallway walls, and running down them. I think it's because I used cheap paint on that room. However, the option that Wickedex performed a voodoo curse to make me live in the Hammer House of Horror is increasingly becoming possible.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:07 AM GMT

It'll be a squirrel, I should think. Or two. We've got them in the attic all the time (apart from the 3 the cats killed). I found a dead one up there once, with the insulation stuff wrapped around his tail. The poor bugger had starved to death juuuusssst out of reach of his stash of tasty pine cones.

I almost felt sorry for him, but it was my lost, my insulation and my @#%$! pine cones!

Chin up, they don't bite (hard)

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 1:13 AM GMT

Cripes, I hope they starve to death, they're giving me the willies good and proper.

Long time no email, Pete - good to hear you're alive up there in the land of northerners and real ale..... How's York?

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 2:22 AM GMT

So that camera in my loo area isn't you paul? damn I have to stop being soo creative for it then :(

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 2:24 AM GMT

wait until you're good and arsehold to go up and look... things are much less scary that way. of course, if it's not an animal or something.. oh say maybe it's a wraith? being arsehold will be a hiderence because you won't be able to get away from it's razor sharp teeth and knife like fingers.

but i agree with Bozzie.. It's probably not Anne Frank.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 2:29 AM GMT

Heh. I had to stretch everything and balance on a dodgy anceient banister on one foot while leaning over a twenty foot drop to shut the damn attic hatch a week ago. There's no way in hell I'm doing that again to hoist myself up into pitch blackness where the family of mutant ten foot squirrels can feast upon my brains as the Spectres coldly observe my mortal torment. Oh no. As the mad woman down the road used to scream whenever they tried to section her, "me name's Not Stupid!"

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 8:04 AM GMT

Haven't got there yet, lost our buyer when he lost his job :(. I've been doing the commute from hell to the City every day, including some weekends (no overtime for you my laddie, look at your contract!)

We'll get there, but it looks like its going to be the new year. I'll have to get my act together again with the email.....see you soon.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 10:36 AM GMT

When I lived in York, we had a loft space at the top of the stairs.

One day, we opened the door and peeked in with a torch.

There was a horse's head in there.

(I kid you not.)

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 10:37 AM GMT

After Mrs Rochester was concealed in the attic, her ex discovered her obsessive need to blog to find inner peace with her own psyche?

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 10:41 AM GMT

Wickedex will not countenance a lodger in "her" property, but would turn a blind eye to a well-behaved resident in the attic?

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 11:22 AM GMT

What's happened to Flowers in the Attic Mr Frog??

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 11:48 AM GMT

After some extensive research, I decided that a reference to V.C. Andrews' classic novel and subsequent feature length film would not, after all, do anything to enhance my reputation as a witty, well-read and cutting blog commentator.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:24 PM GMT

Good point. Wonder if it's comfy sharing with ten foot squirrels?

When the buliders disappeared suddenly a few years ago, I noticed that they'd left the attic hatch open, and that their ladders had badly scratched the way beneath the hatch.

It strikes me now that I never worked out why or where they disappeared - they left a note saying 'gone for paint' one day and were never heard of again. More and more those marks on the wall look like the deep gouges of claws.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:25 PM GMT

I do not blog obsessively, I am obsessive, and I also blog.

So there.

And don't forget Grace whatserface, the tall pale woman who lived in the attic to feed the trollish exwife. She could be theone @#%$! with my hot water.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:26 PM GMT

(:-D) You're right, we'd all have thought less of you for such lowbrow pop culture references.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:28 PM GMT

That's not the most calming comment I've ever read!

What on earth?!

I was only last night talking to Vic J about the York mafia round here. Seems I was closer to the truth than I knew. :-O

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 12:30 PM GMT

What a shame. I'm sorry to hear that, Pete.
Still, it will be amore pleasant experience to move in Springtime, and you may well find a property that's even better than that one.
I have all this chain lark to come, although I don't know that council houses in Bermondsey will be in half such high demand.
;-)

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 4:19 PM GMT

I'm still thinking it's the Pakistanis.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 6:28 PM GMT

I *dreamt* it was the Pakistanis last night, actually.

Just bought some pain to cover over the two 'bleeding' walls.

No, I mean paint. Shyah, right, paint, I don't think of this place as the Hammer House of Horror at all. No worries.

Tuesday, 18 November 2003 - 9:48 PM GMT

Beware flats owned by ballet dancers on Micklegate, that's all I'm saying!

Wednesday, 19 November 2003 - 6:18 PM GMT

The wardrobe didn't exist until Diggory planted the seeds of the Apple in their garden. This became the Apple tree from which the wardrobe was made, some years later when he had become a celebrated academic he kept the wardrobe in a spare room of his cottage.

What you really need is a pair of magic rings. Although surely you remember this as I believe you to be responsible for the lamp-post and the justifiably diabolical treatment of poor old Uncle Andrew?

Wednesday, 19 November 2003 - 6:27 PM GMT

That's why nobody can get a doctors appointment, you've been trapping them in your attic haven't you?

Wednesday, 19 November 2003 - 6:59 PM GMT

I had forgotten about Digory's apple tree. The lamppost? Are you calling me the wickedest character of them all?
Calumny! Character assassination.

I loved that passage when she emerged (damn, I've forgotten her name - Iselda?) and tried to take over London, starting with the taxi drivers.

Thursday, 20 November 2003 - 7:34 AM GMT

I find that if you grate the doctors, you can fit more of them in the tins.

Sunday, 23 November 2003 - 2:57 PM GMT

Her name was Jadis.
A remarkably prescient choice for the evil queen.