After all, I expect to see this wall. I thought someone was actually going to paint it. Pah, you're just like all the others.

And there's something very odd going on with my telephone . . . I feel like a character from a David Lynch film . . . let me explain. On 21st May, at exactly 13:40 (BST), someone left a message, but it sounds like some kind of automatic 'your call could not be connected' type of message, only it's in French. Now, I'm not very good at French, but it sounds like, " . . . ne quittez pas un correspondent," and the next bit I can't make sense of but phonetically, it sounds like 'che se bu zan dra'. Uh? What?! The next message, at exactly 13:42 the following day (Saturday 22nd), begins with the same bit of French that I couldn't make sense of that the previous message ended in, only the last couple of syllables seem to be pronounced slightly differently . . . there's more of a rolling r sound. Then, very quietly, you can just make out background noise . . . someone writing on paper, maybe crossing something out . . . I don't know. The next message is at 13:39 on Wednesday 26th. This time, it's English and a woman says, "Hello?", a few seconds pause and then, "Hello?" again and then the message ends. At 13:41 (maybe you're spotting a pattern) on Thursday 27th the message is silence, about four or five seconds worth. At 13:40, yesterday, more silence, but this time only for a second or two. And then, today, most worrying of all, most eerie of all the messages . . . at 13:41 someone left a message featuring several seconds of nothingness and then, barely audible, the words, "C'est gare . . . " (I think) but it could just as easily be "Segar" (with an acute on the E) or perhaps "Cigar" with the I pronounced more as an E . . . but I really don't know. It's a woman (again) but it sounds like it's her last breath, her dying words, the last syllable stretched out. On all occasions, the caller's number is unavailable (I have caller display, but my phone just says 'UNAVAIL'). During the week, I changed my phone message to something along the lines of "Hello, no-one can get to the 'phone right now, so please leave a message. You do this by speaking . . . CLEARLY . . . AUDIBLY . . . AND . . . IN . . . ENGLISH," but all to no avail. No doubt a video tape will arrive on my doorstep soon . . . erm . . . actually, it will have to be a DVD - I don't have a video player . . . but, anyway, it will be a DVD of someone with a camcorder wandering around my house, filming me sleeping and then it will end. Great. I sleep with an axe by my pillow, sometimes a crow-bar.