The Martins take these monsters and the smaller pythons from their cages to let them play, and Mrs Martin assures me that snakes are affectionate. They show that affection by rubbing their face against yours or by exhaling into your face. Yes, there is something bizarre about the keeping of snakes.

I was taken, too, by the Martins' other pet. Do you, I asked, have a pet other than snakes? "Yes, a dog." What sort of dog? "A chihuahua." The chihuahua loves snakes, Mrs Martin says, although that's not enough to keep him from hiding in the bedroom when one of the monsters is let out to play. He likes, though, to sit looking at the smaller pythons when they're out, and they, Mrs Martin tells me, like to look at him. The Martins feed their snakes dead rats, which may explain the snakes' affection for the chihuahua.

I should tell you that Mrs Martin keeps pythons even though she says they are the most dangerous snakes. Antivenene, she says, will save us from a snake bite, but nothing will save us if a carpet snake or other python gets a grip on our neck when we're alone. And the python need not be wound around the neck, she says, to get a grip that pulls the curtains. Wonderful pets.

Not so long ago a flat full of pet snakes in Merewether, near the Prince of Wales Hotel, escaped when the owners were away for a few days, and a friend of mine found one in the corner of his kitchen when he returned home from the pub. Another nearby resident called the police to her slithery visitor, and this mass escape was probably the source of the snake found in her second-storey bedroom at The Junction by "Nobody fears snakes more than I do" on yesterday's blog.

There are, aren't there, two sorts of people - those who like snakes, or snake whisperers, and those who say a good snake is a dead snake. Can you offer any insights into why anyone would want a snake as a pet?