Spooks and sozzled MPs in parliament

THE setting is New Zealand's Parliament in Wellington. Tourists and other visitors are milling about in a basement corridor when a veiled woman bursts screaming from an elevator.

-  Kim Hubbard

Their guide, wearing a trailing white gown, smiles sweetly. "You're welcome to take the elevator," she says. Nobody does.

Mysterious, unexplained noises and late-night apparitions are not the usual fodder of daily tours offered at the parliament buildings in Wellington. But, according to Associated Press, after hours on Thursdays, guides dress in Victorian-era garb to regale visitors with the precinct's less savoury history - "mostly factual" tales of real-world tragedy and paranormal lore that have grown established among political staffers through decades of colourful retelling.

The history of parliament's stately gothic library is particularly rich in woe. Constructed in the late 19th century and feared by some of parliament's night-shift security guards and cleaners, it has survived two fires, a flood, and being overrun by feral cats.