Meeting The Neighbours

It’s funny. Only two weeks ago I was lamenting to my wife, my friends and my work colleagues (anyone who would listen in fact) how much I missed university. The buzz. The creative atmosphere. The sense of higher learning and personal development that offered a sense of relief from the relentless toil of 9 to 5.

And then a week ago the university came back to me...

...in the shape of new neighbours: students.

Oh joy.

Now I might have had my gripes about our old neighbours – the Polish family – but really they were lovely and hardly any trouble at all (as long as you averted your eyes when Mr Daddy-Pole was squatting in front of his barbecue like a Sumo wrestler in shorts so tight his genitals appeared to have been shrink wrapped in cling film). They were quiet. Kept regular hours. And mowed their lawn occasionally.

They had a young family like us and so there was enough common ground for us to harbour mutual respect for each other’s home lives and need for private R&R time.

The same cannot be said for the party animals now living next-door.

OK. I’m being a bit harsh. I’ve had one disturbed night out of 7 but really, given that they’re going to be here for at least 9 months, the odds aren’t great for me maintaining my beauty sleep regime.

Friday night the loud music kicked off at 10.20pm. Not a constant thump-thump-thump (which would be bad enough) but a horrible start and stop track that seemed to be on a permanent loop. It was maddening. However, end-of-week exhaustion worked in my favour and I did manage to drop off... Only to be woken at 1.0am by the same track now being pumped so loudly out of a car parked out the front that I could hear the house bricks vaporizing with each thump of the bass.

And then the music was unbelievably drowned out by a sleep shattering barrage of giggling and shrieking and screamed conversations whose beginnings, middles and ends consisted solely off “yeah, man, like, yeah, like, yeah man...”

In the end I had to don trousers and coat (it only occurs to me now that I was in danger of adopting flasher chic) and go outside and politely hail them over the hedge. Tempted as I was to give them a mouthful (I’m only talking strong language here, OK?) I decided to keep it polite. I figured it might be wiser not to launch straight off into a war on my own doorstep. I asked them if they wouldn’t mind “keeping it down just a bit so that their neighbours could get some sleep?”

To be fair to them, they apologized and the music volume was instantly dropped. And within minutes they had all disbursed and gone back to their hashish bongs or whatever it is they’re called these days. And I was able to get back to sleep.

However I was tired and grumpy the next day. And I suddenly recalled all the things about Uni life that had begun to irritate me greatly when I was there.

Students and their fun and their music and their good times and their living life to the max and their craziness and their drinking and their inane loudness and their totally in your face youthfulness and ebullience.

Bah humbug!

Come back Mr Cling Film – all is forgiven!

May I Orate Your Meal For You?

For my birthday last week Karen took me out for a fabulous lunch time meal at the Leamington branch of Café Rouge.

We’ve been to Café Rouge a number of times and for a restaurant chain they’re pretty damned good. Decent food, decent atmosphere and decent service. I’ve got no complaints.

But it’s a pity they don’t vet their clientele a little more.

We’d just despatched the starter when a young couple sat down at the table behind us. Graduate types. Young go-getters that type of thing.

The woman was fine. Softly spoken, quite sensible and socially sensitive from what I could hear. So quite what she was doing with Mr Soapbox Hooray Henry I don’t know.

He had one of those voices that could be used to drive ailing ships away from hidden coastal reefs. Imagine a rutting gnu that can enunciate in clear Home Counties English and you’re pretty much there.

Couple this natural propensity for volume with a youthfully inaccurate belief that everything – and I mean everything – he had to say had to be heard by everyone else within a 5 mile radius and you can imagine how the delicately romantic conversation that was taking place between me and Mrs Bloggertropolis was constantly peppered with the blunderbuss protestations from Mr Everybody Listen To Me.

“Oh ya, my last girlfriend, she just wanted too much from me, you know? Too much emotional stuff. The sex was great but I had to let her go... only thing I could do... I sometimes miss her but not much...”

“Ya, I’ve just come back from Africa... got off with a lovely girl there... blonde... very blonde, not a local girl... all my girlfriends are blonde in fact... I only ever go for blondes... white and blonde...”

“And the groom was like: I’d never known what love was until I met my wife and I was like, Oh God, this is atrociously wet, let’s hope the best man’s speech is better and then he stood up and was all like: ya, I’d never seen true love before until I saw these two together... and it was like awful, worse wedding ever, thank God for the free booze!”

A real charmer right? As it was he’d already blown his chances of getting into his female’s friend’s knickers in the first few seconds of their conversation with this absolutely classic opener:

“You’re looking really well – have you recently lost weight?”

By the end of the meal, his gargantuan sound bites had become the unasked for entertainment for a number of tables in our part of the restaurant and many a mirthful look was exchanged between complete strangers and ourselves as we masticated our dauphinoise potatoes.

He, however, was in complete ignorance. Which amazed me. How could he not realize how loud he was being? I’d be mortified if I thought I was being that boorish. I’m sure we’ve all done the youthful thing of recounting a joke or an anecdote a little too loudly in the mistaken belief that it’s comedy gold and a passing television producer might be in the vicinity who will want to push television stardom our way... but to roar an entire conversation?

Is there such a thing as the Town Crier gene?

Would I have been totally out or order if I’d performed an emergency tracheotomy with a fish fork?

Shout your answers to me from wherever you are; the Poulet Suprême au Roquefort is far too quiet for my taste.

Twitching The Nets

There’s been a double departure from out street this week.

Two sets of neighbours have vanished in the night leaving an assortment of detritus in their wake (an old mattress, a swivel chair and an assortment of mildewed shelving).

The first was the Polish family that lived in the counterpart to our semi and used to impinge upon our back garden privacy by staging volcanic barbecues every weekend and walk around in bollock revealing shorts whenever there was the slightest hint of sunshine.

I shall miss their loud arguments in Polish – the wife was particularly vocal – and their pigeon English as they tried to make small talk with us with the small change of their English vocab. But what I won’t miss is the door slamming, the stomping up the stairs, the late night hoovering or their eldest son who played the guitar so loud late one night that I was forced to go round and knock on his front door.

I didn’t get very far. His parents were out and with typical teenage nerve he tried to tell me that he didn’t even own a guitar and that the music was coming from a house about 20 yards away on the other side of the street... totally overlooking the fact that while he was stood at the door talking to me Mr Hendrix had mysteriously downed tools mid-lick. I wasn’t happy: after being on this planet for nearly 40 years, I’ve pretty much worked out how my hearing works and can divine where sounds are coming from and know when someone is trying to take the proverbial.

The damned temerity! I came away wishing I’d clipped him around the ear but the guitar playing didn’t start up again so I guess it was a victory of sorts. Young whippersnapper!

The other departure is even more welcome. The people whose Rottweiler has terrorized half the street for the last 2 years have finally gone taking with them Cujo (or whatever the dog’s name is), sundry ill fed rabbits and a particularly pernicious black and white cat that couldn’t deem a day done until it had shat on our lawn.

Our youngest, Tom, has (alas) inherited his father’s ability to wonder across an open field and step straight into the only instance of animal excrement for miles around and then carry it into the house in a compact little pat on the heel of his shoes. Suffice it to say, I shall not miss the cat at all.

The biggest relief though is the removal of the dog. Some of you will be aware of the worry and trouble that it has caused us and other neighbours by frequently escaping from its own garden and rampaging through ours and everybody else’s.

I am an animal lover but this dog was terrifying. Huge, bad tempered and slightly unhinged. Not what you want snarling around when you have young children who love nothing better than pottering about outside.

We last saw the dog last week. Again on the loose. Eyes wide with agitation. Bounding up and down the street and biting chunks out of the bumpers of passing vehicles.

The Poles (at a push) we shall miss. But as for the doggers...

Good riddance to ‘em.

John Wayne Is Big Leggy

I’m wearing corduroys today and as a consequence I sound like I have a small, hungry puppy strapped into the gusset every time I walk.

Yip yip yip yip yip...

Add a bit of tinder and I could start a forest fire.

To make it worse we are having a quiet day at work so the slightest noise is amplified a hundred times. I can sense people’s heads turning each time I cross and uncross my legs.

To combat this unwanted attention I have begun walking with my legs slightly further apart than is natural. I look like a cowboy who’s lost his chaps. A troupe of circus dwarves could ride a monkey bike – in formation and carrying flaming brands – between my legs without even touching the sides.

My kneecaps are protesting and it’s very bad for my posture. Plus I’m going to be hauled over the coals for sexual harassment if I’m not careful.

Tomorrow I will be wearing jeans.