95 Noises

The plot thickens in the ever-interesting "Loathe My Neighbour" saga. Recently, there has been a dearth of entertainment from their quarters - just turgid choons ad nauseum. I'm more clued up on the contemporary R'n'B, rap, hip-hop, garage and trashy dance scenes than any other musical genre at the moment thanks to their 100+ decibel-level speakers in incessant use. There's the odd telephone conversation about going to court, and a few arguments, but mostly mawkish noisy ear-sewage. I don't like the term 'chav' - I think classing any social group with a tag they haven't chosen to adopt themselves is a dangerous thing to do - but they're only a few steps down (or shoul that be up) from Devvo. Need I remind you, these are people with 'WANKAS' scribbled in blue above their front door (not my handywork, I'm afraid).

I'm starting to get a handle on the set-up now - I believe the family downstairs rents the rooms upstairs to college students, as the bitch next door seems to have moved out (or at least moved rooms) after she fell behind on payments (or at least the argument she had with the father of the family out in the garden seems to suggest). Instead, my new adjacentee is an irksome ruffian with delusions of rapping grandeur, as he tries his best to rap his guts out but ends up tripping over his words, giving up rather sheepishly. On seemingly permanent replay is "Apologise", which just might be the whiniest, wettest song in the history of the musical arts; yet I'm deluged by its various iterations, coupled with the cretin next door screeching the drippy chorus, on a daily basis.

It got so bad that the other week I was woken up at about 3am on a weeknight to some horribly distorted rap claptrap at a heinously excessive volume. I phoned the council's 24 hour noise nuisance enforcement service, but before someone could come round, the music ceased. I waited and waited, then called the council to cancel dispatching someone to come over. But as soon as it had been called off, the music rebooted and my soul fell apart. Next time. Next time!

Other times I've taken matters into my own hands, singing along loudly and just as badly (if I know the tune), or just banged on the wall. It's not particularly thin, so the best method is to tilt my wardrobe against it repeatedly or smack my hand against a poster to create the loudest slap against it. Sometimes I get primitive return knocking; once he kicked the wall a couple of times and said to himself "Dickheads! Stop hitting my wall!". Tee-hee.

However, all this anguish finally paid off a few days ago. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying off in my room when all of a sudden through the wall I hear: "AH! NO! MOTHERFUCKER! FUCK! NO!" There was banging and crashing and shouting. "HELP! I CAN'T GET OUT MY ROOM!" Turns out he locked himself in somehow or the door was stuck, but hilariously he was trapped. Help came (someone apparently with the great moniker Ruben), and they told him to turn his music off so they could hear him. "IT WON'T WORK!" He repeatedly pulls and pushes, bangs and swears but to no avail. He then announces he's going to climb out the window, get onto the roof and clamber through his friends window. Part of me wanted to suddenly open my window and scare him by making a loud noise in the hope it would result in a nasty fall...but a manslaughter trial would really hinder my dissertation. So he starts to put his leg out of the top window, but the hinge is such that there wasn't enough room to get through. As his leg dangles over the side, "I CAN'T GET OUT THE WINDOW! NNNRRRGGHH! NAH, CAN'T DO IT! If I fall, will I get compensation?". He pulls himself back in and it soon turns silent - I assume the door was soon opened or he just gave up and accepted incarceration, but I suspect the former is true. Anyway, it was an entertaining half an hour from the Cirque du Retards.

NOTE: While typing this up, his CD started to skip. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCKING WORK!" BANG! BANG! BANG! More skipping. "FUCK!" SLAM! Out the door...baby.