Basting my time

I hauled my carcass out of bed at a more productive time and thus missed the worst of the traffic congestion this a.m. Yesterday’s stress of Queens Drive was but a distant memory as I hurtled along the dock road like a hairy Mr. Toad.
toot! toot!

Last night was Sweet Jonny's 28th birthday and after a relatively short rehearsal it was round to his abode for a drink and engaging one's self in hi-brow conversation (provided of course by myself). Alas the night was marred somewhat by his neighbour's insistence on knocking on the door to ask them to turn the music down. This is my first experience of this kind of behaviour. Firstly it wasn't even 10.30. Secondly the music wasn't loud at all and thirdly it was his friggin' birthday!

There are certain neigbourly rules that must be adhered to and his neighbours were in direct violation of these aforementioned code of conduct and from what Sweet Jonny and Eve-e-o have told me previously it wasn't the first time and incident like this had happened.

Surely 10.30pm is the acceptable cut off for moderately volumed music? As we all know and agree, 9pm is the cut off for loud music and the playing of musical instruments, whilst 10.00am is the acceptable time of the morning to crank up the volume/play musical instruments. This is, of course only applies to Mon-Thurs.

Fri-Sat it's fair game to do what ever. Sunday- the window of opportunity to make noise is a tad smaller- namely 11am to 9.30pm. However, should your neigbour work night shifts, and providing this was mentioned in goodwill in advance then the rules would have to be amended accordingly. Other exceptions to these rules are birthdays, Christmas, bank holidays and major sporting events (cup finals, England games, world cup etc). Granted, perhaps their neighbour's kids might have taken umbrage with my less than subtle voice talking about the freakish penis and penile practice that I encountered the previous night on Channel 4's 'The Perfect penis' or my slightly garish conversation topics about masturbation, rape, turkey basters and masturbation. Ho hum.

It did though, make me appreciate the seclusion of our flat, as despite being able to hear just about every noise the neighbours below (front room and bedroom) make, it makes it fair game to be noisy ourselves without fear of reprisal. Co-existence and harmony ensues. Oddly enough, this discussion of our neighbour's volume was mentioned at an earlier point in the evening, long before the buzz kill neigbours pissed on our bonfire, as Lisa mentioned to the 'gang' that we met the new girl who's moved into the ground floor flat. It was during this conversation that I made reference to the fact I could hear 'squeaky' Kate’s (below front room) text message alert as clear as a bell, which alarmingly meant that no doubt she could have heard me masturbating at full volume. This of course was a joke (honest) as I am such a card. So perhaps my booming voice discussing neigbourly volume and obnoxious wanking, was ironically the most intrusive of the sound pollution to these less than understanding folks. We made sure we re-iterated the fact it was Jon's birthday when we left hoping this might guilt the neighbours sufficiently enough to think again before making any similar complaints in the future.

J & E said that they have complained in the past. Apparently they shouted over their wall for them to turn down their TV last summer, yet amusingly J&E hear them having loud sex all the time. Which is worse? I would sooner be forced to listen to the dulcet tones of Alan Titchmarch and his 'Ground Force' programme (or whatever the kids watch these days) encroaching into my living space rather than two over weight adults in their forties rocking the Kasbah whilst their kids play out in the street.

Anyhow, speaking of Turkey Basters (before I digressed), I knew that the Bootle Strand wouldn't let me down! Godbless T.J Hughes.

They even had the two different makes of baster to chose from. One at £1.00 the other priced at £1.50. Being the flashy sort, I of course purchased the more expensive one, and Jon being the kitchen connoisseur spotted its pedigree immediately. I also lowered the tone and make a barrage of crap innuendos regarding squirting hot juice over his bird etc. Not that I wanted to but as it was the first time I’d spend in the company of my friends in a ‘hella’ long time, I was to eager to please and provide juvenility, nevertheless, my long and ardous search was over. Woot! Better still, not that this fabulous gift needed any endorsement, but Jocasta exclaimed the greatness of the utensil as she was fortunate enough to receive not one, but two of them for Xmo. huzzzzar! My only regret was not purchasing one for myself, especially as it was agreed that I’d cook a chicken for dinner tonight – a treat for Lisa as she’s really been under the kosh at work of late (yes nothing says ‘I love you’ more than an Asda chicken). At £1.50 though, well I didn’t want to break the bank did I?

When Lisa and I arrived back at the flat we had our dinner (11pm) as Lisa decided to go to bed early as she wanted to watch a programme about John Wayne Bobbit- the chap who’s wife decided to lop off his ‘piece’ and throw it out of a car window. After watching ‘The Perfect Penis’ the night before, I’d decided that I’d seen enough penile surgery to last me a life time. Before she departed to bed though we had a lengthy discussion on what merited ‘the bacon incident’ being labelled as such.

Last Friday Lisa went out on a work night out for some reason or another (retirement, engagement, death, birthday- I’m not sure) and when she arrived home with her chips and garlic mushrooms (a regrettable choice considering the options she had), she was oddly overcome with delight when she discovered that I had removed her bacon from the freezer and placed it in the fridge in order for it to be defrosted in time for her ritualistic Saturday morning bacon buttie. Seriously, she was almost moved to tears by this simple act of kindness on my part. I don’t know what this says about me, but maybe perhaps she’d been starved of consideration or attention on my part, but either way I still basked in the glory. This is what I labelled ‘the bacon incident.’

Lisa, however, disputed this story’s merit, and suggested that our only ‘bacon incident’ was the weekend before when I was on my death bed and Lisa entered the bedroom about to feast upon a greasy bacon sarnie. The smell from this sandwich made me fell incredibly unwell and nauseous and I was forced to make a dash to the toilet. Lisa of course found this hilarious.

As I put it to her, this didn’t justify being referred to as an ‘incident’, rather it was just an amusing episode of my temporary illness, however as her over zealous delight and gratitude over the thawed bacon was so bizarre, it totally justified it’s categorisation as an incident.
Anyhow unless something occurs involving bacon soon then I feel this dispute will continue for some time, much to our discontent.