Conk City

Perhaps it's due to the unseasonally, oh sorry, unseasonably, warm weather, a premature primavera, if you like, but I have to say that the conks are out and at it in full force and it's wa wa wa waaah central.

Most nights around three am, if i'm not awoken by a feeling of doom i am stirred from my slumber by a rabble of conks buzzing the intercom of the building entrance. They are young, they run green, buzz my bell, make me scream. It's not like it's once and they run away. After all I recall that appeal, as a 9 year old.

No, this goes on for about 20 minutes and because the building's insulaton is pretty lame i can hear the other flats' buzzers going off too. It happened again on Friday. As the buzzing goes on I wonder whether it's some boozed out friend on the wrong route for good time centrale.I duly roll over only to twitch then turn back to lie rod straight on dootiful daughter alert.

Could it be a family emergency or just pater needing assistance yet again for his cockin' computer. Surely not at 3 a.m? However, octogenarians do keep curious hours. Oh woteva pops. Don't derange this fille rangee. I jam the earplugs deeper into my ear canal and slide further under the bedcovers to eventually sleep fitfully and later rise more Eds Monsoon than Doris Day.

The icehouse down the road had been doing a roaring trade until its great galoot of a kitchen wiz left some chips unattended in a vat of fat on the stove causing a fire and blowing out the power grid (?) across several suburbs for about five hours. It also brought the fuzz and the firies and caused quite the commotion.

I've now got a shocking bout of rsi (or is it carpal tunnel syndrome?) from twitching the lace curtains.

I thought that this explosion marked the icehouse's end but its owner seemed to just give the joint a lick of paint and a new lord has been installed. He is very garrulous, very flash harry and somewhat careless. I 've watched sufficient eps of season 1 of the Wire to have an inkling what will happen next, let me tell you.

And you know you can set your watch by this conk even if it happened in the northern hemisphere but oh, well, just sit on it, Mr/Ms C (and that ain't short for Cunningham) for this is NSR.