Monday, September 05, 2005

Days of wine and roses

Ah, the neighbours. This lunchtime they were happily sitting together on their patio having a friendly drink. As I write, they are engaged in a particularly (even by their standards) vicious row. Tonght's recurring theme is Mr DDF's assertion that Mrs DDF is, beyond any reasonable doubt, an arsehole. He is particularly keen that she understand this, and is bellowing it at her repeatedly lest she may mishear and think he is telling her how much he loves her. Interspersing the spirited cries of "you're an arsehole!!", "you're an arsehole!!", the old favourite "why don't you just die?" is naturally included. I can't tell you what her response is to this, as she's simply making a high-pitched shrieking noise and repeatedly slamming the back door. I live in a mental home. Last week I was convinced that Farting Man had died upstairs and left a bath running, as his overflow had been running continuously for two days. I was reassured of his fine physical health on Friday morning when, on the stroke of seven (and I mean on the stroke. He's like the bloke with the ship's cannon on his roof in Mary Poppins) he let rip with a magnificent aural display of flatulence. Eerily, his morning routine mirrors mine and it's more than a little unnerving to hear him sloshing around in his bath above me as I'm having mine, or, worse, weeing while I am. I say eerily, but the thought has just struck me that maybe he's crawling around up there like Christopher Ecclestone in Shallow Grave. And on Friday night I was banging on my bedroom wall with a large book at 11.45pm in a snarling, weeping frenzy in an effort to get Stephen Hawking to switch the fucking thing off and let me sleep.

This evening, the Other Half is off schmoozing some Chermans at a Very Nice Restaurant. I had soup and toast for dinner. How impossibly glamorous. I've spent a futile half hour trying to order BT Broadband because I am sick to death of the ridiculously clunky dialup connection I have, only to find that my dialup is so clunky that I can't even download the computer checking thingy. I fear a global conspiracy - that'll teach me for denouncing the Da Vinci Code as a pile of badly-written shite.

In other news, there was a bug-related incident in Small Person's bedroom this evening. I don't know what it was but we stayed well away until the Other Half arrived and swiftly dispatched it. The reason it's notable is that nobody has any idea what it was. It was green, but it wasn't a grasshopper, despite having great big elbowy legs. The Other Half thought it was a pider, but it didn't have enough great big elbowy legs. And it was green. It put me in mind of Granny Cheshire's pond and water-boatmen, but if it was one of those it was seriously off track. So, does anyone have any ideas?

Nothing scary though, thanks - I have enough mental health issues as it is.

35 Comments:

Blogger Pernicious Panda chimed in with...

I'm so sorry about your neighbors. But at least they keep life interesting...?

06 September, 2005 07:34  
Blogger Dave chimed in with...

Probably a locust.

There'll be plagues of biblical proportions by the weekend.

06 September, 2005 07:58  
Blogger Dave chimed in with...

I could stop this plague, if you decided to mend my link (I notice all the others now work, except mine).

If said link is not working shortly, I will not be held responsible for the remaining nine plagues that may fall upon your house.

06 September, 2005 08:04  
Blogger car01 chimed in with...

I think she's already more than halfway there with the plagues. Plagued by her neighbours, that is.

I bet it was one of these wasn't it?

06 September, 2005 08:21  
Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

As devout atheists the threat of a plague of biblical proportions scares us not. Impending deafness from screeching neighbours and retarded mongs next door however is more worrying.

06 September, 2005 08:56  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

Carol - thankfully not. It was more sort of crickety, without being a cricket, if you see what i mean.

dave - that's not very christian, is it. abuse of your position and all that. do they teach you how to do plagues at vicar school then?

hon - am not sure "retarded mongs" is entirely appropriate. am sure you meant the more acceptable "mongy retards"

06 September, 2005 09:14  
Blogger Stef the engineer chimed in with...

1. Da Vinci Code. Accurate and precise review. It does have the considerable merit of getting up the nose of the Catholic Church. For this I can forgive it many things.
2. Bug identification. The wonders of the internet! Try -
Bug ID
Fun for all the family! Does somewhat rely upon the bug being in one piece. Unlikely if the dispatching was truly swift.
3. Neighbours. No similar thing for neighbours. Perhaps there should be.
4. BT Broadband. We use this for historical reasons. (At one time BT unwisely allowed limited storage space, and free off peak access, so I backed up my computer overnight, as did my friends. They rumbled this, and changed their terms.) We changed to broadband at "introductory trial rates" of the same price as their competitors, rather than their extortionate asking price and they keep extending the trial. Ta very much. Keeps being slated in "Which" - but maybe Which pay full price. (Never pay retail!)

06 September, 2005 09:26  
Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

HAHAHA...I stand corrected. either way if he upsets you then he upsets me and there will be restitution. Perhaps I can stand outside his front door or bedroom window at 3am shouting how I'm going running...simply 'cos he can't !!!

I am a very bad person and will certainly get mine in the next life.

06 September, 2005 09:26  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

stef the engineer - um, thanks....i now know it was of the classification "orhtoptera" and therefore some sort of grasshopper thing - but it didn't look like anything i've seen before..

hon - steady on or you'll inflict the wrath of a vengeful god. or something. probably.

06 September, 2005 09:33  
Blogger zanna chimed in with...

I just want to know what a pider is???!!!

06 September, 2005 09:35  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

you know, a pider.....

06 September, 2005 10:09  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

mostly it's fine, but sometimes it's like living in a farce. what with the farting, the death threats, the banging on walls, the deaf couple downstairs, the downstairs neighbours' son who smokes so much grass that i get stoned just walking into my bedroom, the mad polish lady who shouts out of her window about the rubbish, the people who write dirty words on your car if you park within a three-mile radius of their garage, the timid old lady across the way who hides in the communal hallway in her nighty, the obsessive window-box people and the creepy man in the next building who says he likes my hair and my car and who, presumably, thinks a lot about killing me for his personal pleasure, it's no wonder i'm having a nervous breakdown...

and this is in a private,low-rise 3-storey block which is in one of the best parts of town.

mentalists. every last one of 'em. i won't tell you how they probably refer to me.

06 September, 2005 10:58  
Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

NSL !!!

06 September, 2005 11:13  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

oi! what about my reputation?

ah.

06 September, 2005 11:53  
Blogger Urban Chick chimed in with...

do you live two doors down from me? those are MY neighbours...

as for the da vinci code, wasn't that melvyn bragg's take on it too?

06 September, 2005 12:21  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

i honestly don't know. all i know is that it's taken a long-held conspiracy theory and smothered it in superlatives, dodgy plot devices and a deperate air of delusions of literary grandeur. i had it on a pdf and managed about 3 pages. horrid. and yet strangely one of those books you have to pretend to like, presumably so that you can discuss it in breathless tones at middle-class dinner parties.

blimey, it's all a rant wating to happen with me, isn't it?

as for the neighbours - which ones are yours? surely you can't be suffering all of those too? poor you.

06 September, 2005 12:29  
Blogger Urban Chick chimed in with...

me, i delegated mr chick to read it and his conclusion: pap, don't bother

so i duly skulked back to take refuge in the more high-brow heat magazine

as for the neighbours, no farting man upstairs but arsehole types next door

((tea and sympathy))

06 September, 2005 12:56  
Blogger Dave chimed in with...

Can I just say that I promise never to mention blog-pimping again, and you can come and live next-door to me if you like ('cause I'm very quiet) if only you'll make the link to my blog actually go to my blog.

Remember who it was that showed you how to do bold and italics.

06 September, 2005 13:41  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

you promise?

06 September, 2005 13:48  
Blogger car01 chimed in with...

Ah, but it was me who showed her how to do the website linky thing, and now I've gone and pimped myself on my own blog (link not included because I'm so ashamed)

06 September, 2005 13:54  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

you can pimp yourself - that's fine. see how benevolent i can be?!

and i loved your cards btw. in fact i loved them so much i'm going to pimp them

06 September, 2005 14:14  
Blogger Dave chimed in with...

Promise, cross my heart, and I'll order the plague of locusts, already on their way, to your neighbours instead, if you like.

06 September, 2005 14:14  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

if you can do locusts for the drop dead freds, boils for farting man and darkness for stephen hawking (no power = no telly) then we might have a deal.

06 September, 2005 14:40  
Anonymous Anonymous chimed in with...

I would like to clarify that while I was responsible for falling backwards out of a hot tub it was not me who vomited down the wall. I like to make a lasting impression but not in such a glamorous way !!!!

06 September, 2005 15:05  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

don't ask me - i don't even know what it was...

who vomited down a wall?

06 September, 2005 15:06  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

and it's because you have hilarious school discos with unlimited drinks. you've only got yourself to blame.

06 September, 2005 15:07  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

i do wonder sometimes, what with the noise.

word verification...abmul. an arab with a harelip.

hon, i'll see you in hell....

06 September, 2005 16:03  
Blogger Urban Chick chimed in with...

[background info: mr swift presumes me to be a schoolmarmish prude, which is quite hilarious, to me, at least]

although i quite fancy a miss jean brodie image - might try cultivating one a bit...

sorry to interrupt your comments with this banality, surly girl

06 September, 2005 16:59  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

you carry on....

07 September, 2005 09:06  
Blogger Dave chimed in with...

You do realise, I hope, that if you don't fix that link, I will only come here every day and post comments, so that people will want to visit my very interesting blog?

07 September, 2005 09:24  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

ah, but where that theory falls down is that today's post on your blog contains a description of some fossils in a display cabinet in your house.

no further evidence, your honour.

07 September, 2005 09:36  
Blogger car01 chimed in with...

Don't be so mean to poor Dave; I'm sure he loves his fossils very much.

ugoko: the pleasure derived by African tribesmen from watching fat westerners burn in the hot, hot sun.

07 September, 2005 10:10  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

can't help it...i am intrinsically a bad person!!

pqvinfn: the sound you make when attempting not to sneeze during a particularly quiet bit of an elderly relative's funeral.

07 September, 2005 10:25  
Blogger Dave chimed in with...

And I've been having a very bad week, and my headaches are getting worse, and now the man in my head who tells me what to do is ordering me to release the plagues on your household. So I'm sorry, you were warned...

07 September, 2005 11:40  
Blogger surly girl chimed in with...

oh, do your worst. does it count if i don't believe in biblical plagues?

07 September, 2005 12:58  

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