Love Thy Neighbour

I have the good fortune to live above an Italian restaurant. The sort that has a large neonsign adorned with the colours of the Italian flag and a picture of a gondola. Very tasteful indeed. The interior is spruced up with random wooden wagonwheels and plastic flowers. The outside is now orange. I went outside one morning to find the front of the house I live in orange. Different, I suppose. They also put a rather large concrete pot with an olive tree in it outside my front door. It took us quite some time and musclestrenght to shift the thing, so it no longer blocked our door. My flatmate stuck a sign on it that said ‘If you move your fucking tree again, I will take an axe to it. I do mean that!!!.’ I removed the sign before the restaurant people saw it though, because I didn’t want to get embroiled in neighbourly warfare just yet.

Next stop, our rubbish bin. When we moved in we were instructed to leave it outside our front door. So we did. One Saturday morning I found the bin gone. I figured the bin men might have taken it round the back. Which they did, so I moved it back to the front door. Twenty minutes later, the bin was missing again. Somewhat startled, I came to the realization that maybe the people downstairs shifted it. This angered me, so I paid them a visit. The confused (but nasty!) waiter/owner person claimed innocence at first, but soon admitted that he ‘thought he knew where the bin may be’ (I had checked round the back, but couldn’t see said bin anywhere!). So we went round the back and he helpfully guided me to a spot behind one of those huge Council owned bins, where my bin had mysteriously been hurled. Upside down. Somehow he knew exactly where it was, but at the same time claimed he had no idea how it got there. Yeah right, dustbins like to travel alone and enjoy nothing better than leaping in awkward places on their own accord.

For peace and quiet’s sake, I agreed to now keep my bin round the back. This was after he claimed to have received a letter from the Council about how my bin should be round the back (I checked this with the Council a few days later, they’d never heard of the guy. Neither had they ever written to him). To this day I do not comprehend how a grown man and restaurant owner could resort to such childish tactics (hiding someone else’s dustbin, then denying this and then making up a white lie about the council). But, hey ho, I’m not going to argue with such a greasy tosspot.

Then, there is the music. It is loud and blaring at high volumes at all hours. It gets louder when the restaurant closes and they start cleaning up. Opera, Italian Cheese (if you’re not familiar with Zucherro or Eros Ramazotti, I urge you NOT to bother!), soft rock. You name it, they got it. To the point where visitors walking into my flat think I have the radio on continuously. It is particularly intriguing in the bathroom, as the sound appears to travel through pipes. We started closing the toilet lid, as this makes Pavarotti a little bit muffled.

After various negotiations about this failed, we ended up complaining to the Council. I wouldn’t normally ever complain to anyone about anything, and I’m by no means oversensitive to noise, but a 24/7 barrage of shit music was proving too much, even for me. The Council didn’t do anything, of course, other than advising us how we could take our own legal action. I don’t think so, somehow.

What gets me most is the sheer arrogance with which these people have just taken over. With their signs, their stupid olive trees, their rubbish music, their massive flowerpots outside our living room window and their stinking attitude. I had a bucket of water poured over my feet ‘accidentally’ once, when they were washing the floor outside MY door. I proceeded to have my revenge by listening to Killing In The Name Of very loudly at a restaurant peaktime. And I do hope some of their nouveau riche diners complained.

So today I got home to find they are now including James Blunt in their repertoire. James fucking Blunt. Whose name rhymes with …. At this moment in time, I am ready to kill someone ! It’s bad enough that James Blunt is even allowed to exist (I may sound snobbish here, but … for goodness sake, the man is an annoying whiney, posh little shit with really rubbish hair), but does he really have to sing out of my toilet?

So if you happen to come across a copy of the Barnet Times with the headline ‘local restauranteur slayed by irate neighbour’, make sure you come visit me in prison with some cake.