Tap on the window pt.2

Posted on by JonnyB

Continued from Saturday

I open the window fully and look down into the front garden.

“Do you fancy a game of darts?” asks Short Tony in a little drunk voice, peering up at me in the darkness. Behind him, Big A sways around in a sheepish fashion.

I boggle at them.

“No, I don’t want a game of fucking darts,” I explain.

“Go on, go on, go on. Come and have a game of darts.”

I reiterate my opposition, close the window and pull the curtains firmly. But no sooner have I surrendered myself to the duvet’s Kirstiesque embrace than more gravel clatters against the pane.

“Do you fancy a game of darts?” asks Short Tony. I throw pint mug of water out of the window, and my neighbours leap out of the way. Once more I slam the window and return to bed.

This happens again. We settle into a routine. There is a stand off, before he appears to retreat.

Peace descends upon the village as the early hours approach.

“Psssst!!! Do you fancy a game of darts???”

Disorientated, it takes me a minute to identify the source of noise. “Do you fancy a game of darts???”.

I leap out of bed and stride towards the voice. Short Tony’s face is pressed against the window of the spare bedroom and he is scrabbling at the open window. Seeing as this is on the first floor, this is an unexpected turn of events.

“Will you get off my fucking roof?” I shout at him.

“Yes, but do you fancy a game of darts?”

I reach for the nearest poky thing to hand, which happens to be a microphone stand, and jab at him out of the window, trying to make him go away. But he grabs my weapon and throws it down onto the shingle below. I then snatch some used pants from the washing basket below the window, and hurl them at him, but even this does not divert him from his manic purpose.

“Just get off the roof, or I will shoot you.”

“Go on. Have a game of darts!”

“I’ll shoot you. I will shoot you.”

“Come and play darts!!!”

I pull the window shut and charge downstairs for my gun.

At this stage I should point out that, contrary to some popular perception, we in Norfolk are not all trigger-happy maniacs looking to shoot people at the first opportunity. In fact shooting someone would be almost a last resort, before calling the police, as we are generally peaceful folk. But in my situation, with a hopelessly drunk next-door neighbour on my roof insisting that I play darts with him, I feel that no jury in the land would convict.

Plus I leave it unloaded.

I stomp back upstairs, by now extremely cross. I had virtuously left the pub early for an early night, and here I am, messing around in the dead of night in my pants, Short Tony camping on my roof, insisting that I play darts.

Something leaps on me.

“Arrrghhhhhhhh!!!” it shouts.

“Hfffftttttttppppp!!!” I reply in terror.

Short Tony stands before me. In my bedroom. He has broken into my bedroom in order to ask me to play darts. I look up at him – a first – from two stairs down, alternately flabbergasted and defeated.

“Are you sure you don’t want to play darts?” he asks.

There is a tap on the window!!!

Posted on by JonnyB

This would normally be an Exciting Event. However, as it wakes me up I immediately start off with negative perceptions of the tapper.

I look at the alarm clock. It is around a quarter past midnight. The LTLP is away, so it is just me, Honey Bear and Mr Mitt in bed. There is another tap – this time more of a tappity-tap. Some form of night creature is tappity-tapping on my window. I bid it to disappear, using the power of my mind.

A different noise. Some gravel against the window. I know it is gravel, because one side of the window is not actually closed. Somebody is throwing gravel through my bedroom window. This is antisocial behaviour if I have ever seen it. The power of my mind is clearly not adequate, so I shout ‘fuck off!’ in a loud and cross voice.

I cast my mind back over the evening to establish clues as to the mystery gravel thrower.

I had actually left the Village Pub early that evening. Partly because I didn’t want any more to drink, partly because I’d been in there since five pm, but mainly because I had found myself on the brink of agreeing to buy an eighteen-thousand-pound boat from Len the Fish.

It had seemed like such a good idea, as I would then have a boat whereas beforehand I did not have a boat, but the thorny issue of eighteen thousand pounds and formulating some form of plausible explanation to tell the LTLP had tipped the balance in favour of purchase being a Bad Idea.

There is a particular technique to leaving the Village Pub early. It involves finishing one’s beer, placing the glass on the bar, saying very simply ‘right, I’m going now’, and walking out of the door. If you do not do this then people try to convince you to stay, buy you more drink etc., and you are forced to remain.

Big A is a master at this, but I do not do it often. He and Short Tony had looked at me incredulously as I spoke. “What do you mean?” one of them had said, but I was already out the door as they spoke, striding down the puddled path and turning down the hill towards the cottage.

I’d been tremendously pleased with my mature leaving-the-pub-before-closing-time attitude. Yet here I lie, wide awake now, listening to increasing quantities of gravel being hurled against the glass and curtains.

In some pique, I walk across to the window in my pants.

Continued on Tuesday.

Posted on by JonnyB

There is a tap on the window!!!

This would normally be an Exciting Event. However, as it wakes me up I immediately start off with negative perceptions of the tapper.

I look at the alarm clock. It is around a quarter past midnight. The LTLP is away, so it is just me, Honey Bear and Mr Mitt in bed. There is another tap – this time more of a tappity-tap. Some form of night creature is tappity-tapping on my window. I bid it to disappear, using the power of my mind.

A different noise. Some gravel against the window. I know it is gravel, because one side of the window is not actually closed. Somebody is throwing gravel through my bedroom window. This is antisocial behaviour if I have ever seen it. The power of my mind is clearly not adequate, so I shout ‘fuck off!’ in a loud and cross voice.

I cast my mind back over the evening to establish clues as to the mystery gravel thrower.

I had actually left the Village Pub early that evening. Partly because I didn’t want any more to drink, partly because I’d been in there since five pm, but mainly because I had found myself on the brink of agreeing to buy an eighteen-thousand-pound boat from Len the Fish.

It had seemed like such a good idea, as I would then have a boat whereas beforehand I did not have a boat, but the thorny issue of eighteen thousand pounds and formulating some form of plausible explanation to tell the LTLP had tipped the balance in favour of purchase being a Bad Idea.

There is a particular technique to leaving the Village Pub early. It involves finishing one’s beer, placing the glass on the bar, saying very simply ‘right, I’m going now’, and walking out of the door. If you do not do this then people try to convince you to stay, buy you more drink etc., and you are forced to remain.

Big A is a master at this, but I do not do it often. He and Short Tony had looked at me incredulously as I spoke. “What do you mean?” one of them had said, but I was already out the door as they spoke, striding down the puddled path and turning down the hill towards the cottage.

I’d been tremendously pleased with my mature leaving-the-pub-before-closing-time attitude. Yet here I lie, wide awake now, listening to increasing quantities of gravel being hurled against the glass and curtains.

In some pique, I walk across to the window in my pants.

Continued on Tuesday.

Posted on by JonnyB

Introspection alert – please skip this if not interested.

Well, it’s been an odd summer.

I have alluded a couple of times to odd professional things going, as they say, ‘tits up’. Such allusion is unlike me, as it’s not at all an interesting topic. But it’s tended to define my last few weeks in that I’ve been sat here in front of a PC all day trying to rescue things and generally holding my head in my hands and rocking back and forth.

I handle stress like this very badly. Some people see the glass half-empty, some people see it half-full. Personally I tend to assume that it’s half empty, but that also the contents are just about to be poured over my head by the big bloke standing next to me in the pub, after which he will smash it against the side of the bar and push it into my face.

It’s very frustrating. It’s difficult to write a journal that’s based on the key fact that I spend all day generally doing nothing and fucking about, when I have had no time whatsoever to do nothing, nor have I been able to perform much fucking about.

Advice from commenters about adapting my DVD player cheered me up immensely. I can do something now that I could not before, thanks to the miracle of the Internet and the fact that clever people read this (mainly because I am so funny and popular, so really I guess it was me that solved that particular issue all along).

So I will be back on track with my DVD review. Honestly, this will be the most longly-awaited DVD review in the world. I think if I do things like that I will probably post them at the weekend, as they’re slightly aside from the main point of this (doing nothing, fucking about, see above).

I did used to write the odd rubbish one on here. This one will be better, I promise.

But I would say that, wouldn’t I?