Tuesday 26 June 2012

At 6am, my neighbour slammed his front door and shouted “Bastard!”



At 6am, my neighbour slammed his front door and shouted “Bastard!” at the top of his voice.
At 6.30am In Northumberland Street, two young women were lying on their backs in the middle of the road, singing.
At 12.20pm in Church Street I saw a man in a heavy beige anorak – it was 23°C. He also wore two mansize tissues under the arms of his spectacles like large white blinkers.
At 2.30pm at the farm, the barbed wire fence was hung with clumps of snagged wool, the horse that was wearing the blanket kicked the one that wasn’t in the face and the two Border Terriers barked hysterically, almost throttling themselves on their chains. A swallow flew low over a dry stone wall, skilfully avoiding a collision with the giant fat ceramic blue tit which is fastened to the top of the gate post with a big blob of cement, while the farmer told me his neighbour is a lazy cunt.
At 3pm, while I was on my way home, I think the woman with the thick dark hair, glasses and the jumper round her waist heard me talking to myself in a Scouse accent.

Friday 15 June 2012

I pulled up too far from the control unit for the entry barrier...



I pulled up too far from the control unit for the entry barrier at the entrance to the technical college. There was a queue of traffic behind me so I couldn't manoeuvre the van any closer. I opened my door and stretched out my arm as far as I could but my foot got tangled in the mat in the footwell and I fell out and onto the street.

Today's squashed wildlife: a frog, a shrew, a slug, two snails, a bee, a squirrel, two earthworms, a wasp, half a starling and a moth*

The woman with the new BMW and the tight jeans was telling her neighbour, a man in cargo pants and a white T-shirt, "When you only pay two, three, four grand for a car it's gonna be a heap of shit."
"I know," said the man,"There was no heated seat, no cd player nor nowt!"

The woman at one of the barn conversions on the moor has pressed her old aerobics step into use as a stand to display her houseplants on. She has created a two-tiered tableau in the big picture window at the front that looks out onto her neighbour's Mitsubishi Animal. Next door, where the garden backs onto acres of idyllic rolling countryside as far as the eye can see, Mrs Moorhouse was pedalling determinedly on the exercise bike she's rigged up in her garage.

Two window cleaners were talking as they dripped suds from their Bedford Rascal to the houses on the estate. "They were good sarnies this morning, you know", said the smaller, thinner, younger of the two who was carrying a bucket and some ladders.
"I still would rather have had a breakfast," said the taller, fatter, older one who was carrying the van keys.
"I know what you're saying", said the younger one.

I knocked at a house with a parcel. I was about to give up waiting when I heard some fumbling around with keys behind the door. After a couple of failed attempts to unlock it, all fell silent again for another minute or so until the occupier returned with what I assumed to be another set of keys. This time, after another couple of attempts, the door finally swung open to reveal a man in a blue towelling bathrobe and his hair stuck up on one side. "Sorry, I was in bed," he said, squinting at the sun. It was then that I looked down at the parcel and realised it was for the house next door.

*the moth was inside a packet of Coco-Pops.

Sunday 3 June 2012

At the house with the sign on the gate that says ‘My Doberman lives here’


At the house with the sign on the gate that says ‘My Doberman lives here’ above a picture of a Doberman’s head and a human hand holding a torch, I stand on a snail as a helicopter flies overhead. On the window sill with the dead moths, there is a money tree plant, a single white sock, a dusty snooker trophy and a TDK D90 audio cassette still in its packaging. When I knock at the door, a man with tattoo sleeves answers, “It’s awkward when you can’t see your own writing”, he says as he fills in his signature.

I call at a house with a parcel but nobody is home. I notice people at the house next door so I go to ask whether they’ll take the parcel for their neighbour. A young man in a vest and jogging pants answers. He agrees to take the parcel and asks, “Are they trainers?” I say I don’t know. “I might try them on”, he says. He winks at me and then he puts his hand down the front of his trousers, adjusts his cock and shuts the door.

Two men are talking on the bus: “Have you ever murdered anyone, Carl?” “No, I haven’t, Jim.” “No, me neither.”

A snail crawls up my kitchen window on the morning of the diamond jubilee of HRH Queen Elizabeth ll.