I never had any trouble when I lived at home in London...
...Our neighbours were all lovely lovely people (except the guy down the street who would go out on the pavement at 3:00am and LOUDLY praise God for bringing us 'full-stops, commas, and the rest of punctuation'). This was quite a pleasant surprise sometimes, as there was a mental asylum at the bottom of our road, and you'd expect there to be a few more nutters. Sod's law, right?

No, the trouble began when I went off to uni. Got a really nice room living in a hall of residence right in the middle of town. I mean, a nice room. I was dead lucky, considering I was a first year. I thought I was fucking set.

Until I realised that my room was about 10 feet above the prime hangout for homeless-types on the main street. There was the guy with the fighting dogs. The mutually abusive couple (*bottle smashes* 'You cunt!' 'I'm not a cunt! You're a cunt!'). At 3am I'd get the noise from the kebab van that parked 30 feet away. I once got to watch two tramps fight in the street. This city is a big tourist spot, and the top deck of those open-top buses was eye-level with my open window, which they would stop in front of to talk about boring crap, all the while leaving gaping tourists to catch glimpses of me unawares. The woman with the tin whistle was a favourite. She could only play 'I am the Lord of the Dance, Said He' over and over again. It was fun.

But the best, the *best*, were the Big Issue guys. "BIG Issue..." "Big ISSUE!" "Join the smallest queue in the world!" Right. Under. My. Window.
For hours.

One of them, with an especially slurred voice, would make up fun songs!
"Big Issue! Big Issue! We all fall down!" (Repeat for half an hour non-stop)
"We all live in a TUB OF MARGERINE!"
That last one was sung to the tune of 'Yellow Submarine'. He went on for 40 minutes or so (non-stop), and I drifted off for an hour. When I woke up...he was *still* singing it. God almighty. I heard every word they ever said clear as a bell, and by the end of the year, I wanted to muder them myself with rusty knives and a vaginal speculum. Every night, I'd get to watch these 'homeless' men and women trudge their sorry way away...

...on their bikes

...and in their van

...talking on their fucking mobiles.

Many apologies for length, girth, etc
(cface run. Run, face, run!, Sat 27 Aug 2005, 10:18, Reply)