Don't
ever try to fashion ear muffs from a plain headband with black
devil's horns and two pairs of balled-up socks skewered on each end
because they'll be lousy. You'll still hear everything you were, in
desperation, trying to drown out as well as be unable to find a
comfortable sleeping position. The band will dig into your scalp, the
socks won't cover your lug-holes or stay there, and the horns will
rub against the headboard. In a very short time you'll rip them off,
sling them across the floor, with eyes shut, and say a prayer asking
your ears to adjust to the racket and for sleep, in God's name, to
come.
The
racket, in my case, was the loud strains of Come
On Eileen
and Diana Ross' I'm
Coming Out.
The tracks I most loathe, which even if I was up and in a party mood
I'd sit out or leave the venue. So in the pre-dawn hours they were
most unwelcome. Eileen, don't go; Diana, stay home. And turn it down!
Why
hasn't the cheesy music moved on? The very same were being played
when I was going to teenage discos, and were not then, for me, the
ultimate of a good night, though others gyrating around me obviously
disagreed.
Now,
Bon Jovi's Livin'
On A Prayer,
that's a track. But not at 2am. Outside your window. In a rousing
chorus, fingers in the air, rock-style. And not when it's done to
death, or might very well end up being the cause of one.
The
Derby came to town. Yes, it certainly did. A little excess – in
spirit – is to be expected.
But
this is pretty much standard fare if you breathe and share the same
air as a pub, particularly one whose market is predominantly 18-30.
Still, we all need something to gripe about, and this is mine. One of
them. And it has given me, along with some nights of poor sleep, some
funny incidents to remark upon, as well as tested my tolerance, which
we all need to do from time to time.
Earlier
that same evening, I witnessed from behind flimsy curtains, aside
from the usual clowning about (and that's just the staff!), two
paunchy and balding suited men who were (I estimated from up high)
over thirty telling some tall tale (again I presume) to another
equally suited slightly-the-worse-for-wear man, whereupon whenever
they reached a bridge or chorus performed a almost perfectly timed
side-by-side dance routine: a spin then sidestep, step behind, step
behind. They really should learn how to spot, I remember thinking, it
would help their balance enormously. If I'd been prepared I could
have held up a board with their score.
So
really, I should complain less because instances like this gives me
material, as well as a feeling of superiority which I dislike but
can't ignore, though this, I think, has more to do with height: the
number of feet (from the ground) from which I observe, as then those
below seem diminutive whilst I preside, in my own domain, above,
where everything, of course, appears to me to be of normal scale. Not
that this is a reliable measure of (my) intelligence, because what
kind of fool tries to make ear muffs from devil's horns and socks? In
my defence, noise you can't control makes you either flip out or
resort to any ingenious method you can think of, or concoct at an
ungodly hour.
That
experiment, as you know, wasn't successful. But nor have I since then
invested in ear plugs, because, in the past, upon waking up having
put in squashed and squeezed and rolled foam plugs (and then lost
them in the course of the night) all my sinuses have been snuffly.
Why that should be I don't know, yet it only happens if I block up my
ears. Instead I tend to take to my bed when the garden's been
cleared, and only on special extended licence occasions wait it out.
The
experiment of living almost on top of a pub is much harder to deem
success or failure, since without it my untutored studies of human
behaviour would be less rich; there'd be less pickings. Yes, I'm
often inconvenienced and hear and see more than I wish to see or know
about, but I wonder, when again the thought of moving occurs to me,
if somewhere quieter I'd be bored. Devil's horns wherever they are
worn exercise the mind.
Picture credit: The Little Devil, 2008, Marina Pallares (source: WikiArt).
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
