Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Your new favourite band...

... might just be Anathallo. A little bit Sufjan, a little bit Arcade Fire. Have a look at the site, then maybe do a search on Hype (there, I've done it for you), and see what people have been writing and posting on their mp3 blogs for more info.

They need a couple of listens though, and I'm not sure I'd want them in the house, as they'd probably talk a lot about God, then insist on cleaning your oven for you, even though it was already reasonably clean, and then they'd go and stand outside in the sunshine, raising their beaming faces to the sun, and saying 'Isn't life just mysterious and wonderful!', and probably overtip taxi drivers and make you feel small and worthless.

Actually I've gone off them a bit now. But I will be getting the album.

So I got a text from PP at the weekend, saying 'Had a big gay fight in Canterbury, was sacred (I think he meant 'scared') and am now in your old house, and the neighbours are complaining'.

To understand the sheer joy this text brought, you have to realize that I lived in one house in Canterbury, then moved out because of hideously noisy neighbours, into a place on St. Peters Street. There followed one month of blissful relative peace, then new people moved in. Nice people, who put in polished wooden floors (I peeked) and had nice furniture and said hello when they saw me, and played breakbeat at one million decibels.

My flatmate and I had already realised the walls in the new place had the sound-absorbing qualities of a pot of basil when we heard the previous occupant sneezing, and jumped a mile because it sounded like she'd come round to our place to do so. But that had been it really, and you can't complain about sneezing, it's rarely deliberate.

But then the new people moved in, and I discovered with a sinking feeling the bloke one's mum had bought the place for them, so they weren't likely to be going in a Murray, or indeed a hurry. The music was very annoying enough, but then came the loud sex. Worse still, on one occasion when we had to raise our voices to be heard over the loud sex, we realized the girl one had gone out to the shops half an hour ago. Ew ew ew.

Anyway, we asked them politely a number of times to please keep it down a bit, and were greeted with bemused stares and incredulous giggling, and eventually we gave up and moved out, but neither of us could afford to go anywhere new, so me and Best Mate ended up moving back in with our respective parents in Cornwall just as we turned thirty. A personal triumph for both of us.

Anyway, the news that a big bunch of happy gay men have moved into my old place and play big gay showtunes* at a volume that causes said neighbours to bang on the walls every single saturday night has made me believe firmly in karma, in this case delivered by noisy gay people, which makes it even better. Marvellous stuff.



* I'm guessing. It might be Kylie, obviously.

18 comments:

LMS said...

"If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Gay-Team."

Anonymous said...

I don't know why but I read that as "a happy bunch of big gay men". Just thought you'd like to know. Quiet like bunch as the collective noun for gay men by the way - works really well!

Anonymous said...

Damn - not quiEt, but quitE. Too hot. Brain melting.

Anonymous said...

There's a really old woman who thinks she's Paris Hilton who lives above us with her boyfriend who's less than half her age. My sister (who's 14) and I sleep in the room below theirs and we also have the 'we can hear them copping off' problem.

My sister keeps asking me what they're doing. I don't think I want to tell her.

James Henry said...

Cheers! I've heard them before (I think) but not those tracks...

Anonymous said...

My neighbours sleep in their front room, on a rickety old bed settee, on wooden flooring. Why don't they sleep in their bedroom? As it's stifling with heat and ultraviolet rays coming from their lamps, stood over their weed plants.

Everynight at 10pm on the dot (which is annoying when trying to watch Lost), I sit and worry that I'm about to have a bed settee with frolicking couple come through the ceiling and land on top of me. Even turning the telly up to full volume does not mask the sound.

I once asked them to kindly turn their nocturnal activities down a peg or two (seriously at one point, the female neighbour sounded like a donkey on helium..) and was kindly told that when I get my leg over, they wouldn't mind one bit if I make any noise at all. I gave them a bottle of WD40 for Xmas and a gag, but sadly I didn't include instructions on how to use them..

At least now I know I'm not the first it's happened too and definately not the last!

Matt said...

or if you don't believe in karma, possibly karma chameleon.

James Henry said...

Good work, mon frere.

Spinsterella said...

That is the happiest story I've heard in a long time.

Is the Happy Gay Showtime Team available for hire?

I've got some pesky shrieking chav kids next door I could do with getting rid of.

Anonymous said...

PP - are you available with your Happy Team to exorcise my 95-year-old neighbour from writing to Environmental Health as to what she imagines goes on in my bedroom? Had excruciating meeting with Environment Officer who called round to investigate if I had a swing type apparatus hanging from my bedroom ceiling. Don't know which of us was more crest fallen to discover nothing more exciting than a stash of Jilly Cooper novels.

frangelita said...

Everybody needs a bunch of happy noisy gay people around, it just makes life better.

Johanna said...

Hm, lovely. Never heard the neighbours shag yet (fingers crossed) but I do like Anathallo. Thanks James.

Rose said...

My housemate never believed I could hear him and his girlfriend going at it until I quoted a conversation they had had at the same time. It wasn't so bad if I was still awake and listening to music, but if I was trying to sleep... *shudder*

Also, I had to comment as the word verification is... wowup
Which sounds like something the Power Rangers would never say.

Fraudulent Little Tart said...

They clean your oven for you? Then sign me up buttercup!

PP - I'll give you 5 bottles of Cherry Lambrini each to sort out my neighbours from HELL.

Anonymous said...

R.e. noisy flatmates.

Have you tried standing outside their bedroom door and shouting BOGIES very loudly at a crucial moment a la Dick and Dom in da bungalow?

Spinsterella said...

One of the pesky shrieking chav kids saw me in my bra yesterday when he came to get their 4 million footballs back out of our garden. I was washing up - our sink is in front of the window by the front door.

Our eyes met.

He looked horrified.

I went upstairs to put some clothes on, but the expected doorbell didn't go. Out of the bedroom window I saw him walk off, in confusion, and get his slightly older chav brother to pop round instead.

I think I've scarred the poor kid for life.

Good.

Anonymous said...

oooh, look, James, this might interest you: bob the builder is actually nazi propaganda!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGy7dQjOTZI&search=daily%20show


and I was really counting on your blog to cheer me up in my days of exam-induced terror.
but i guess you have to do some work.


AND: Steve Mangan was on the telly today and he said the gw special might not go out until "early next year"....!!!
i know it's not your fault but: GAAAAAHHH

James Henry said...

That Daily Show thing was very interesting, thanks for that - must actually write a proper post on the subject as it raises some interesting points (some accidental I think).

No idea about the GW special I'm afraid, er... other than it might be the writers fault in some way which I will talk about later.

Good luck with exams to everyone, by the way.