Everybody needs good neighbours.

I am having a dispute with my neighbour. He hates me. His wife hates me. And I couldn’t give a shit.

We have a communal car park where we live. This is incredibly annoying because it forces you to converse with the neighbours. They aren’t horrible people, but you have to be polite to them, more so than anyone else you bump into. If I see someone when I’m on my way to my house and one of they decide that we should have a chat about the bank holiday patterns of the rubbish collections, I can’t be rude, because I am definitely going to see this prick again. So I stand there, nodding inanely at this bullshit because I have to be polite to people who happened to choose to live in the same street that I did.

I was just about to get in the car to go to the shops. To get some cheese. Because apparently if we tell the children they are having toasted cheese sandwiches, we can’t give them anything different or the world will explode.

It was then that I was approached by the miserable old git from a few doors down. Immediately I knew that I was about to have a chat with this idiot, so I immediately began to formulate an escape strategy. I was already in a bad mood following the cheese disagreement.

“I’ve got some headlight bulbs that would work in your car. Worth about 60 quid. I’ll give them to you for a tenner”

Obviously I don’t give anything even approaching a shit about light bulbs for the car. The only way that I would be interested in headlight bulbs is if this man approached me and said “headlight bulbs that stop me talking to you?”. I do, however, give a shit about ending this interaction as swiftly as possible. Ten pounds for him to stop talking to me sounds like a fair deal.

I said ok and he said he would drop the bulbs off. I told him not to do that and that I would pop round with ten pounds so that I could just pay for them when I got them.

Of course, when I return from the shop this fuckwit has dropped the bulbs off because he wants this deal done. Now I have to explain this mental transaction to my wife. Se thinks I’m an idiot.

Two days later, I get home from a gig and a note has been posted through my letterbox :

“I think that, in order to avoid any animosity, it is probably best that you return the light bulbs”.

I don’t know what he thought my plan was – perhaps that he envisaged that I intended to avoid him forever, enjoying the extra brightness of the bulbs that I had stolen on dark roads and then using the ten pounds at a service station only accessible with very bright headlights?

Or perhaps he is a top level twat.

I’ll be honest with you, i’m not massively bothered about a twat not talking to me anymore. I was originally planning to pay ten pounds to end one conversation with him. Now, for no money at all, I never have to talk to him again.

He refuses to talk to me or acknowledge me now. So every time I walk past him I like to say hello in the most obvious way possible to remind him that he has decided to stop talking to someone because of some headlights.

It’s not all been good news, however. I recently had to do some acting. That was fine in itself, but I had to get measured up for a part of my costume. The girl doing the measuring up was stunning. I don’t mean stunning in a “I am going to try and impress her” way. For one, I am married, and all of my energies go into ensuring that my wife doesn’t leave. An extensive life assurance policy has guaranteed an enduring marriage. Also, I am fully aware that this girl was young and very attractive. Even if I was single, I would probably have as much chance with this woman as ~insert name of any 70s television presenter~ at a teaching interview.

It was within seconds of meeting that she said “we’ll need you to take your shirt off.” Well this induced panic. I am a man who is not proud of his physical appearance. I once ran into a swimming pool on holiday as quickly as I could to avoid being seen without my shirt on for too long, only to realise once in the water that I still had my trainers on.

I did not want to let on that this was a problem, however, so I just took my shirt off as if it was no problem whatsoever. It was then that I uttered the words, that I would instantly regret, and shudder to recall even now.

“I’m sorry about my body.”

As soon as I said it, I knew. What an absolute twat. What made it worse was the fact that her response was to pretend that I had said nothing at all. She was trying to be kind, but actually what she was doing was creating an awkward silence that allowed my brain to fill the space with “AS SOON AS YOU LEAVE THIS ROOM, WE NEED TO FIND SOMEWHERE TO CRY FOR HALF AN HOUR YOU ABSOLUTE TWAT.”

I’ve started going to the gym.

BYE!