Friday night in the city of the damned…

Finger in ear, pillow over head, tossing and turning, hoping murkily that the noise will go away. No good. The noise is the sounds of fools who don’t care at all about others parked on a forecourt at the top of the road, doors on their shiny jeeps wide open, some kind of urban shout-out music playing out. Representing, though with an aggresive edge that could mean trouble, slowing the traffic and the passersby down on a grey night in E17… and it goes on and on and on until I have to be active rather than passive in the face of it so I drag myself downstairs, I see the time’s 4.43am and I phone the local police station, thinking they’ll maybe treat it as a disturbance of the peace rather than noise pollution, a council concern. But no help there, there’s a “major firearms disturbance” and no local police are available, if something starts up, then please phone 999. And as I put the phone down I realise the noise is gone and they’re gone. Just the blowing of the nightwind, the halogen orange of streetlights and me awake with a demanding weekend ahead. Urban life – who needs it?