'Arry the B*stard.
Nasty Neighbour Tales

Missing Link Found Alive and Well and Living Next Door - Part 1

May 2001

The Harrys are a strange bunch and make no mistake. We've lived in a lot of strange places and had a lot of strange neighbours but them at number 4 - they're just plain weird. I don't mean weird in the good sense either, I mean weird in the bad old inbred sleepy village kind of way.

Now we're not ones to judge on first appearances (which for the Harry family, can ONLY be a good thing) so being the open-minded people that we are we moved into number 5 full of anticipation and goodwill. My first encounter with Harry Harry (as we call him - we don't know the Harrys' real surname but as they all share most of each other's genes we feel they should share each other's names) was an unambiguous encounter occurring about an hour after we had officially moved in. I parked our car in front of the terrace of cottages (not in front of the house I have to point out - that space was occupied by a rusting black Fiat Uno) and unloaded some furniture. I locked the house and left. On reversing past the Uno I was GLARED at by a short rotund bald person, later identified as Harry Harry, leader of the motley crew and owner of the wondrous vehicle occupying the prime parking space. I write glared in capitals because no normal use of the word can begin to convey the hatred radiating from that ungodly stare. On the face of it he was obviously watching to see if I would scratch his car on reversing out of my parking space. It was a tight squeeze but nothing compared to trying to extricate one's car from your average inner London parking bay. Nevertheless, I don't like being glared at least of all on a hot day when I'm trying to perform a tricky manoeuvre in the car. You know what it's like - knowing you're being watched makes it difficult NOT to make mistakes, it's almost as if he was willing me to bump his car in order to have an excuse to get our neighbourly relationship off to a violent start. Anyway, no mishap occurred and I went on my now-not-so-merry way. Nothing more doing with any neighbours that day.

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