Wednesday 1 June 2011

Generation Games

Maybe I've become a tad hypersensitive or maybe I'm just growing old, but I seem to be developing a noise intolerance. Laying comments on Celine Dion to one side for the moment, I'm sure the ambient noise level in Sabo-Oke has gone up a few decibels in recent days - and it can't all be due to the euphoria of Man U losing to Barcelona, or to all the post-election celebrations, surely.
TheTobi bakery generator is firing on all cylinders, so no change there. They do seem to have invested in a guard dog - a huge fluffy thing with a big bark but looks as theatening as Sooty. Incidentally, Tobi means 'big' or 'great', which adequately describes the noise it produces, if not its bread, which is very very sweet, having been laced with butter during manufacture - saves you the effort I suppose, if you are late in the morning.
The flat upstairs seems to have grown tired of Celine Dion, at last, but has taken to Bryan Adams - just the one song - and Big Jim Reeves, in between distorted TV episodes of 'African Magic' - a sort of Nigerian 'Crossroads' but without the class acting.
The churches are still belting out their choral messages and the car repair facility never seems to be short of business -not a surprise really! There was a police van in for repair last week - probably the result of ramming everything out of their way on a death-defying run to Offa.
So most things seem normal. It is the industrial strength generator belonging to the bank manager in the flat next door that is to blame. He doesn't need such a beast just to fire up a few lights, ceiling fans and the fridge, so what is it for? As it roars into life as soon as NEPA has deserted us, rattling our windows and causing the air to throb, it sends drifts of carbon monoxide through our mesh - all night long. We wake up, providing we first get some sleep, with headaches and sore throats. We have taken to sliding our windows shut but in so doing condemn ourselves to hot, sticky, sleepless nights. I reckon he is printing his own counterfeit notes - in order to pay for the massive fuel bill he must be running up! We have considered getting a generator of our own and positioning it right outside his bedroom window, having removed the silencer and anything resembling a catalytic converter and attaching to the exhaust outlet a hose that we push through a hole we have cut in his mesh! - but then we are probably making another rod for our own back.
I think I prefer the all night, Church of Christ the Redeemer gospel choir at 120db  - but definitely not Celine Dion! 

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