26/07/2002-27/07/2002 @01:52:11 ^02:31:52

Good riddance!

So there's this guy who lives in my road, two doors up. He's quite old, I'd guess over sixty. Physically he has a number of things wrong with him; the most obvious is his walking difficulty, he walked with a stick. But all the cigarettes and alcohol he consumes can't help.

He is someone who needs constant attention. Since he lives alone, this comes out in the way he harasses everyone who lives in the street. If he sees you outside he'll try to trap you into a long and boring conversation about how ill he is and how all these people are taking advantage of him and crap. You can't get rid of him.

It gets worse. He traps you in a way you can't easily escape, like if you leave your house he'll walk over and stand outside your front door and talk at you. I see him do it every time some hapless new couple move into one of the houses opposite. You can see people itching to get away from him.

Of course he did this to me as well; for example, I'd be taking the dog for a walk and he'd stop me just after I'd left the house and was starting off up the road. Any idiot could see I was busy but, oh no, he needed attention. In fact he managed to get me inside his house once while he wrote Christmas cards for my mum and me. I couldn't be bothered telling him my name wasn't Richard. I stopped short of going to the shops and buying cigarettes for him.

He pisses me off. He goes into people's front gardens, and he trims their hedge. What do you do if you come home and find him in your front garden?! But there is a happy ending.

HE'S GONE

My mum was going past his house the other day. At that moment this other guy emerges. He has a mask on. Apparently he works for the council. He said that the council had moved him to a flat nearer the shops, a place more suited to his needs.

Now you could tell me I'm being insensitive and I should care about this man, it's not his fault he's infirm or whatever. But I don't. It's hard to care about people who really annoy you. He got on everyone's nerves, he made his house so filthy they had to send guys with masks in to fumigate it, and so I'M SO VERY VERY GLAD HE'S GONE.