Gadjo Dilo’s Peccadillos #5: Neighbours

In the previous episode the charms of the housewife were discussed, and I suppose if you don’t have a housewife yourself then somebody else’s housewife is the next best thing. But, ah, the charm of The Neighbour goes far, far beyond that:

#1 Miss Balcony Nudist: When we lived in a block of flats we could shout to neighbours across the street, though we rarely did, contenting ourselves with “Ooo, look, No. 14E has become a right fat bastard since he got married”, etc.; but there was a young woman who I twice saw come naked onto her balcony to water her plants. Nothing more. Nothing more was required. They were perfect, golden moments that needed no further complication or adornment.

#2 Mrs Next Door: On one side we have the dishevelled geezer and his dachshunds, and on t’other we have a Hungarian lady and her husband. In my experience Hungarian women fall into three categories: A) Hard-faced bitches harbouring oceans of negativity and delusions of racial superiority, B) Modern girls with candid smiles suggesting an almost Scandinavian “availability”, or C) Nice, civilised women with admirable dress sense. Despite a surprising colourful vocabulary (says Mrs Dilo) for a demure middle-aged lady, #2 is a C (but with perhaps just a hint of B).

#3 Her Upstairs: When I lived in Tottenham the woman in the flat upstairs was a large West Indian lady with whom I got on well. But one abiding memory of my seven years there is of hearing her noisily going to toilet above me. Luckily I’m not squeamish about that sort of thing - and neither did it float my boat, before you ask, cheeky - but it shows that in some respects one knows one’s neighbour more intimately than does even her boyfriend or her proctologist.

#4 Washing Line Lady: The Archetypal Fanciable Neighbour – for is there anything more suggestive than washing?? Wet washing, fresh-smelling, limp and moist to the touch; or dry washing, smooth, crisp and new, an artist’s virgin canvass awaiting the imprint of a breast or a buttock to which to enspouse and to cleave.

#5 Kylie Minogue: Owing to my lack of interest in TV soap operas I only ever saw Kylie on Top Of The Pops, possibly. Call me old fashioned but I got the feeling that if you went round her house to borrow a cup of sugar or a couple AA batteries she’d lend you them, and with a smile that suggested “that’s when good neighbours become good friends”.

To end, of course, and because I'm feeling in a raunchy mood, another chance to covet that Neighbours' ass:

Farewell, Youssoufaki

Phew, I moved house and somehow managed not lose my job, my missus, my marbles, or - most importantly of course - my connection with you, gentle reader; I do hope you're still out there somewhere. We had to give up our lovely RDS broadband though. RDS is an extension of CERN's Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss Alps: modern, high-tech, and pretty darned fast. We could have gone for RomTelecom, which like The Dacia Car, another national institution, actually does kinda work, in its own way, but the power for it is generated in Moldavia by a donkey walking round and round in a circle with a carrot dangling in front of its nose; and even a Moldavian donkey will stop in its tracks occasionally and ask itself the question "why?" So we got UPC - bundled with cable TV channels like Discovery, Chav Shopping++ Gold, Red Hot Rijswijk, etc - which is responsible for peasants knowing more about the Serengeti National Park, bling and Dutch Housewives than they know about the next village, agricultural machinery and actual housework. But it's a bit slow.

Speaking of donkeys, it seems that my best male friend here in Romania is no longer with us. I don't know his name - being a beast of burden he probably never had one - so I'll call him Youssoufaki after the much beloved donkey in Kazantzakis' book The Greek Passion - named, but ironically, please note, after a Turkish Agha's catamite - whom his master believed understood everything he felt and said. My Youssoufaki used to pull carts of hay, bring shepherds down from the hill or simply stand around looking sexy. He was at his best though when rolling around scratching his back in a puddle of dust and waving his legs in the air. Like a proper townie twat I used to run up and stroke his neck and talk to him. But, "he's no longer with us", they told me when I visited his village recently. I thought this a little ambiguous, but to spare my feelings they wouldn't elaborate. So I fear I'll never know whether he's gone to some other, meaner master, to Dreamy Meadows Donkey Sanctuary Retirement Home and Devon Fudge Shop (pictured above), or to the dog food factory. Sorry to be so maudlin. Farewell old son.