one of our upstairs neighbours is named nick – we’ve never met him, let alone seen him – yet we are quite familiar with him – primarily because his bedroom window overlooks our light well.

nick fancies himself as a bit of a songwriter/singer/guitarist. nick also enjoys rather loud “relations” with his girlfriend (i so long to shout out “she’s faking nick”).

here in the hardly haus we can always tell when nick and his girlfriend are having relationship difficulties, at these times he soulfully (and untunefully) belts out “you broke my heart, awaaaaaaaaaaaay” over and over and over – until plunging a knitting needle into your ear seems like a really good option.

not long after we moved in, i penned the following “ode to nick” – which should be sung in a morrissey-esque warble:

nick you can’t play the guitar for shit

and i think your singing is quite possibly worse

you make me want to grab a hammer

when you start another mind-numbing verse

oh nick – you can’t sing for shit

nick – you can’t play the guitar for shit

repeat x 12

nick, i can only just tolerate your guitar

do you really need to inflict your vocals on us too?

why can’t you just shut the fuck up

so we don’t have to constantly invent unpleasant ways to torture you

repeat chorus x 12