Nobby, my Neighbour
Many years ago (Cue obligatory wobbly line like substance) when first I was drawn to the heaving metropolis that is Cardiff I lived in a shared house on Fitzhamon Embankment (For those of you that know the geography of the Riverside district).

Let me tell you, gentle readers, living there was an utter experience. Beyond the discovery of murder victims in the neighboring back-garden, the drug factory next door and the stream of other crimes committed within 100ft of my 'home' it also attracted a stream of the strangest and most surreal people I've ever had the experience of meeting.

First and foremost amongst these was a chap I knew as "Nobby". I think everyone knows a Nobby, you know.

Nobby was strongly anti-drugs and anti-drink. He was also a skinhead who wore nothing but camo's and was utterly hooked on snorting cans of butane lighter fuel. See, thats neither drugs or drink as far as Nobby was concerned, so he was a pillar of society and utterly doing nothing stupid, oh no.

Still, he was *generally* a nice chap. Apart from the time he nearly stabbed me with a kitchen knife when his girlfriend decided to drag me into the middle of one HELL of a domestic. But that's a tale for another day...

For now, I wish only to recount the strange events of a particular day in the summer of 1991. (wavey lines inside wavey lines now, you'd best hang on to something solid...)

It was truly scorching and the city lay in a sultry, abused heap dumped on slowly melting tarmac. The traffic moved sluggishly past and even the seagull and pigeons couldn't be cunted to squawk, shag or fight. Everything, animal or vegetable, was either lying gasping in the heat of the midday or jumping into the Taff in an effort to escape. (Tantamount to suicide...the Taff could be *walked* across on colder days!) The city stank of sweat and hops, and in the distance a saxophonist played slightly off-key blues.

Nobby and I sat in the window of the garret room at the top of the house; he snorting from a fresh can and me taking the occasional pull from a bottle of JD and a reefer alternately.

Now, below us, on the ground floor lived a frech fella whose name eludes me for the moment... ...let's call him Mr. Frog... who was a very strange fella indeed. He rarely emerged during the day and when he did he almost never spoke to anyone. He worked, we heard, as a chef, but given the strange stench of mouldering food that hung around him we were not keen to try his cuisine. That day, and for the weekend preceeding, neither Nobby or I had seen Mr. Frog at all, but that didn't strike us as unusual....

Our attention, slightly lagged, was drawn to a police car cruising sloooooowly down the embankment. We could imagine it wheezing and sweating in the heat, and the two police-person occupants looked uncomfortable indeed. Uncomfortable and bored.

Whilst their comfort was unlikely to improve as a result of what happened next, they were certainly no longer to be bored, for into this scene of parched laziness exploded a howling banshee. Below us, out of our own shared front door burst Mr. Frog. Naked, save for stained and ill-fitting Y-fronts. Screaming, bestial and primtive. Foaming at the lips, he flung himself straight at the police car.

Now, that in and of itself would've been enough of a suprise for the dutiful officers, but their dismay could only have been multiplied by the rather large breeze block that Mr. Frog had thoughtfully chosen to bring with him. Only to bring it crashing down through the windscreen before collapsing over the bonnet himself.

All was still. The heat of the day continued to build. Nothing moved, nothing stirred.

Then there was pandemonium as the police exited the vehicle and attempted to apprehend the strangely slippery and suprisingly fast Mr. Frog as he legged it down the street.

Nobby turned to me, took another pull on his can and said "Y'know, Effin, I think I do too much of this shit."
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Tue 6 Oct 2009, 14:55, 11 replies)

Marvellous
That was an absolute joy to read.

Cheers

*click*
(Rotimer was micturating windward at, Tue 6 Oct 2009, 16:18, closed)

Now thats awfully good
a click for the post and a click for surviving Riverside... (my girlfriends from Cardiff - well, Penarth - and I've had the dubious pleasure of seeing this place firsthand). Two words.

Shit.

Hole.

Oh, and another...

Fucking.
( SpankyHanky, Tue 6 Oct 2009, 16:45, closed)

What's wrong with Penarth?
I worked as a receptionist in Southgate House around that time for a financial institution that was constantly asked for mortgage finance on that house on Fitzhamon that was collapsing. It got so that I could tell just from picking up the phone who was asking us to lend money on that pile of bricks. Amazingly, someone did finally manage to restore it I see.
( wuffle, the b3ta bunny 's flea collar isn't working on, Tue 6 Oct 2009, 23:28, closed)

Penarth if fucking lovely -
Lovely old Victorian seaside place with the old houses and the iron railings everywhere. Like a postcard. Some of the houses there sell for more than they do in Kensignton, so I'm told. Absolutely nothing wrong with Penarth. But Riverside on the other hand...
( SpankyHanky, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 10:16, closed)

True on all counts.
There's a house in its own grounds overlooking Cardiff Bay currently on the market for well over a million. Actually, there's quite a few on Marine Parade for sale at the same price.

You could probably buy the whole of Riverside and have change enough to buy much of Splott for the same price.
( wuffle, the b3ta bunny 's flea collar isn't working on, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 11:46, closed)

..and guess where I live now?
...yep... Splott.
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 17:15, closed)

Well done that man.
A finely crafted tale indeed.
(Big D, Tue 6 Oct 2009, 19:36, closed)

not a drug? bollcks to that!
i was introduced to lighter gas by a girl from cardiff, whom i'd met on holiday in spain. tried it a few times, but the vivid and bizarre hallucinations made me give it up pretty sharpish.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 6 Oct 2009, 21:18, closed)

Yeah, but...
...this was Nobby. He was more than just a *little* strange.
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Wed 7 Oct 2009, 17:17, closed)

strange
is what i would call the time i hallucinated winning a blue ribbon for growing a very large marrow.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 8 Oct 2009, 0:39, closed)

Oh well done
That is beautifully written.

Write more.

Yes.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 8 Oct 2009, 12:33, closed)