Melissa Kite: Spare me from successful neighbours

At last. I’ve waited a long time for this moment. I’ve been through years of torture at the hands of excitable twenty-somethings, experimental thirty-somethings and Booker-prize-winning forty-somethings. I’ve had nothing but adventurous, liberal-minded, free-spirited sorts living in the flat upstairs. But I don’t want happy, joyful and free people living near me. I don’t want successful artistic types. No good can come of it.

I remember only too well having to knock on the door the night my next-door neighbour won the Booker prize. ‘But it’s a big celebration,’ said a girl, swaying from side to side, as she explained why they were making such a racket.

‘That’s as may be,’ said my then partner John. ‘But it’s 4 a.m. and we’re trying to get some sleep.’

The Booker-winner moved out soon afterwards, owing to the worldwide sales of his book making him a multimillionaire, and so we got some peace until a gaggle of young professionals moved in and started sitting in the garden after dark discussing what life was all about.