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Today a large lorry equipped with some correspondingly large tubes arrived outside my house. Its overalled inhabitants heaved off a manhole cover, threaded the tubes down it, and set the lorry to 'Pump Loudly'. Half an hour later, the din of the pump was joined by a noise from my bathroom, as of a mighty fountain being momently forced from a chasm. It was an eery sight: my toilet bowl was splashing water everywhere, in a way that made me anticipate that a tentacle would soon emerge from it and drag me down after. Almost as strange, water was sprinking up through my bath plughole. I checked the toilet downstairs and found the same story, only more so: water all over the floor, towel, toilet rolls, etc, and a very strong smell of drains.

Unlike last week's Goon, these ones really had been sent by Erskine. They were nice, though: I told them what was happening, and one of them came in and wiped up the excess with a large roll of relatively absorbent paper and did his clumsy best to make amends. However, it turns out that the same scene was being repeated in every house in the street, most of them empty at that time of day, and many with carpeted bathrooms and exquisite fittings. An x-ray video of my street would have looked like the beginning of a Busby Berkeley piece, with toilets gushing skyward in syncopated harmony.

Ah, let us turn from this insalubrious scene to The Simpsons, which I watched with my supper, only to be rewarded by the kind of high-brow reference that you don't expect in Springfield:

Marge: Come on Homer, Japan will be fun! You enjoyed Rashomon.
Homer: That's not how I remember it.*

*Edited to correct my own memory. The irony!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 06:42 pm (UTC)
ext_6322: (Kaede)
From: [identity profile] kalypso-v.livejournal.com
When I lived in Du Cane Court, we occasionally had mysterious bubblings-up in the bathrooms, accompanied by a bad-egg smell. I don't think it actually escaped to floor-level.

Huh, I don't remember it that way.

Can one giggle wryly?
Edited Date: 2009-09-07 06:43 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 07:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
Du Cane Court reminds me curiously of Queen's Court, where I lived immediately before my current place.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 08:25 pm (UTC)
ext_6322: (Kaede)
From: [identity profile] kalypso-v.livejournal.com
I think there are a lot of them around, but Du Cane Court may be the biggest (reputedly 676 flats). Which means an awful lot of people have lived there at one time or another; in addition to the celebrities mentioned on that website, there's Paul Darrow, Gideon Haigh, me...

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 06:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] diceytillerman.livejournal.com
Last night I watched a Simpsons ep where Homer intentionally floods the neighborhood as a performance art piece, so as I read this post I was picturing your neighborhood that way even before you mentioned the Simpsons!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 07:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
Strange! I don't think I've seen the episode, either.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 08:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] diceytillerman.livejournal.com
It's called Mom and Pop Art. If you enjoy fine arts references you should see it -- it's chock full of them.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-09-07 09:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
You put it very well.

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