Ice cream vans.
Or rather, one particular ice cream van. The ice cream van that has driven up my road, every single day, for approximately ten months of the year, for as long as I’ve been living here.
It always announces its presence in the same blood-chilling, bowel-tightening fashion. A descending tingle-jingle-jangle. Not a melody, merely an overture.
Because then it begins. Colonel bloody Bogey. The same sodding tune, every day for the past five years. ‘Hitler, has only got one ball etc.’.
You may have noticed me wasting away during the past half-decade. It’s not bulimia. It’s not anorexia. It’s just that I now associate ice cream with Nazis. It’s pavlovian. It’s like with Alex in A Clockwork Orange. The mere thought of raspberry ripple brings to mind black-and-white footage of Adolf getting terribly shirty about someting at the Nurembourg rally. And that bit of footage with all the blonde girls bouncing a giant beach ball around the field, that.
For the love of God, of Jesus, of Yahweh, Buddha, Ganesh, Mohammed, L Ron Hubbard and all the other magic guys – please, find another tune.
Oh, there it goes again. There should be a law against it. A very specific law, against that particular ice cream van, playing that particular tune, in my particular street. This may sound trivial but my sanity is at stake. Something has to be done or I will be forced to take the law, and an anti-tank missile launcher, into my own hands.
