I had some heavy duty marking to do today, so I thought I'd work at home and avoid all the interruptions and distractions of the office. This was supremely deluded as it turned out. First, there were the workmen, coming to fill in the deep trench across the parking area in front of the flats. They buzzed my flat to ask me if I could move my car, then trundled up with their big grabber crane, to fill in the soil. Next came the soil compactor, which shook the whole flat like a high frequency earthquake. Eventually, they left and I thought I might get a few moments of peace.

The kids from the youth group in the building out the back obviously heard my thoughts and decided to quash my hopes. Somebody had a synthesiser with a lot of buttons. Every few seconds, someone would randomly press one of the buttons, and stand back to admire the high decibel auditory effect. "Ooo, samba! Hey, it's a 747 taking off!" The utter randomness of this noise defied any attempt by my brain to filter it out.

I think I'm turning into Spike Milligan — an ardent supporter of the 'Right to Peace and Quiet' Campaign. I know that it's difficult in crowded modern living conditions to keep the noise down. As you know, I love music myself and would like to play it a bit louder, but I feel bad about inflicting my musical tastes on the neighbours. Today I just felt that there was no peace to be found anywhere, and fantasised about living in the depths of the countryside, with only the birds and the sound of the wind for company.