My wife and I moved into a beautiful apartment with vaulted ceilings, silver appliances and exposed brick walls. The building was located behind another one, and you got there by walking through the first building and over a bridge at the back. If you looked up “hip and happenin’” on Wikipedia, my apartment would come up. When I first moved in and told people about my domicile, they would always give me that jealous look.  “You live in the Lace Market? Are we worthy?” No, you’re not. Peasant.

The first couple of days after we moved in, I stepped past a pile of blood on the pavement (hmm…I didn’t know blood could pile) and bought a flatscreen TV. I hooked it up, and discovered that terrestrial television didn’t work.  Ooh, they force you to get cable, how exclusive. (Later, I discovered that it wasn’t a style-related issue; the workmen who installed the aerials didn’t get paid, so they took a hacksaw to them)

I called BT to get hooked up to posh TV.  After being put on hold and transferred to three different people, I was finally told that they didn’t cover our area.  Um, what? Did you hear me correctly? I said the LACE MARKET.

"Yes, I know where you live, Mr. Cutforth – there’s no service in that area.” Click.

I called NTL. “No service in that area”. But I’m living in the Lace Market, darling, how can there not be service? Is this area so hip, they don’t watch TV? Are they too busy discussing the merits of Dennett’s theory of consciousness, or on a conference call with Stephen Hawking giving him tips on black holes? That sort of thing might entertain the Lace Market elite, but I’m from North America. I would rather give up a testicle than my TV. Even British TV.

I decided to cheer myself up with copious amounts of alcohol. I left the apartment to grab some beer from the Oddbins across the street. It’s closed. I walk down to M&S. Closed. Tesco in the Victoria Centre. Closed. All the newsagents within a 3 mile radius, Closed! It’s only 8 o’clock. On a Friday! I go back home, sober, with no TV, to my one-bedroom apartment with my wife.  After staring blankly at each other for a couple of hours, we decided to go to bed…

It was about 4am when a drunken 12-part "harmony" of Eye Of The Tiger came booming out of the mouths of my neighbours across the alleyway. I put my pillow over my head and tried to block it out. To no avail. The song went on forever; to this day I am convinced that Eye Of The Tiger is 20 minutes long.

It finally ends. Majestic, heavenly, glorious silence. And then…“You and I in a little toy shop! We buy a bag of balloons, with the money we've got!”  Jesus bald-headed Christ, its 99 Red Balloons and the dipshits didn’t even have the decency to go with the German version. I pull the blinds away from the window to see three skinny Towers of London wannabes, with mullets and studded belts leaning over their balcony, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Singing at 4am: Strike One. Singing Crap 80s tunes: Strike Two. Mullets and studded belts: Strike fucking Three. As if having studded belts and mullets isn’t bad enough, their mullets have streaky highlights in them. I don’t care where you are from, the following equation is always true: Studded Belt + Streaky Mullet = Obnoxious Bitch.

What these boys didn’t realise is that, in many of these Lace Market refurbs, the electrical room is public and unlocked. So, yeah, I snuck down and shut down their power. I had to sit and listen to 20 minutes of drunken mewlings of protest before they finally passed out, but it was worth it. So much so, that I did it again the following night. And then every night for a week. Sober Canadian - Sleep = Vengeful Bastard.

That night after, I’d just gotten to sleep when someone buzzed my front door. I picked up the receiver to hear a junkie scream, “Can you please let me in, I won’t be no bovvah! I won’t be no bovvah!” If I’d had a gun, there would’ve been a murder-suicide on that step that night; one bullet for the junkie, and one for me knowing that I just had just signed a six-month lease.

Five months, 30 days, 11 hours, 59 minutes later, we were in an estate agents looking for a house. One as far away from the Lace Market as humanly possible. I bought a place on a housing estate, because I didn’t know what a housing estate was. Oh well, at least the liquor stores are open late and I’ve got Sky Sports. What more could you ask for?