Noisy neighbours. We've all had them – we've all been kept awake until 4am by the dickheads three doors down who don't realise that playing Agadoo on repeat loudly enough to jolt the moon out of its orbit might be a little thoughtless.
And, if we're honest, we've all probably been a noisy neighbour at some point too. All of us. Even ginger Bond girl Jane Seymour. Jane Seymour owns a country house in Bath that she rents out, apparently with the sole intent of staging all-night boozy disco parties for no other reason than to infuriate her neighbours. And that's exactly what has happened – but this being la-di-dah Bath we're talking about, the angry neighbours have decided to gather together and march on Jane Seymour's house. Hopefully the sight of 40 put-out poshos will be enough to make Jane Seymour end the parties, or else residents will resort to plan B – furiously hurling jars of Waitrose Grilled Organic Artichokes and croquet hoops and the ritualised burning of 1980 Chevy Chase/ Jane Seymour/ Benji canine comedy Oh Heavenly Dog DVDs.
Celebrity fads come and go – one minute it was cool to carry a little dog around with you, then it was getting your vagina out like a whore – but one fad that's making a dash for the mainstream is for celebrities to make their neighbours really very ticked off indeed. First Pauly Shore annoyed neighbour Wes Craven enough to get sued and then Kirsten Dunst managed to keep all of Islington awake with her late-night shenanigans, and now it's the turn of Jane Seymour.
OK, so maybe Jane Seymour doesn't especially count as a celebrity any more – maybe 34 years ago when Jane Seymour was a Bond girl she would have earnt that classification, or in the 1990s when she starred as Dr Quinn Medicine Woman 150 different times, but now Jane Seymour is just a jobbing actress. A jobbing actress with a nifty sideline in making her ruddy-faced aristocratic neighbours shake their jowls in a way they usually only reserve for discussions about single mothers or immigrants.
Jane Seymour, you see, owns Grade-I listed St Catherine's Court near Bath. It's where, a decade ago, Radiohead recorded OK Computer and where, more recently, people have been holding all sorts of rather loud parties so often that neighbours have signed a petition and gone on a march to show Jane Seymour that the noise jolly well really isn't bloody on. BBC News reports:
A spokesman for the group said: "Small events are OK. Our concerns are over the large events and the narrowness of these country lanes. "If it does develop into major events, we will all suffer." Claudia Legge, 18, who grew up in the hamlet, added: "I think Jane Seymour and her family have been very arrogant. We all spend a lot more time around here and many of us have lived here since birth. What right have they got to ruin it all for us?"
Rumours that Legge said this as she was riding a pony are still unconfirmed. But anyway, hopefully the 40-strong march will convince Jane Seymour to put an end to all the parties at her house. Not because the petition has instilled a new sense of community spirit, mind you, but because the combined smell of 40 sweaty wax jackets and stinking port breath is potentially more lethal than anthrax.
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