It’s almost one o’clock in the morning, and I’m about to get changed and go to bed, when I hear yelling and screaming outside my window. One male voice, one female, getting harsher and shriller. At first, I think it’s just rowdy kids from the council houses up late, but then the female voice turns to a scream. Yanking open my bedroom curtains, I see the man has his hand wrapped in the girl’s long blonde hair, and he’s pulling her along with it. She’s screaming and yelling and tripping, and I yell at him. “Hey! Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He ignores me and throws the girl onto the ground. It’s raining and she splashes down into a newly formed puddle. Almost immediately he grabs her arm and yanks her to her feet again, thumping her and dragging her down the cycle path. I dash downstairs and straight out the front door without even stopping to put shoes on my feet. The ground’s none too gentle, and there’s snails everywhere. I follow them down the cycle path, treading carefully, yelling again. “Get your fucking hands off her!” There’s about 50 feet between us, and I can’t move quick barefoot. He pulls his hand from her hair, prompting another cry from her, to turn towards me and yell back. “Stay the fuck away, ent none of your fucking business!” I automatically check his hands to make sure he’s not carrying any weapons. Nothing. The girl, despite having the opportunity to make a break for it whilst he yells at me, doesn’t move. He turns back to her and grabs her again, and pulls her off across the path at the foot of the meadow. I can’t follow through that. I head back to the house and grab my flip-flops before going out again.

There’s a woman about my age on the phone to the police, pleading them to come quick, that the girl is being beaten by him. I tell her I saw what was happening, and which direction they went. She says he’s the girl’s boyfriend, and goes to wait for the police car at the bottom of the road. The station is only a 2 minute drive away, and the car comes quickly. She gets in it and they go off to find them.

At the bottom of the road, I meet two teenage girls. The older of the two tells me the girl is her younger sister, only 17 years old. Walking back up to the houses, she tells me her sister is terrified of her abusive boyfriend, but won’t leave him. It’s happened before, on numerous occasions, but not this bad. There’s a call on her mobile phone to say that the police caught the two of them under the bridge. The three of us walk down there, and as we turn the corner a white van drives past. The girl is in the passenger seat, and raises a finger to her lips to her sister, who explains that she will have told the police that it was nothing, that her boyfriend didn’t do anything. The police can’t do anything about it unless the girl requests that they do. Her sister says that the same thing will likely play out again.

How and why do people end up and stay in these kind of abusive relationships? Why can’t the police do anything if there’s people like me, and her sister, and the woman who called them, and half the street looking out their windows who saw it happen with their own eyes? It baffles and disturbs me.

I visited my parents this weekend, dropping in unannounced (’Surprise!’) the day before my youngest brother’s 22nd birthday. Shopping in town with him and mum yesterday, I picked up an 8-pack of that new Coca-Cola Zero stuff, prompting a conversation.

Me: Have you tried this new stuff yet, Ant?
Antony: Nah. It doesn’t taste like Coke.
Me: Tastes more like Coke than Diet Coke does.
Antony: That doesn’t taste like Coke either. Coke doesn’t taste like Coke.
Me: …. Uh. What does Coke taste like, then?
Antony: Dunno. Just not Coke.
Me: Ok…. what does taste like Coke, then?
Antony: Pepsi.

I got stopped in Sheffield city centre the other day by a woman asking me if I wanted to buy a trinket or talisman. I automatically shook my head and made polite negative excuses. “Just hold out your hand,” she told me, trying to put a small glass heart onto my palm. I kept my hand firmly down and closed, and took a step further away. “You’re going to be going abroad very soon,” she changed tack suddenly. “Two men have feelings for you, but you see one of them as a friend only. You love music.” I smiled, and patted her on the arm. I felt like saying something like, “Actually, I don’t like travelling. I’m gay, and I’m not that bothered about music.” Instead, I just said, “Honestly, no,” and walked off.

My little sister Jude sent me a poem by email today, that she’d thought was particularly touching. I didn’t think it was that amazing, and told her so. It yielded the following exchange.

Jude: Shouldn’t you be boiling children in your gingerbread house, you emotionless witch?
Me: Shouldn’t you be sobbing in the corner, you soppy tart?

Me and my sis, we love each other. Don’t you feel it right there?

I bought a copy of SFX out at Meadowhall last night, to satisfy my lust for things geeky. There were quite a few articles in there about Doctor Who, and its sort-of-spinoff, Torchwood. Both are filmed in Cardiff, and having lived down that way for 7 years, I often play spot the Cardiff area. It’s not quite so easy with Doctor Who, seeing as it’s not really meant to be Cardiff a lot of the time, but Torchwood is actually going to be based there, from what I’ve read. I’ve been looking forward to seeing it, and a snippet on it in SFX magazine made me laugh out loud on the tram:

“There’s this great bit where we have a car chase through the streets of Splott.”

Two things make this hilarious. One’s the name. The other is the idea of a car chase there. I actually lived in Splott (and yes, it is pronounced like you think, it doesn’t have silent t’s like some people pretend) for a couple of years, and the idea of anyone taking part in a car chase there completely cracks me up. I can’t wait to see it.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are in Sheffield this evening, playing at Don Valley Stadium right by my house. I’ve got the window open, and I can hear the songs perfectly. I wish I could photograph the sound, because it’s amazing. There’s two large open spaces on either side of the house, and the music just reverberates back and forth between the front and back of the house. I don’t know what song they’re currently playing, as the only two Peppers songs I can identify are Californication and Can’t Stop, but it’s loud, it’s fast, and the audience is going wild.
The Rolling Stones will be playing at the Stadium in August, so long as Keith Richards doesn’t fall out of any more trees. That’s probably going to be insane too.