Until a few hundred years ago, the loudest noise, probably anyone would experience during their entire life would have been the occasional clap of thunder. Frightening, undoubtably, especially for the pious and true believers, but a pretty rare event nonetheless. Ironic, don't you think, and definitely depressing, that for so many nowadays, this may well be the quietest external noise anyone will hear. And it's likely to be the case for the legions of souls condemned to sleep-starved half lives, impoverished by someone else's whimsical decision to turn up the volume at a time of their choosing (never ours, of course) and always, but always at the worst time. Night time.

How many of us, and I can count myself in here, have resembled, with so many sadly still caught this way, the unhappy dead, each one of us yearning for sanctuary and peace, night after night, twisting wretchedly, with nerves stretched tighter than cat gut, from the 4/4 beat thumping through the partition wall. From A to Z, and all places in between and around, it's a world of noise.

Like love, noise comes in countless guises. If only it could be as pleasant. Yes, love, I know can turn and curdle, but at least there's the heady joys of early days; the private jokes, furtive glances, shared secrets. So there's an effervescence about love in the beginning anyway, sometimes all the way to the end. Try appropriating that sense the first time next door's washing machine hits spin cycle after midnight. Where's the sonnet on noise? Ode on first hearing four adults gallop across your ceiling? Unlikely.

Not wanting to list the sources, or guises, of noise. Too many to even attempt. I'm going for the varieties. Two as far as I'm concerned: continuous and random impact. The latter is the nuclear weapon; once dropped, life is never the same, irrevocable change. But let me dispatch the former before anything else. What is continuous noise? Well, it's a sound at first so disturbing, that it generates the "I can't live with this" reaction almost immediately. However, this is the chameleon of noise, which, being so repetitive settles eventually into the background. With it's status changing from threat to neutral. It's simply there. An instance: I live very near to a major arterial road, pumping traffic in and out of Central London. The road throbs day and night. No respite. It hums. The first few weeks I lived here, was a time of absolute despair, throughly unhappy, bitterly thinking of all the other places I'd turned down to live where I was, and now look what I was getting. Today, years on, it's a non noise, I no longer register it. Slipping the Zen spectacles on, then I'm at one with it. In fact I only notice it when I can't hear any traffic; that's when the existential panic crawls in. No traffic on a major road. Something's wrong.

Random impact noise is the neighbour who, following a reasoning pattern known only to them decides they can only listen to the TV a few decibels short of loaded Jumbo taking off; or who inexplicably comes home in the small hours, lacking the skill to close the door, any door, without slamming it shut the way someone might slam a car door; it's the braying, honking voices drifting across the garden fence; screeching, drunken voices wafting in from a few doors away, night after night. And always, but always, the steady thud of music.

We reach accomodation with continuous noise, mainly for two reasons; firstly, the sheer fact of it being continuous, secondly, it's the same noise, same tone, same volume. Barely any variation. If only random impact worked the same way, it does n't; it's random first and foremost, so can happen anytime, then it's impact, the sound obviously, but what it does to our lives, and that's more important. We end up waiting for it to happen. Altering our lives to it's shape. There was one point in my life when things were so bad, I used to aim to get to bed before a certain time, believing that if I did, then I'd get a few hours under my belt, before one of my neighbours came home. That's not living, it's a half life.

I do n't know anyone, who at some point during their lives has not, or in some cases still do, suffered the miseries of living under the siege conditions that random impact noise dictates. Living as many of us do, cheek by jowl with others, entails as many responsibilities as it does rights, of which a degree of understanding on what constitutes reasonable behaviour is paramount. Frankly, for me, this means no loud music, foot stamping, door-banging, appliances being switched on after eleven. Mortals sleep between then and seven the next day usually. Respect that, please. Not much to ask. Buddhists, apparently, regard this as a time of spiritual degeneration - Samsara. I don't. I just think it's bloody noisy.

We had yet another crisis meeting at work last week. The issue is irrelevant, it'll be something different next week anyway, if experience is anything to go by. I only wish we'd approach these things differently. We should be telling the seniors: look, forget about it, relax, just chill, guy. Here's the saffron robe. Go back in your office, light a couple of scented candles, put on some Yogic chanting, or listen to the sound of whales, and bliss out. It'll pass. And if it does n't, then out come the drums, and we'll pound that bad boy away.

It's a thought.

I don't how I did this, well, I do in the sense I know what I did, but did n't think I'd have enough discipline to see it through, but I meditated myself to sleep. No real idea of how long it was before I went off, just that I did, and felt pretty blissed out when I got up. I needed it. Been to bed pretty late, no, very late every night, so pretty sleep starved by now. Only myself to blame. I've noticed you can only get a few hours decent rest in Chiswick before the planes start buzzing over in the early morning. This morning they seemd to be overhead particularly early. That woke me up, desperate to get some more hours under my belt, otherwise dead for the day, I did the focus on your breath thing. Gone. Out. Brilliant

Now and again, I spend a few days in Chiswick; I can't claim residency status, but I feel I have accumulated enough time under my belt, to at least give me the sense of an emotional stake in the place. Nice area, comfortable, I like it. One day, I'll break camp and leave the inner city and retire here. It's rural compared to where I live.

Yet, even in this relative Eden, there's worm in the bud. Looming across the High Street now is the shadow of a figure in a starched white apron bearing an espresso. Brasseries have arrived. Popping up like mushrooms after the rain. For the small restaurant and café owners, who in my eyes, give Chiswick it's signature, make it the special place it is, this can only be like having a factory fishing ship permanently moored outside. All passing trade snapped up and swallowed right in front of them. I saw their futures begin to shape a few nights ago: the odd table occupied, more staff than customers, pretty bleak. Nearby, a honey pot brasserie buzzed and hummed. How long before parts of the High Street assume the appearance of an abandoned Western stage set: doors swinging loosely, tumbleweed cannoning against empty store fronts, leaves heaped up by the wind, the ghosts of diners past wandering through closed restaurants.

C'mon guys, leave the High Streets alone. We need to be able to buy light bulbs and potatoes just as much as we need to idly spend hours pushing wild sea bass around a plate. Don't think I don't enjoy dropping into these places, I do, but let's get sensible. Surely Chiswick needs a breather from any more juggernaut brasseries parking up on the High Street?"

Hard-edged, authoritative, compelling, that's the nature of commerce. A true force of nature that does not, will not accept resistance on one hand - it's gonna get done, regardless; on the flip side, clearly in thrall ( in fear of ceding advantage no doubt) to what the other big beasts are up to: if they're doing it, then so are we and going to be in there just as hard, or harder, if it's contested territory which is in play.

Slowly, Portobello Road (close to where I live, therefore close to my heart) is being pasteurised; the corporates are slowly tunneling into this quirky and goofy and charming Souk. Today exotica, tomorrow a shopping mall? My fingers are crossed - please not. London's shoppers need somewhere tart, somewhere piquant, somewhere for quirky odds and sods. Let Bluewater and Thurrock do what they do best, and Portobello what it does. Two different shopping experiences, let's ensure it stays that way.

Portobello Road needs endangered species recognition right now. West London's Bazaar can't be covered in the equivalent of shopping kudzu vine - more mobile phone shops, chain boutiques, franchised coffee outlets .

If you value your literary homeland, and think of books as buildings, then join me in insisting on a preservation order for The House Beautiful. Built (written) by Allison Burnett, it has the depth, the width and the height to carry the Babel of tongues, confusions, emotions, crushes, and zinging barbed wit, which cascade from it's chief resident, BK Troop, as he pushes forwards his dream of transforming an inelegant, down at heel Brownstone into a low rent artists colony in Babylon... well Manhattan then.

The House Beautiful is the home of endangered species: believable, eccentric, willful, memorable, fully dimensioned characters, who could pop off the page, wipe the printers ink off them, and be one of us - maddened, unhappy, lustful, mouths agape as every green light turns puce before them, and as conflicted as the next person. Could you say this of Harry Potter, don't think so. Jay Mcinerney ? Bret Easton Ellis? Ian McEwen, doubt it, Martin Amis, don't get me started!

I got face to face for the first time with BK Troop a couple of years ago when I got hold of a copy of Christopher, the author's debut novel. Then I reeled...in elation, not in horror. At last a character so distinct, so marked, that it can only be an injustice that his name has n't become a synonym for some kind of mood or behaviour. Who can be as rancourous, can swagger with bitchy brio, twiddle his thumbs nervously, emote as keenly as any adolescent, possess an enviable faculty for whiplash wit, and seems to channel the soul not just of the Knight of the Doleful Countenance, but of Shakespeare's Malvolio, a little touch of William Burroughs, and the hissing whisper of Truman Capote, than Mr Troop. Tell me, 'cos I've yet to find them.

Of course, the worry is always - Second Album Syndrome - will the next album, play, novel be as stunning as the first. How common is it for our affections to be stolen the first time round, only for the artist to be painfully swimming ashore to an indifferent world from the shipwreck of their follow on piece. So, what do I think? It's like this, I'm scanning the horizon, and it's clear, not a thing, there's no one wading ashore. This is a great novel. The writing is enviable. And it seems to be coming to the author so effortlessly.

By ye words may ye be judged, so they say. Judge me, buy the book, I think I'm right. Try Amazon or go to http://www.allisonburnett.com

Appliance karma has not been in my favour recently. Tricky situation with my fridge earlier, whilst my laptop keeled over a week ago. Nothing grand guignol, no sparks, just gently faded away. I've brought it back to life time after time, but even my Lazarus like ways have an elastic limit. What I've been doing I know now was little more than triage; patch the fallen soldier up, make sure he's steady-ish on his feet, then throw a weary, ailing body back over the parapet. Can't go on anymore. It needs fundamental attention, and now I know what after asking a relative: a new battery. It's a good, hard-working (and hard-wearing too) laptop; time for me to be a responsible owner.