Being kept awake at night by noisy neighbours is a familiar annoyance among city dwellers. But instead of burying his head under his pillow, one resident decided to give his over exuberant neighbours an X Factor-style appraisal when they disturbed his sleep with a raucous karaoke session. Oli Beale pinned his written verdict on his neighbours’ unwelcome Saturday night performance to the communal notice board at the block of converted warehouse-style flats where he lives in Hackney, east London.
He then posted a photo of the note on Twitter, and was amazed by the scale of response as it was retweeted several hundred times. Addressed “to the people that kept us up all night by singing/screaming on their balcony”, the tongue in cheek critique thanks them for their “epic performance.” Mr Beale, a 33-year-old advertising creative, wrote: “Your terrace faces 115 windows so you really did have the perfect stage.
“I’m sure you’re keen to hear our verdict.” He went on to rank each of their songs out of 10, giving his neighbours’ rendition of Pinball Wizard just three out of 10 and branding it “terrible.” According to the note, the song by The Who had been belted out at 2.23am.
At 3.14am there was apparently an attempt to sing along to Walk This Way by Aerosmith. In a response worthy of music mogul Simon Cowell, Mr Beale described it as “the lowest point of the performance” and gave the singers one out of 10 for their efforts.
His praise for their version of Tiny Dancer by Elton John was more generous.
“Actually very good,” he wrote. “I’ve always said it: if you’re going to be woken up after 2 hours’ sleep, it might as well be to a herd of morons screaming ‘Tiny Dancer’.”
Mr Beale signed off the note “I hate you,” but said he did not know the identity of the singers. Speaking after his review went viral, he said: “I was lying in bed getting more and more wound up about it and then I just thought I would write a little critique of their songs as a way of getting through the night.
“The poor guys, they were probably just having a party. It’s not like I’m striding around absolutely fuming.” It was not the first time a critique of his caused a stir. In 2009 a letter of complaint he wrote to Virgin Atlantic about the quality of his in-flight meal also went viral and was praised as the funniest ever.
