What I don't miss when I'm away from home

Two things that I shan't be homesick for when I go back to London on Tuesday:

1. The seagulls on the roof. There's some kind of mini-colony up there, and Lord knows what they're getting up to with the banging and the rattling and the general racket. I hadn't quite realised before what a range of noises those birds can make, all of them unpleasant. And they keep crapping on my windows!

2. And then there's the Sunday afternoon 'entertainment' on the seafront, drifting in through the window. Some duo performing 50s- and 60s-lite (I think there might have been the occasional newer song), finishing off with a particularly ghastly, mawkish medley (ie, they don't really know more than the first couple of lines of any of the songs) of material including songs from the two World Wars. And Auld Lang Syne, I think, but I might have been hallucinating by then. It all wouldn't be quite so hideous if it weren't for the female singer, who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near anything remotely pop-like with that high-pitched quavery voice.

And this is supposed to be the Land of Song?!