Apparently, the double glazed window in our bedroom has dropped slightly in the casement. This makes it nigh-on impossible to shut the window (which is not a problem at the moment because it’s relatively warm out, still, but I’d like to have the option of shutting the window at some point in the future).

How do I know this? Simple: the landlord’s lackey just told me.

After a couple of days of fighting with it, I called the landlord’s lackey today and said “the double glazed window in our bedroom won’t shut. I think the frame has dropped slightly in the casement.”

“No bother,” said he, “I’ll come over tonight and have a look.”

“Okay,” I said, “but I think you might need to get the maintenance guy to actually fix it.”

“Let me take a look,” he urged, and we left it at that.

At six, I hurtled home, and waited for him to show up. I know he could be arriving at any moment, and for that reason, I of course needed to go to the loo desperately from the moment I got in, but couldn’t. Now he’s gone, I don’t need to go anymore. That’s the way these things always work, isn’t it?

Anyway, at twenty past, he rang the bell, sprinted up the stairs, ran into the bedroom, took one look at the window and sucked air through his teeth.

“You know what’s wrong with that, don’t you?” he asked, probably being rhetorical, because he went on to tell me, “the frame’s dropped in the casement, see? That’s going to be a bugger to close…”

Exactly what I told him a couple of hours earlier, and exactly what I’d predicted to P that the landlord’s lackey would say when presented with the problem.

He leant forward and grabbed the handle on the window frame, pulling it firmly towards him.

“See, when you want to close the window, you’ve just got to push the frame up with your shoulder, like this.” It slammed shut, noisily.

“I know,” I said, “that’s what we’ve been doing for days. I want it to be fixed, though”

“Oh,” he said, “I’ll have to let the maintenance man know about this, then. He’ll have gone home now. It’ll be tomorrow before he can come and fix it, I reckon.”

Do I make a noise when I speak? I mean, when I talk, does sound come out, or do I just flap my lips noiselessly into the air? I could have sworn I just said that.

When living in Seville, I once returned a stereo to El Corte Ingles department store, because the mains lead was connected loosely to the machine, and to make the thing play you had to put your hand around the back and push the lead in. When I got to the counter, the assistant listened to my problem, and then said cheerfully,

“Oh, that’s easy to fix…you’ve just got to push the lead in at the back when it’s playing, like this…”

Yes, I know.