As a low-profile IT guy living in a neighbourhood famous for its colourful characters, I don’t need to go too far to get entertained.

There’s just no stopping our house’s party animal, Mr. Jenkins, who at the weekend turns his home into a dizzying party club. At the weekend, we had a live band, a foaming foam machine, and a roaming juggling gnome.

And then there’s the street cat: Mrs. Willow, the grande dame of the neighbourhood. She strolls once a day down the boulevard with a pair of Siamese cats perched on her shoulder, like a miniature feline fashion show, and lots of purring. 

The kids in this neighbourhood are just as amusing; their lives revolve around inventing new ways to destroy their devices. I had such a terrific time. The drone comes down in the tree, and the little kid learns to turn the hoverboard into a clock because his mom put it in the swimming pool: ‘Oops, it wouldn’t work again!’ And he comes rushing over, clutching a virtual reality headset stuck on the side of a cat.

I’m the one my friends come to when things go awry with technology. ‘Idris, you have to help me with my computer; it’s so slow!’ ‘Idris, I can’t connect to my modem; can you come around and see what’s wrong?’ My house is like a drop-in centre for traumatised neighbours who have either lost an MP3 player or something is out of kilter on their printer.

There’s never a dull day in this incredibly diverse neighbourhood; each day is an experience, and each new character is an opportunity for a joke. You’re living in a continuous comedy where the cast is constantly renewed and the show’s farce never ends. And as an IT guy, I never run out of shows to watch.