In 2001, for want of anything better to do, Leicester Mercury features writer Jeremy Clay spent a day in a monkey cage at Twycross Zoo. Banana, anyone?
It starts with a single eerie howl, which grows steadily more insistent then is echoed by another. Suddenly there's an alarmed shriek, some up-tempo clattering, and primal scream moaning which swells to a crescendo, like a pair of whales making whoopee.
A pregnant silence. Then the sound of a small but crazed stampede, a huge yelp and the final flourish of a deafening whack of furry fist thumped upon metal.
You think you've got bad neighbours? Try spending a day in Flat One, The Chimp House, Twycross Zoo, where next door's banana bunch Flynn, Becky and Josie while away the hours in running battles that culminate with a furious attack on the metal gate that separates my cage from theirs.
It sounds for all the world like a monkey massacre, followed by the ritual catapulting of the vanquished simian carcass against the exit door.
And it's repeated at 10-minute intervals all morning. After just half an hour, my nerves are shot to pieces.
So, if it's not too big a question, why am I here? Well, Big Brother turned TV into the human zoo. So I made myself into a real one.
And in a 10 ft by 4ft cage, which whiffs of disinfectant and is floored by pub toilet tiles, I settle in with my kettle, chair table and radio and open the paper.
Within a few minutes a small crowd gathers outside to stare. And unlike the surreptitious stares you get from, say, taking a stroll down a cul-de-sac with a swag-bag, this is unashamed gawping – and it lasts several tortuous minutes at a time.
Now I know how Guy the Gorilla felt. Not trapped, not imprisoned, just painfully self-conscious.
The crowd move on, attracted by the fresh uproar next door.
And when the fingers of blame are pointed, Flynn is the primate suspect.
"He always starts it," smiles keeper Sharon Green, cheerfully checking up on the first homo sapiens on her daily round.
"Becky will sit there screaming and he'll hit her, and she'll thump him back, and carry on screaming just to wind him up.
"Then Josie gets in the middle, and punches both of them and it ends up as a mad brawl. We call time out on them and separate them. They sit there glowering at each other like they're saying "I'll get you later."
Back in cage one, the minutes have turned into hours, and a pattern is established.
I'll look up from trying to re-read the same report for the nth time. The blissfully empty corridor of a few moments ago will be filled with a throng of strangers. The kids will press their faces against the glass, some bewildered, some delighted and some looking a little unsettled. The parents – mums to a man – stand back smirking and enjoying the harmless stupidity of it all, though there's occasionally a faint look of pity in their eyes. And they'll stare, and stare, and stare.
Who'd have thought a man easing towards middle-age could be such a draw?
They'll hang there until I catch their eyes, or they realise that all I'm going to do is read or make a cup of coffee, which has become unexpectedly tricky to do with an audience.
There'll be no swinging off a tyre on a rope. I'm not going to go on the kind of berserk rampage they've just enjoyed next door. Neither am I going to unleash a great crowd-pleasing torrent of urine.
So off they'll wander, looking a little cheated.
Only the sole gaggle of teenagers in the zoo, a wandering exhibition of surliness, break ranks with convention.
"Oi, what are you doing?'' demands one indignantly, hammering on the window, in clear contravention of the polite notice on the window sill, which asks all visitors not to bang on the glass.
I feign hearing loss. And after 10 minutes or so, during which time the cage noticeably warms from my burning shame, they slink away.
From beyond the metal door, comes a steady tapping, like prison Morse.
I resist the urge to respond, remembering zoo boss Molly Badham's mysterious warning not to bang back.
More beast-spotters file by, amused, bemused or unmoved.
One child looks on the verge of tears. "Is he a funny man?" says a kindly mum, stooping to talk to her toddler daughter.
"No," she says, emphatically.
By dinnertime, the litter from my discarded banana skins, monkey nuts shells and scattered newspapers is beginning to build up.
Sadly no-one comes to muck me out. Regrettably there's no sign of the breeding programme I was hoping for either.
Nature calls. And though I share 90 per cent of my DNA with Flynn, Becky and Josie, and I may even have enough hair on my back to give all three a run for their money, there's one crucial difference: I have a key.
So I qualify for a little blessed privacy. "He's escaped!" yelps a woman with a pram, in mock horror as I slip out of a side door.
On the way back I stop to join the staring classes (ooh, ooh, ooh, I wanna be like you-oo-oo) and take a peek at my neighbours from hell.
For the last half an hour the unsightly-bottomed trio have been making noises which sound disturbingly like they've begun tunnelling.
As I walk by their cage (longer and bigger, mind you, with a TV), one chimp hurries along beside me, with an urgent look in his eyes. He waves his arm frantically.
"Hey bud," he seems to be saying. "How d'ya get out?"
Dream on pal, you're here for the long stretch.