Leaf it out! Romeo Paxo blasts noisy neighbour
WHEN he was the BBC’s most feared inquisitor, Jeremy Paxman was used to dealing with pompous politicians’ hot air.
Now, he’s in a fury over the relentless din made by his neighbour’s leaf-blower.
It appears to be ruining the atmosphere at the love nest he shares with his girlfriend 29 years his junior.
‘There’s a man with a leaf-blower going full blast a couple of doors down the street,’ Paxo complains. ‘He, of course, is wearing bright yellow “ear-defenders”.
‘Odd, isn’t it, how those who inflict noise on the rest of us first look after their own ears? His neighbours have not been issued with them.’
The 69-year-old broadcaster is understoood to live in London’s Notting Hill with books editor Jillian Taylor.
The Daily Mail Diary disclosed in 2017 that he had split up with television producer Elizabeth Clough, the mother of his three grown-up children, after more than 35 years.
He adds: ‘It is characteristic of our age that gardening, which used to be the most peaceful of occupations, is now an excuse for any fool with a chainsaw, hedge-trimmer, pneumatic drill, motor-mower, strimmer or leafblower to wreck everyone else’s peace and quiet.’
Paxman’s not the first prominent figure to voice his loathing of leafblowers. Mastermind host John Humphrys called for them to be banned in 2014 after the ‘calm’ of his own corner of West London was regularly shattered.
‘I have already had one showdown with my council,’ he wrote in this newspaper. ‘A year ago, some town hall genius decided the perfect time to fire up the blowers in my square was 7am on Sunday. My neighbours and I begged to differ.
‘With the help of sympathetic councillors, who also enjoyed their Sunday lie-ins, we won. But it has proved a hollow victory. From the fall of autumn’s first leaf, the blowers have seldom been silent.’