You must be Jerky-ing!

My neighbours would have heard repeated outbursts of cruel laughter from my flat this evening as I listened to "The Jerky Tapes", the little-known sixth album from prank phone call legends The Jerky Boys.

I only found out about this 2001 CD while researching a small item on the now-splitsville Jerkies for work last week. Let me tell you, it was a discovery akin to finding a prehistoric coelacanth swimming in the Indian Ocean. I alerted my friend PG, also a devotee, who immediately tracked it down and sent me a copy.

"T/J/T" is different to the other five official releases - there are fewer calls, but they're longer and more elaborate.

First time through, my faves are those involving a florist desperate to deliver a wedding table centrepiece but unable to reach Harry, the man who ordered it, or get his address.

She's passed between four of his utterly unhelpful acquaintances - his gay lover Jack (outraged/incredulous about the marriage), his building superintendent Tarbash (who, when the florist reveals a racist streak and accuses him of not being able to speak English properly, challenges her to define the word "iconoclast"), his son Scott (or is it just Jack again?) and his old buddy Bob (who gets into a dust-up with Tarbash).

The woman is forced to listen to nonsense about shopping for a "bottle of schmaltz", cutting away a section of floor to house an artistic volcano, schoolroom beatings, the nice feeling of open pores after a shower, and so on.

At one point, Jack gives her part of the address before pretending they've been cut off; at another, "Harry" is heard in the background, but gets called away to move an 18-wheeler that's blocking traffic.

Misguided genius.