The Privet Hedge from Hell

We don't have a garden, we have a privet hedge. It hides the dustbins from the road and gives the downstairs flat some privacy. Every so often it needs cutting and it's a devil, with big woody stems that jam up my hedge cutters.

In the current weather, it's growing like billy-oh, so once the temperature started to drop around 5pm today, it was time to give it another short back and sides. Depressingly, trimming it only seems to encourage it to sprout all the faster.