wot's with the alley ............... the one with the cringeing guy and the loud-speaker voice going off? just off seward square; if you talk to the guy and get the "charisma" prompt in speech, he'll trot into the alley and get blown to pieces and the voice stops. if i go in at the other end before speaking to the guy (it seems to be better for seeing landmines), it's impossible to see all the mines and inevitably, one starts to fizz ----- usually i get blown to hell................ but once, managed to scarper from the blast, the voice stopped (as usual) and the guy was still lowdown at the other end of the alley. does anybody know of any point to this? is it possible to find and disarm the mines or should one just be happy sending the dude to his doom for a bit of peace and quiet?

That is a random, crazy guy who has mined the alley. When it blows, he blows too.
These days, I never go near there, I prefer to have his rantings echoing across the neighborhood, nice mood-setter.
However, with a very high sneak skill and a stealth boy, I can go in there, and get some mini nukes before it blows up.
Alternatively,
With the aforementioned sneak and stealthboy, you can"splash" a missile off the wall that he is standing next to, kill him instantly, and allowing you to get all the explosive loot in there.