Purple Acky is real...
snipurl.com/94sx
(Captcheese, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:38, Reply)

Bristol- Part 3- The Docks
Until this question I didn't realise what a freakshow my hometown is.

1) Many people live on boats in Bristol, and this is seen as normal if not desirable. Except for the man that lives in a strange little boat that looks like a cross between a gypsy caravan, a shoebox and a dinghy. It's not even on the water, it's on the side of the marina. It measures approx. 8'x 4'x 4'and is purple and pink. Every night, the middle-aged man who lives in it emerges dressed in spandex to cycle to his dancing job in a local gay club. Every morning, he can be seen emptying his piss bucket that lives outside the 'boat'

2) The local from the Seamans Mission who would regularly stagger into the pub and belt out old tunes in a warbly old mans tenor and bash out 'tunes' on the piano in the style of Les Dawson. Until some of us nailed the piano shut and told him it was 'broken'. It did sound truly god-awful.
(clapper, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:25, Reply)

I Am the devil
There was an oldish lady who lived near where i worked in Leicestershire, on occasions she would stop outside my window, point and shout at me that i am the devil, strange. never did it to anyone else either.

apologies for crapness
(OoooohBetty, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:15, Reply)

Liverpool
For about a year I lived near a street in Liverpool called Lark Lane. It was a great place and me and friends used to go to The Albert for pints all the time. However after a while it dawned on us that there was a mental home just down the road, and as a result on some nights the pub would be full of people twitching, making involuntary hand gestures and shouting out rubbish for no reason.

Although that's what goes on a pub anyway I suppose..
( Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:11, Reply)

In Camden- on holiday.....
.... in London, as you do when you live in the North.

Some chap on the main high street (?) by the markets was walking a microwave i.e. dragging it by the cord behind him. Didn't stick around to listen to him talking to it, try to feed it etc as I was fearing death.

Not sure if this is a common event or a one off?

The South- backwards!
(dogger collymore, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:11, Reply)

Cheltenham, Bath Road Area
Derek is his name and he spends all day either pushing a grannies shopping cart and constantly cackling and laughing to himself. He is a harmless old chap, but does smell quite badly of old man wee. He is of the 'simple folk' genus and lives in his own world.

I saw him the otherday pushing a lawnmower through the centre of town. It didn't have an engine.

He's a local fixture in the neighbourhood and often hear his 'How are ya? He he he he heeh he he he!' as he shouts at the top of his voice.

I often say hello to him to see what random conversation or cackle I get back!!
( Toma_o, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:06, Reply)

The Purple Lady
I grew up in St Ives in Cornwall, and there was this old lady there who always wore the same purple clothes and smelt of wee. Her son had died in a car crash years earlier and she was utterly convinced that all of us kids were sent by Satan to torment her, so she used to chase us with her brolly and throw stones at us, all the time screaming;

"Get back to Hell and leave me alone!"

I once had to visit my nan in hospital, and the Purple Lady was in there, lifting her skirts to flash whatever was under there at some old chap in a wheelchair. He looked almost as scared of her as I was.
(Kong, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 13:04, Reply)

Morningside
A few years ago I stayed on Morningside Road in Edinburgh and often saw a harmless (insofar as he did not choose to interact with real people) oldnutter wandering up and down the street. He was probably mentally ill (perhaps from the Royal Ed?) rather than mentally deranged but qualifies as a weirdo for his huge, flat feet and disconcerting habit of having his tongue sticking out of his mouth ALL THE TIME. It was all grey and limp-looking as if he'd had a cow's tongue sewn onto the end of his own which his body had subsequently rejected.
There's also Shouty Big Issue Woman at the top of Dundas Street. The one that will "get you on the way back up" and alternates between wishing God's blessings upon you and advising you to go and fuck yourself.
Salvador Dali Man can be seen wandering about Newington with a big Conquistador-style 'tache, a tight-waisted coat and riding boots. I have no idea if his nutter M.O. involves any specific nutter activities or if he's just perhaps a normalish person with an odd sense of style...
( wingpig wish I'd known about liquify eighteen years ago, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:56, Reply)

belfast nutters
there doesn't actually seem to be many nutters in belfast....oh wait....hang on...

apart from all the ones elected in local government to run this country
(bum plops, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:50, Reply)

Jeanie Rattery
In Perth in Scotland this lady is a real local celebrity. Her antics range from breaking into Victoria Wines to steal 2 cans of Tennents Super, to taking a dump in the middle of the main street in the middle of the afternoon on the last shopping Saturday before Christmas.

Her crowning glory is, however, wandering down the side of the main road between Perth and Dundee with an automatic assault rifle pointing at people who were happily driving by and laughing hysterically. Eventually she got lifted after a few people almost crashed.

Her defence in court?

"It Fell from the sky your honour!"

It transpired a few days leter in the Local paper (god bless those intreppid reporters) that a group of squadies has been travelling the road and that one of their rifles fell out of the back of the open backed transporter. Of all the people to find it it had to heve been dear old Jeanie!
(secondsout, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:44, Reply)

Leeds Multilingual Bus Nutter
First & foremost, I also remeber Purple Achy from his Widnes wandering days, and the day my nan fucked him up with a rolling pin thrown at his noggin.

Anyway, when I was at university in Leeds, this fucker used to get on the bus regular always pretending to be babbling in Spanish or some such shite on a mobile phone which was in fact clearly a Fisher Price walkie talkie.

I was never suspicious of this really until realisation of nuttiness factor 10 dawned on me when overhearing ".....una paloma blanca...." in the midst of one of his psuedo Spanish rants one day.

The spaccy twat.

Fuck the length.
(davidblunkettsdogblankets, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:38, Reply)

Chorlton loons.....
Torso Man - just sits in the bars drinking and chain smoking. He's got long dark hair which hangs over half of his face. As he get more pissed he starts muttering to himself. He doesn't do anything particularly odd, its just that he looks like the type to have an extensive collection of torsos in his freezer.

10p Man - wierd little crakhead who always begs specifically for 10p. He'll follow you for a few hundred yards before he gives up.
(moo_girl, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:34, Reply)

Purple Achy
Crazy Spacky.

Sorry.
(DayvidBerdo, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:34, Reply)

Shrewsbury
Whet there drinking once and this bloke walks in the pub with full period drama outfit on. Seemed harmless but eccentric, thought he was some kind of thespian. Locals said he did that sort of thing all the time. Then he went into his little bag, pulled out a pair of hair clippers and asked one of us to take an inch off his pubes!
Dunno who was the nutter, him for asking or my mate for actually doing it!!!
(wiganer, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:34, Reply)

The Manchester gay-scene
There's a few absolute belters in Manchester's gay village. Thre was one guy - who died a couple of years ago - an old bloke (70s) called Tony Dean. He used to be out practically every night off his box on speed, in various haunts like the Manto breakfast club leering at the chickens. But, he always used to wear a full dinner suit, black dickie-bow and clip-on sunglasses over his specs, even though it was the middle of the night. Scary.

Oh. And there's marker boy. He comes in to the Rembrandt (and quite possibly other pubs), orders a half, disappears in to the toilet and then emerges just wearing lycra shorts and his own hand-made tatoos (in magic marker) advertising the fact that he is a "fist pig" and various other rather alarming sexual predelictions. He then does one tour of the pub, and when nobody shows an interest he puts his clothes back on and buggers off. Oh, and I'm reliably informed he has a pair of socks stffed down the front of his lycra shorts.

I'm sure I'll think of some more given time.
(Tim Greening-Jackson, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:22, Reply)

How could I forget!
Harmonica man! He frequents Nuneaton AND Coventry :( He's normally outside Woolies or the Fruit and Veg shop in Nuneaton. In Coventry, he was outside Sainsburys till they knocked it down. He plays the harmonica in an, er... unusual way - by randomly moving it left to right while breathing in and out, doing some sort of Riverdance. He has an empty fruitbasket that people actually put money into. He always rewards them with a saucy wink.

Then there's the topless Rasta of Coventry (does what it says on the tin - even in winter, he's shirtless, with a jumper tied round his waist. Is never seen without a bag full of bananas).

... and the guy who always gets on the Coventry/Nuneaton buses, carrying absolute shitloads of suitcases. He gurns at me every time I see him and chats up ladies on the bus. If no ladies are available, and the bus driver is female he will chat her up. If no ladies at all are available, he will tell anyone who will listen about his holiday and how he keeps getting the sack for drinking at work. Is obsessed with cider and often necks 2 cans in a 10-minute journey. Once came into the shop my ex worked in, asked if her trousers were leather, then started shaking and wet himself.

Just think, it could be you one day...
(Tonto Popadopolous, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:22, Reply)

Oh yeah, Bedford again...
Sister Joyce - mad Jamaican woman who wears all these home made robes with quotes from the bible embroidered on them. She carries a bible and tries to 'save' people...

I run away when I see her - I'd rather deal with Ricky
(Beklet is inexplicably angry, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:19, Reply)

More Norwich weirdness
I too have fond memories of Marigold from Norwich. I remember he was so well known that at one point he disappeared for a couple of weeks and it made the local paper. I also remember the sock man, but only from a distance, I was never brave enough to go near him.

There were a couple of other nutters that wandered around near George street (where I was at the art college) and were named by my friends and I (they may have had official Norwich names that we were unaware of) but we had Jesus, who, unsuprisingly had long hair and a tatty and long beard, always wore an old pin striped suit but never any shoes...ever...even when the town was covered in a couple of inches of snow. Oh, and he moved in a mysterious way.

But not as mysterious as Purple-head. A man so angry with himself that he would punch himself repeatedly in the face whilst berating himself in a growly unintelligible way. He had hit himself so many times that he had a permanent bright purple/blue bruise the entire length and breadth of his forehead. When you encountered him on the street it was traditional to turn to your mate and say "I thought you told your dad to stay at home". How we laughed.
(Raymonkey, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:17, Reply)

response to mad mr wiggy
i was accosted by that Buhhdist a year or so ago. Walking along Market Street with three mates he singles me from the bunch - perhaps i made eye contact...

As a result - 10 minutes (literally, i am too polite to tell people to bugger off) of trying to convert me and give me a magazine. I took the magazine and made to stride off, before he grabbed me and asked for a "contribution". I thought i detected a conspiratorial wiggle of the eyebrows (which were shaved like his head)so i threw down the magazine and ran.

Plus the beggars who frequent Oxford/ Wilmslow Road often making enough money in the afternoon to buy a six pack of Stella, to wash down the six pack of Stella they had bought from the proceeds of that mornings work. If you ask me they just scare the foreign exchange students.

There is ladyboy tramp - who no one can agree if it is a bloke with a woman's voice or a manish woman with short hair

Smackman who can talk quite coherently and eat half your sandwich before spacing out very dramatically.

often see them outside the Sainsburys or the cash machines in Fallowfield and they never recognise you even if you talk to them every day
Apologies for waffling and being a pathetic tale.
(monkeyseemonkeydo, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:14, Reply)

I've met a few...
I grew up in a small town called Long Eaton, somewhere betwen Nottingham and Derby. It was full of nutters.
There was this one woman, lived on our estate, who used to ride her bike, tea towel on her haid, shouting at people. Rumour has it she went a bit mad after the menopause. I am going to shoot myself as soon as I hit 45.
THe best one I ever witnessed was the day we had our Maths GCSE. We were walking up to the pub to celebrate finishing it, and this madwoman stopped my friend, put her face right up close to her, and said 'My knickers are cleaner than yours'

Scary.

I also lived in Harrogate, where you get Rudy. Rudy always has a guitar and is convinced he can control the weather, therefore he alternates between singing songs for passers by, and shouting, 'Rain! Rain I command you!' at the sky. The rumour is he found his wife and baby dead and went mad.

Now I live in Bedford, there are too many loons to count, but Ricky is the most well known. He's schizophrenic, and begs for drugs money, but he is known for his violent outbursts towards inanimate objects. If he's not kicking lampposts or cars, he is shouting abuse at a bewildered shopper (though he isn't violent towards people). Spends most of his time in the nick because the local mental hospital has closed down.
(Beklet is inexplicably angry, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:10, Reply)

Scissor boy of Solihull
That's what I'm calling him anyway. Last Christmas I worked at WHSmith in Solihull, a veritable hotbed for humorous situations, from the woman who dribbled on the counter while signing a cheque to sequential customers buying Watership Down 'Syndrome' and Black Hawk Down's'.

So, the nutter. Twas one day after Christmas and in walks anorak boy, carrying the optional Carlton shopping bag (the kind your mother always has), and shuffles up to me and asks for scissors. So I direct scissor boy towards what he’s after. No, this doesn’t satisfy. He wants “Borrow!” Now, I just want to get rid of him, so I go over to the pens counter, take a pair of scissors out of the draw and put them on the counter. Scissor boy dumps the shopping bag down on the counter and takes out a loaf of bread, medium sliced white Hovis IIRC. Then he removes some photocopied patterns and shapes from the bag, drags the ‘OAP’ chair (you know what I mean) over to the counter and proceeds to cut out the shapes. Now I’m struggling to stifle the my laughter, so I go over to another part of the store and have little giggle. The nutter now starts singing, in the classic ‘tard style (loud and random noises, as if you need to know). Me and another lad on the multimedia section look at one another, in recognition of the mutual need to snigger; cue sniggering. After a few minutes of singing and sniggering it stops. So I go over to see what the mess is like, and if the scissors are still there. Fair play to scissor boy though, he’d put all the clippings in the bin and not kept the scissors to wield at customers. And he kept me amused for the rest of the day.
(Letharge, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:10, Reply)

Manchester, Worsley area
Not sure if this has been posted but there is an elderly man (late 60 early 70's) who walks around the Worsley area carrying a pedal bike above his head every where he goes.. He has had articles written about him in the local papers and no body seems to know where he's from or why he carries it above his head...
(MadPeeps, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:08, Reply)

Yet another Manchester "Eccentric"
Having the wonderful mistfortune of living in the Gorton area of Manchester (shootings, stabbings and currently a serial rapist operating within a 5 minute walk of my flat), it comes as little surprise to me that we have our very own local nutter.

A gentleman of slightly advanced years, I can only assume that he used to be in the army. His mind is on the way out the door however and he still seems to think that he is fighting the Hun. Most days he can be found marching down the streets, accosting unseen assailants, pointing his walking stick like a loaded Enfield .303 rifle. This in itself would seem bad enough, except he wears an old blue plastic carrier bag like a vest and an old army style beret.

Oh and he carries a notebook too, taking details of suspicious looking characters on the street...bless.

Edit: Just noticed that he's known as "Corporal Lampost" on the Galaxy 102 top 10 Manchester nutters, he made number 6.
(Freakish, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:06, Reply)

david
Summer sings me songs he said
Autumn is the cruelest season
Winter has its reasons
Spring might bring love david
( Vultan the real one I threw my little yellow shoe, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:02, Reply)

In Nuneaton:
There's a woman who race-walks everywhere carrying masses of shopping and muttering to herself. Unurprisingly she is stick-thin.

A guy who looks like Buster Bloodvessel and dresses head-to-toe in leather. Every day. He stands on corners smoking and leering at people.

In Coventry you have:

The guy with the disabled buggy/scooter with assorted guff on it: Frankenstein mask, rubber skeleton, many hats, dolls, a sign saying "END IS NIGH" or "I'VE BEEN TO THE MOON"; and the most maniacal grin ever. I think he's an old hippy. I haven't seen him for ages, he may be dead.
(Tonto Popadopolous, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 12:01, Reply)

I used to live in Reading (i'm ashamed to say)
are you talking about the dude who used to ware an Elvis T-Shirt and loitered around Friar Street? Strange chap!
(elgonzorelli, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 11:59, Reply)

Cat Man
Around the streets where I live you'll often see Cat Man, sometimes he'll be dragging his feline about on a leash other times he'll be discussing with it which food to buy at the local supermarket.

Ahh a sad old man that loves his cat I hear you say, but no he's quiet mad and legend says that on demand he will show you that his cat can write....

When we were younger we stopped him one day and sniggering asked to see his cat write. All we were expecting was a torrent of abuse from the old man with possibly some mad fist waving thrown in for good measure.

Instead he showed us!

Holding the pen to the bottom of the cat's paw with complete sincerity he wrote 'Mr Cat' on a piece of paper.

Suddenly this wasn't as funny as we thought and the situation was rapidly getting 'weird' the breaking point was when he went into everything his cat could do and that not only could it write but it was ambidextrous, we quickly left as he started writing with the cat's other paw.
( HornO, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 11:52, Reply)

Ipswich
Yay! More Ipswich b3tans.

The bloke Trev or whatever his name was.
I was told that his wife was still alive and was the person who made sure that he was always perfectly dressed.

He was spotted on occassion attempting to stab random people with his umbrella.

There's a mad old chap who goes into the Cock and Pie sometimes and ends up with random drinks due to the barstaff not understanding what he's talking about. I once saw him down a pint of Carlsberg in about 3 seconds, which I thought was rather impressive.
(badger of doom http://www.trendingtracks.co.uk, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 11:51, Reply)

Aberdeen Lucky Heather Woman
I remember the Aberdeen Lucky Heather woman as described on page 1 by Jamsie. Considering she was a homeless, alchoholic nutter, it couldn't have been that fucking lucky could it?
(Chillumm, Fri 17 Sep 2004, 11:42, Reply)