Oh yea, I'm weird too
For years I had weird mental things I used to do all the time. I've since learned that lots of people do it growing up, but at the time I thought I was a psychopath.

The worst one was I used to imagine there was a sort of elastic/ethereal strip behind me - i.e. when I walked I'd leave a trail like a rainbow belt. This developed into a slight phobia of turning around more than 90 degrees in one direction for fear of tangling it.

I'm ok now...
( valoukh newsgash.wordpress.com, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 15:20, 3 replies)

To go with a previous post about crazy people
Afew days ago I made a list of the crazy people in my town. There was a compliation video of CCTV footage from my Tesco that I though had been removed that Ive just stumbled upon on youtube.

About 2min 49 in you can see Jamie the transsexual dancing merrily away followed by the bonkers lady who does her exercises in isles.
She also re-appears about 4.22


uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4nmUl_lgTAU

And heres a link to an blog thingy bout Mad Russ. Pictures and allsorts...

ukradiojock.blogspot.com/2008/09/russell-barrows-dog-walking-legend.html



Work safe n that

I told you they were real :)
(i should have joined myspace, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 15:15, 3 replies)

Gordon,
Gordon the Tramp lives in Bournemouth (somewhere in the Bournemouth area) and can be seen regularly in the town centre. He is famous for being able to tell the correct time to within a minute without a watch, which is pretty bloody good actually. This man is, however, an eccentric. Not the most eccentric, but certainly near the top of the leader board in my book.

I assume Gordon is a fan of the local football club "The Cherries". He attends every game but always sits in the away end. Before the stadium was renovated i used to work as a steward (big orange or yellow coat, usually being hurled abuse at by drunken louts) at this football club and the instructions were, don't give Gordon any trouble, try not to look him in the eye! We were led to believe that if you looked at Gordon he would take offence and try and attack you, this is not the case. It was simply best to avoid eye contact to prevent conversing with him. Unfortunately, i'm one of those reasonably friendly people and we could always be found in conversation prior to a match.

The strangest thing about the whole story is that, although he knew my name he would only call me blondie (i'm ginger - the sort of ginger you wouldn't mistake for blonde) and he would sit at the top right hand corner of the away end and listen to the match on his pink radio! Bloody nutter.
(GsterMum, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:49, 2 replies)

I have a few little peccadillos...
When running up a familiar staircase, if I know it has an odd number of steps (including the step onto the higher floor), I will always take the single step at the bottom before running up in pairs, to avoid an awkward half step at the top. Always.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:49, 5 replies)

Remember Remember the 5th November
I’ve just popped home from work during my dinner break to pick up some important info I forgot to bring with me this morning.

As I was throwing the papers back into the car one of the people who lives on the opposite side of the road from me came out to tell me his wife had given birth to a baby boy earlier today. I did the usual things like asking how are mum and baby doing etc and then it came to him telling me the sprogs name:

Him: Oh yeah we’ve decided to call him Guy, you know considering the circumstances

Me: Ah, because its the 5th November,.

Him: No

Me:(Thinks to self it can’t be because she was pregnant by a bloke she didn’t know)

Him: It’s because the wife has decided to name the kid after that bloke she fancies off of the Robin Hood program.

Me:.....What?

After a brief explanation, it turns out that that they were naming the poor little bugger after the character Guy of Gisbourne played by Richard Armitage in the BBC series.

As for the circumstances he mentioned it turns out that him and his other half may have conceived during a little role play session involving him dressed as Robin Hood. Why he chose to explain this to me (in great detail) still escapes me and how he thought I already knew about that is a subject I didn't think about until typing this up.

I also haven’t eaten a thing for dinner now as the mental picture of them dressed as Robin Hood and Maid Marian has made my eyes bleed.

I just hope any of little guys future girlfriend/boyfriends don’t ask where he got his name from.

(Shudders)
(mon bison powered by magnets, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:43, Reply)

I was a bit eccentric as a kid
I used to freak out at not being able to look at my own face, I was frightened of Lionel Blair and I properly, weepily begged to be Wyl E Cyote, since he was apparently invvunerable to pain and immortal. I was 5.

:-S
(GONEism, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:38, 3 replies)

Not too eccentric
I recently found out that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night laughing like a mad person. Just because I had a funny dream (not that funny when you remember it afterwards) usually involving my sister.

My ex-boyfriend got very scared with this, particularly the first time that it happened, as it seems it's quite sinister and he thought I was going to kill him or something.

One day my mother told me that it's not that strange at all. My father (you might have read about him in this QOWT before) uses to do it too.

I feel much better now.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:21, 1 reply)

voices in her head
my sister is one of those ridiculously intelligent people, but has very little common sense.

as a child she would do little science experiments on herself, and this has continued throughout her medical career.

therefore, when she came to me when we were visiting my mum in dublin and said, "how were you able to sleep through those little child like, almost japanese sounding, muffled voices that kept talking at intervals throughout the night?" i just thought she was being weird.

actually, it turns out that my mother's gentleman friend had planted a furby in her pillow, so every time she moved it started gibbering.
( kitsune-tsuki tankeløst hode får lettest sove, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:13, 2 replies)

Maybe me?
I like things with bright colours and stripes.

I can't go into one of those shops which sell colour pencils and pens (name of the shop? stationery store?). I just stay there, looking at the colours, for hours.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:12, 2 replies)

every time I see a mentalist/odd fellow in public
I run around him again and again.

In an 'eccentric orbit'.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 13:40, Reply)

Plant Pot Man
Has anyone mentioned/seen this guy?

He can be seen wandering the streets of Amsterdam.

When you've "relaxed" in one of the many cafes and embark onto the streets its quite a site to behold.

We saw him on a brief visit being followed by a camera crew!!

Here:
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Np7v-PUI4
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 13:37, Reply)

I know a group of people who must occasionally sit beside each other on buses and trains
But don’t always know who each other is . They speak to each other , often about quite personal things and sometimes quite forcibly slag each other off , although they aren’t necessarily sure of the gender of the person they’re interacting with . They often show each other things they've made .

And each week one of them asks a question they are all encouraged to answer.

Mentalists .
(happyjoy last changed sig on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 13:15, 7 replies)

Eccentric?
I have a folder at home containing plans for a steam-turbine/electric powered motorbike.

My reasoning is this: steam turbines are very efficient but do not spool up and down quickly, so coupling one with an electric transmission (as found in diesel-electric locomotives, for instance) would be a far more efficient way of getting power to the wheels. The whole shebang should be far lighter than a petrol engine and conventional gearbox.

I've been researching and designing it for over a year now. Every single bit is planned out in intricate detail, from the turbine itself to the boiler, frame, electronically-governed suspension, and braking system.

One day, when I have a garage, I will buy a lathe and get round to building it.

It will probably make it a mile and then blow up, but I can dream.


I also have plans to build a diesel bike one day, but that's more of a reality as several others have also done it.

Also, when I was a child, I would pretend that the toggles on my duffle coat were mobile phones. I was odd.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 12:56, 6 replies)

I fear it might be me..
I prefer gentlemen's attire to jeans and t-shirts (one day I'll have enough spare cash to go wild on saville row - tweed suits for weekends, pinstripes for the week, white mess jacket and evening outfit to alternate with the full-monty white-tie and tails I have for formal events).

My studio is called the Drones (after the club in Wodehouse's books) and, aside from doing some writing and art work, is becoming home to a large medieval model town to house the hundreds of wargames miniatures I no longer use, but which are rather nice to look at. The framework for this project alone is 6 feet high, by 5 feet across and 3 feet deep.

My dream car is not a Veyron (nice though they are and, indirectly, I had a bit to do with how they aere designed) - it's either a Jaguar C-type replica, or an SS100 replica from Sussex Sportscars. Then again, the wife and I are big Jaguar fans from childhood memories of them, so maybe it's not just me.

As a child, I worked out the only place in my bedroom where, if all the doors and curtains were open, a Tyrannosaurus Rex would not be able to see me (and thus eat me). I communicated this fact to my best friend some time afterwards. When we were 15. Neither he nor I seemed to find it odd that I'd thougth about this.

As a child, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. I knew (and could pronounce) the latin names for probably 100+ different types, what ages they lived in, where they tended to be found...the lot. To the point of correcting a father who was stumbling to explain the Diplodocus skelton to his child at the Natural History Museum. I was maybe 6 at the time - a member of staff suggested I work there when I was older, but my parents were too busy dying of embarrassment. I still don't really see what I did wrong - I was just correcting the man's flawed information in the spirit of sharing academic knowledge.

The last three times I ate salmon, I was violently ill - it seems I am allergic. The first two times were unwitting of this fact - the third time, however was because I wanted to prove the hypothesis that I was indeed made unwell by eating salmon, in case I gave it up for no reason. This is made worse by the fact that, other than fish and chips once in a while, a rare prawn mayo sandwich and a fondness for the odd kipper, I really don't like seafood at all.

I'm a fan of Steampunk. I'm writing a novel of the genre, but what intrigues me more is the idea of turning my home into some sort of victorian-era alladin's cave of contraptions. I might have to limit this to modifying computers and the like and various bits of decoration, as my wife is rather proud of our lovely home as it is. The Drones is, however, my domain, so I might be able to tinker away up there undiscovered.

I have a blog dedicated to vintage and retro macintosh computers. On a recent trip to Bletchley Park, not only did I spend a happy few minutes deciphering the binary punch tapes in my head, but was over-joyed to discover that the National Museum of Computing has an Apple Newton in their display that isn't as old as the one I use daily for work... Oh, and that I have about 80% of the machines they have in their "Personal Computing" area - including the rather fetching Silicon Graphics Indigo. My wife and parents had to watch me frolic round the room like a kid in a sweet shop whilst I explained by I love the Indigo so much. I did, however, buy them tea and cake afterwards by means of apology.

I am convinced that stirring anti-clockwise (or widdershins as I think of it) makes the coffee dissolve better than stirring clockwise. This is based on observational evidence - yes I actually wondered if it made a difference.

I made it a quest in life to own all the computers I lusted over when I was younger - I've had, variously, Acorn Archimedes, Acorn A3010, various old Macs (in fact I still use a souped-up iMac G3 and G3 "pismo" PowerBook daily), several SGI macines (including the Windows-based SGI 320 with the lovely 17" widescreen LCD) and, of course, the Newton. If I could get hold of an SGI Crimson, or Onyx/Onyx 2 Reality Engine desk-side, I think I'd die of joy. All this to surf the web using Netscape, tinker in old Unix apps and use Maya verrry slowly. However, programming in C on them is a joy, so I might go back to writing software.

God help me.
(Chad, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 12:34, 7 replies)

Girl colleague says
"You remind me so much of my brother"

I reply,

"How do you feel about incest?"


Eccentric, or just plain rude?
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 12:27, 5 replies)

My Uncle
My Uncle B went a bit funny after my gran died. He went over to another of my uncle's for a drink and proceeded to tell him that he had written all the songs that Robbie Williams and the Backstreet Boys sing.

Then one night he got drunk and high with the manager of the Bay City Rollers, O.o and he was coerced into signing a contract that said he couldn't perform any himself and they were to be sold. Then apparently Tam Paton screwed him out of the royalty money.

I have a few other gems concerning him, but i'll elaborate later after a cup of tea

no apologies for length, as it's awesome
(panda_sam, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 12:12, Reply)

A Team Lovin
There was a guy from a little suburb in Swansea called Vance. Vance was a bit mental and was a bit of a reculse, always hiding away in his flat and avoiding the public gaze.
At the time of his residence, I was a spotty teenager and started loitering about with a few others of my age around that suburb. Vance would sometimes come out and talk to us, as even though he was double our age he aspired to be like me mate Jas (one of the considered cooler kids of the block and an ex-international gymnast to boot).
One afternoon we walk past Vance's flat and can hear the TV blasting from inside his flat. He's got the beginning of the A-Team on and he's narrating the intro as the TV is blaring it out to all the neighbours, and when the music kicks in just after "maybe you can hire, THE A TEAM" we hear Vance scream "COME ON B A!!!!!!"
The reason he had it on so loud (which we found out after we stopped pissing ourselves laughing) was that he didn't have a video and was taping every episode onto a cassette tape player, so he could listed back to them later. I wonder if they all had "COME ON B A!!!!!!! on every tape?
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 11:47, Reply)

Received an I.T. support call once from some elderly bloke...
Customer-"Just before we start, yes, I have looked at porn."
Me-"What?"
Customer-"I can't get my emails."

What the fuck has porn got to do with his emails? Was he just bragging?
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 11:18, 3 replies)

Back in the early 1990's
The govening body of Europe was a dasterdly organisation intent on ruling the continent at all costs.

They had tried economical sanctions, polictical manoeuvering and even the threat of military action to bring all of it's memeber states into line.

Many people were unhappy about this and as such the European parliment stooped to drastic measures.

Bio warfare was on the cards, from small acorns, nuts and seeds the evil overloads began in each country to grow enormous armies. it would take years but the result was devastating.

In all that time the subjugated states thought that they were having vast new forests grown for their economic benefit and personal enjoyment. The truth was far more dark...

The trees uprooted themselves, bellowed at the dawn and marched on the capital cities, nothing could stop them. they quickly took control and squeezed the final ounces of rebellion out of the crushed states.

The memebers of europe had been decieved by vegetative warriors who had grown slowly in their midst.

The member states had been conquered by EEC-Ents-Tricks
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 11:13, Reply)

My Cock
Is bigger than yours.

I'm going to watch television.
(w4I4q1O1 was hard at work on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 10:28, 4 replies)

Just the one....I think
I live in a remote village with little contact with the outside world, you would think with this situation we would be a bunch of inbred wierdo’s but really its more like a retreat for high profile members of the government and secret service. The whole place is very secure and we have no crime, thanks to the increase in CCTV and regular patrolling security guards.

There is one town loony however, one bloke likes to go around mentioning the outside world, and saying that he is going to escape from this place every sodding week. He then complains that his plan fails and he is brought back to the village by a giant balloon called Rover.

He is really starting to get on my nerves and I swear if I hear him say that he is not a number he is a free man then I will give him a smack.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 10:18, 1 reply)

Norwich Puppet Man
Huzzah!

He stands outside Primark in Norwich with a trolley and a stereo. He plays a wonderful array of music whilst singing (droning) along with a grubby puppet on each hand...

He has a Facebook page- so you know he's made it!
( awayfromthenumbers, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 9:39, Reply)

When I worked in a gym
I encountered a few eccentrics. The one who stands out is the Hairdryer Lady.

Complaints started to come in about a woman who'd do a yoga class, take a shower and then dry herself entirely with the wall-mounted hairdryer.

She'd stand starkers in front of the big mirror and watch herself dry first her hair, then upper body, armpits, chest...

She dried her chest by lifting up each breast and wafting the dryer underneath. Then she'd turn round and do her back, all the time watching in the mirror.

Then her belly, and then - yes, she would actually cock one leg up on the vanity unit and thoroughly dry her fadge, probably on 'warm' rather than 'hot'.

There were often kids around. She didn't care who saw her and several young boys received impromptu face-level anatomy lessons.

As it was my job to keep order in the locker room, I watched out for her, caught her at it and sternly told her to use a towel and dry off in private from then on.

She seemed a sane, rather posh woman (this was an expensive gym) and strangely, she didn't seem embarrassed. More disappointed that she couldn't carry on waving her mutton about.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 8:34, 9 replies)

my friend Mark is completely mad!
Honestly, we have no idea what he's going to do next! He 'just decided' to be homesless for a few weeks recently. Schizophrenia according to the doctors. Completely destroyed his poor parents. Bit insensitive of you to laugh at him really.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 4:37, Reply)

My Dad ...
bless him. He's an old school Glaswegian who says he grew up with Billy Conolly (true) and that he can sing like Perry Como (utterly false).

His eccentricities are too numerous to mention in full, but my favourite is his "I fucking win" card when in conversation/argument with his offspring.

Once played, the "I fucking win" card stops all objections, come-backs and conversation for the next hour or so.

The card is: "I'M FUCKING YOUR MOTHER!"
(Que?, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 4:11, 5 replies)

Sweet old lady
my friend's mum...

When we went to stay in her big old house (which used to be a bed and breakfast) she handed us each a type-written list of houserules. I wish I still had it. I can only remember:

Do not climb out of the window. The drainpipe is unsafe and you may break it.
Urinating on my aspidistra will not be tolerated.
Upon bringing back guests, sharing them is compulsory.
Parties may be held, but only if I am invited.

We went for lunch in a cafe on the promenade - me, my friend, my friend's small son and daughter, and her mum.
The old lady was trying to wind up my friend, so she kicked her under the table. Quick as a flash her mum wrenched her boot from her foot and flung it gaily across the crowded room. It hit a lady who swiftly got up and moved to another table as far away as possible.

On the same occasion she insisted that I stop addressing her as Mrs Robinson and call her Aunty Emma. "But I don't feel I know you well enough!" I protested.
She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially "you can call me shitface if you like".
My face registered surprise, but not as much as when seconds later she shouted gleefully to all assembled, "she just called me shitface!"

She gave me two crystal bowls, which I tried very hard to refuse. She grew offended and insisted I take them... When we left my friend remarked "she likes you".
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Those bowls were her treasured wedding gifts, she's had them for fifty years" she said.
I've still got them. What the fuck am I supposed to do with them?!
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 3:14, 11 replies)

Mad Dad
My dad is a little loco.
He teaches Tai Chi by the river, goes on odd trips abroad and acts like the lovable lunatic that he is.
A few months back he visited Mexico to help out with some missionary work (My uncle is a priest and helped set up the mission, hence my dad's association).
A German TV actress was there with her crew hoping to raise awareness. They fell in love with dad and asked for an interview.
Next thing you know he features prominently on a 40 minute special broadcast on German national television (also featuring my uncle)
These types of things are regular occurrences for dad, and at this stage seem normal to him.
I just laugh at it - every week there is a new story! He is off the coast of Africa now and plans to return inland (Ghana) next year for yet more adventures! Retirement suits him.
(Shlingtastic, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 1:55, 3 replies)

It's not my story, so I tried to resist...
But I couldn't. Those who have read Bill Bryson's "Notes from a small island" (an account of his journey around Britain in 1994) will probably recognise the following story.

That of W.J.C. Scott-Bentinck.


W.J.C. was the 5th Duke of Portland, and quite possibly eccentricity personified.

He owned an enormous house and estate, but lived for all his life confined to one small set of rooms in the servant's quarters, rarely venturing outside. On those occasions when he did leave his room, should a servant see him they were instructed to pass him by "As though he were a piece of furniture".

Those who ignored this instruction were compelled to skate to exhaustion on the Duke's private skating rink.

He disliked leaving his rooms so intensely that he constructed a second mansion, underneath the first. That's right - he dug over 15 miles of tunnels under his own home. At the peak of the project, over 500 men were working on the underground mansion, which included a ballroom that could hold 2000 people. At that time it was the largest in Europe. A strange thing for a man who never left his rooms or had guests.

If it happened that he had to visit London on business, he would enter his carriage unobserved. It would then be sealed, driven for 2 miles underground to the nearest railway station (through a purpose-built tunnel), loaded onto a special flatcar, taken to London, removed, driven to the Duke's London residence where would he would again remove himself unseen.

After his death, his relatives finally entered the rooms in which he had spent most of his life. They were empty of furniture, mostly painted pink and all were missing the floor, except for two rooms. Room number one contained, in the middle of the floor, a toilet.

Room number two contained several hundred green boxes, stacked in piles. Each box contained a single, dark brown wig.


Talk about tramps and relative all you want, it was the old aristocracy that were the masters of eccentricity...


There may have been more, but I don't have the book with me here...
( MatJ LOOK, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 1:10, Reply)

My family and other animals
When meeting up with each other, we use the 'Universal Greeting' (initially developed so that I could recognise family members from a distance without wearing glasses). This involves lifting both arms and one leg to an angle of about 30 degrees and lowering them again.

Don't ask me why we call it the Universal Greeting when only we use it.

We call our Mum 'The Mothership', and hence we the children are all 'pods' (Peapod, Charpod, Spudpod). If any of us need a hug, my mother will say "Ahhh, dock with Mothership".

The Mothership, when ranting/exasperated, will replace most words in a sentence with a sort of mumble and just go for the important ones e.g. "Cat! mnmnmnmn porridge! mnmnmnm curtains!"

My brother is and always has been mad about railways. For his eleventh birthday, what did he ask for? A 6' by 4' board to put his model railway on. Last Christmas (he was 16) I bought him some ear defenders and he was delighted with them. He's now an apprentice railway engineer.
I phoned up my family last week to see how they were and I could hear in the background a sort of low 'muuuuuuuuh' sound. Mothership just said 'Oh, the Boy is just pretending to be a foghorn." In my household, this is perfectly normal.

My sister also has a habit of flapping her arms up and down if she's excited or stressed. If sufficiently agitated, she may also spin 360 degrees on one leg.

My Dad talks to himself when he's in the bathroom, a habit which I've also picked up. He invented latin-sounding names for our cat and dog (besides their actual names). We call the cat 'Mogus' and the dog 'Dogus'. Mogus enjoys curling up and sleeping wherever she can. Favourite places have included 1)The top of the shredder 2) The recycling box 3) The cupboard where we keep the shoe polish (current favourite).

I think it's our house that breeds eccentricity, since it's rather eccentric itself. For example, none, and I mean none, of the doors fit their doorframes. There is a cavity in a supporting wall where the fridge is which is causing the kitchen wall to sag worryingly.
We also strongly suspect that removing wallpaper from anywhere in the building would cause the house to collapse.
( Peapod Has returned to the fold on, Tue 4 Nov 2008, 23:10, 10 replies)