I had a friend
Who used to take rotten eggs and juggle them. When he dropped one, he just walked out.

He did good eggs end tricks

Oh god, I am so sorry
(The_Reaper, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 21:35, Reply)

that's me, that is
not just LOLINTERNETZANY but I have my fellow co-contributors to blame.

Like when I worked back in 1992 in a shop in Birmingham and first met a fellow eccentric (who is now quite a well-known b3tan) that also worked there...

An accepted form of greeting while pottering about the shop on any day soon became

-Eyes wide, surprised expression, jaw dropped-

the sound of a loud groaning inhalation .

I'm going out to t'cinema wi' him tomorrow evening, 16 years thence :-)
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 31 Oct 2008, 20:38, Reply)

I thought you had to be very very rich to be eccentric,
otherwise you're just mad.

Isn't that part of the rules, or somthing?
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 20:24, 8 replies)

Mousey
My grandparents ran a farm way out in the country in the mountains. Back during the depression days, my grandfather was able to hire a couple of men to work for him on the farm. One of them was Mousey.

Mousey apparently was a man of few words. Tall, thin and very shy. My mother was used to having him around, but was still a bit afraid of him. He stayed in a small room at the back of the house on the third floor of their huge, old farm house. Mousey is a man of legend to me.

When the family gave up the farming and moved into town, Mousey came with them. As I understand it he had no family of his own, though I don't know what his real story was. But again, he had a small room, upstairs, in the back of my grandparent's big old house. They must have felt sorry for him and kept him on as part of the family in some weird fashion. He was long dead before I came along.

When we were children, the older cousins used to scare us little ones by telling us that Mousey was going to get us. I was afraid of his rooms, both at the farm and at the house in town. I always believed he was going to suddenly appear and grab me. I have no idea why he scared me so much, but he did.

Mousey was just one of those many thousands who drifted during the depression days, and then just stuck at the best place he found in life. My grandmother was a very kind woman with a huge heart, and I have no doubt she took good care of the help. They barely could afford for themselves, but they fed the help and gave them board. Mousey is the only one who stayed on for any amount of time.

I wish I knew more about where he came from, why he had no family and why he was so quiet and shy. But somehow the mystery of Mousey is a family legend that I will hold dear the rest of my life.
(The Lunatic Artist throws paint to the wind, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 20:06, 2 replies)

Someone just pinched my wheelie bin
Not that eccentric, you might say. Well, it was full. Who steals a full wheelie bin? An empty one, sure, I could understand. But a full one? That's just weird.
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 19:41, 4 replies)

i come from Crewe
If you want eccentric, hang around in Crewe town centre for a few hours (you won't stand much longer than that) - there are many an example of the 'reality challenged'

The black guy that walks around in womens clothes - pink puffa jackets, high heeled boots etc...

The easily-sixty-plus-of-age woman that still thinks she looks good in a bikini, even when shopping...

The old guy with the support trolley/zimmer frame with wheels with a very loud ghetto blaster in his shopping bag...

to name but a few. It's well worth sitting with the chavs in Maccy D's window to watch it all going by!
(downhill without brakes . It was the worst day of my life, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 19:36, 9 replies)

Who killed Bambi???
I don't know whether or not this fella falls into eccentric or completely mental, but who cares, let's go with it...
_____________________________________________

A few years ago, I was sat with my mate Alec in the Globe pub in Sheffield, haunt of many a Hallam University student and thus full of penny-pinching, paying-for-a-water-and-a-packet-of-crisps-with-your-switch-card tax dodgers. Like myself.

Alec was a bit of a drug casualty, uni being his redemption from the lost years in the Peak District. We were having a quiet pint in the Globe when who should walk over but my mate Dull Lee and some kid who obviously knew Alec, but Alec wasn't particularly happy about bumping into.

Said fellow introduced himself as Neil, and seemed a bit edgy for a mate of Dull Lee, because apart from me (of course), most of Dull Lee's mates were equally dull. However Neil was quite definitely Something Else. For one, Alec called him 'Bambi' for some reason.

It turned out that Alec was once out in the Peaks on some drug odyssey, when Neil was part of his gang. Whilst on some particularly strong acid, Neil had a bad reaction, which resulted in him setting fire to the whole party camp and screaming 'WHO KILLED BAMBI, WHO KILLED BAMBI???'. And lo, on this day, Neil was crowned Bambi. 'You'll have to watch him', Alec proclaimed to me, 'he's a bit eccentric'...

During my first year at uni me and Dull Lee took on the student stereotype with abandon - there wasn't a night were I wasn't some drunken mess and often Lee would be in the same state. It was him who introduced me to the finer points of decent vodka and it will be him who I'll blame when I die of cirrhosis of the liver too. Anyway...

As such adventures progressed, Neil became more and more involved. At first, Neil's antics were quite funny - getting kicked out of the union for turning three tables into a bodyslide by pouring beer all over them and taking a running jump; pulling the most amazing women just by looking at them (honestly); various party tricks.

But then, to paraphrase Stephen Patrick Morrissey, the joke wasn't funny anymore. We were starting to get properly barred from places - I once walked out of the toilet in the (then) Emporium to witness a full-scale riot unfolding thanks to Neil touching up a bruiser's missus.

I was nearly arrested thanks to Neil having a 'moment' in a kebab shop with the Plod watching outside. This was the end of my tolerance of Neil, and I told Dull Lee this on the run-up to my birthday.

My birthday came, and all my mates showed up, a great sight for me as I have mates from a lot of diverse backgrounds and interests, to see them all together and actually getting on gave me a warm feeling...

...which was nipped in the bud as soon as Dull Lee walked in. Yes, that's right, he'd brought Neil. Neil promptly proceeded to wreck the whole show. He scared off a girl I was working my magic on by telling her of the aformentioned antics, seeming to take great delight in explaining how I'd had to punch someone to allow Neil and Dull Lee to disappear into the night whilst the riot was kicking off, thus painting me as a thug infront of the lovely waif-like creature. He seriously offended an Asian friend of mine by calling him a terrorist, and basically, the atmosphere was dead thanks to this loonbong.

I lost my rag with Neil, who then equally lost it and in a vain attempt to 'impress the crowd' as he put it, BIT THROUGH A PINT GLASS and started chewing the shards.

That was it, I walked out, closely followed by what was left of my party, and never saw Neil, or Dull Lee, ever again.

As I explained this whole situation to Alec, over a year after my first encounter with 'Bambi' - he could only say this...

'I told you so'.

Yes, yes he did.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 19:12, 1 reply)

my friend Adam Smith (actual name!)
asserted that tramps actually have an advanced version of the internet. Thus:

TRAMP IN SYDNEY: "No one can drink like a Navy man!"

TRAMP IN PRAGUE: "You silly man, you were never in the Navy!"
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 19:11, 9 replies)

My nan
Mostly normal but does have the strangest theory that Myra Hindley killed my dad's real mum. No proof whatsoever, but denies any other explanation of what happened to her.

Nothing to do with the fact my dad's real mum was a Irish teenager, all alone in the late fifties and that maybe the reason my dad was put up for adoption.

It was all Myra Hindley's fault.

Eh?
(missc, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:51, 1 reply)

Mariolanzaman!!
For some years I used to frequent a certain pub in a less than salubrious area of my home city. Thre were the usual thugs and pikeys in there, they left me alone and I didn't interfere in their wasted lives. I realised one evening that I'd never been in there on a wednesday (free & easy night)so I decided to schlepp over to see what it was like.

It was that evening I met Mario Lanza Man.

He was standing at the corner of the bar, a tall rangy figre in a very good but ill-fitting suit, trying to catch anyone's eye. He had the most saggy face I've ever seen, imagine the offspring of a bloodhound, Clement Freud and the cartoon dog Droopy AFTER a massive stroke, you'd be pretty close.I asked the barmaid why everyone was avoiding this chap?

"'Cos he's a total fuckin' bore" she quipped.

I then spent a pleasant evening watching the various locals doing their party pieces. One guy played a song that I knew well and I made the mistake of looking at Mario Lanza Man whilst singing along. He made eye contact and lumbered over to me.
Standing in front of me, he put one hand on my shoulder and said in a deep, cultured voice "Mario Lanza was a light baritone."

He pondered for a second

"They made him sing tenor, and that's what killed him!"

"Oh" I replied, somewhat overcome by his biblical levels of halitosis.

He let go of my shoulder, turned and walked three steps and very noisily shat himself.

"Fuckin' typical" tutted the barmaid, "He's always doing that".


It wasn't until some weeks later that I thought "He's ALWAYS doing that!?"
And they let him back in?

I don't know who was the more eccentric, the staff or Mario Lanza man.


Boring, I know.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:45, Reply)

Maccy D's
One Saturday evening many moons ago, I lent my mate £2 so he could get himself a BigMac, at the time there was a promotion on where you pull the little flap on the box and you could win something, so he pulled the flap off and won...another bigmac, on that box, he also won...another big mac, this continued and he'd won about 6 bigmacs.

so we were waiting at the bus stop for our ride home, chomping on loads of bigmac's and laughing and joking like the teens we were until a middle aged woman,in about her 50's at the bus shelter turned round and shouted

'Behave yourselves!!'

my mate turns round and says
'calm down, cant I have a laugh with my friends?'

She then says
'Im a pregnant woman you know!'
'your pregnant?'
'.......yes'

we burst out laughing, she then proceeds to get and umbrella out of her bag and threaten us with it, until a bus parks a few stops up, she jumps up runs like hell towards the vehicle shouting

'ITS ME BUSSSSS!!!!!'

and launches herself onto the handrail, grabs it, swings round, banged her head and ends up rolling in the middle of the pavement
We was LMAOing whilst the poor woman was assisted onto the bus and she was on her way.

We was all enjoying a good chuckle until one of our lads, not the sharpest tool in the shed, blurts out..

'she weren't wearing any pants y'know....'
'ERRRGGHHHHHHHH!!! you actually looked....'
(Lord Chode, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:44, 3 replies)

The Accordian Guy (St Albans)
There's a guy in St Albans who must be at least 70, and every Saturday he stands outside a road in St Albans and plays the accordian (very well) for the entertainment of small children.

He always wears a stripey french-style jersey and a beret. He also has an original "Humpty Dumpty" from Playschool (if anyone remembers THAT from the early 80s) attached to the front of his box. Mrs Overlord remembers him singing "Happy Birthday" to her on her fifth birthday, and he's still going strong.

He's there in all weathers, and neither hail nor flood nor gloom of night shall stop him.

Apparently he has a group of admirers on Facebook, and I can see why. He's one of the very few people who make the world a bit more cheerful, and for that he deserves nothing but praise.
( DrPrunesquallor is determined to post more as of, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:31, 1 reply)

The Catman!
I only ever met him once, but I hear he's a bit of a legend in these parts.

A few friends and I were holed up the corner of a pub, watching the kareoke when a man with long grey hair wearing the full cowboy kit and kaboodle comes up to us and says to me 'Hi, I'm the Catman! Love your top!', has a good leer at my cleavage before making the guns at me and apologisies for his sense of humour. He then gives me his drink and heads back in to the crowd, where he disappears.

I've never seen him again but he's been seen many a time walking through town, stetson and spurs, with a cat draped over him.

Yay Catman!
(missc, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:28, 1 reply)

Hey, leave those teachers alone!
As a former member of the teaching profession I feel I have to defend my slightly off-beat brethren (and sistren). If we teachers are eccentric it's usually as a reaction to the even madder kids we have to teach. As examples these are ones that I've had the dubious pleasure of "edumacating" as they say.

- The boy who lets out farts like Beelzebub on vindaloo EVERY lesson then insists on dropping his trousers to show everyone that his arse is clean.

- The quiet kid who on being asked to write some of the effects of drinking simply wrote the word DIE. Over and over again, all over 3 pages.

- The fat girl who beats up the boys and then cries that they don't like her.

- One kid on being asked to bring in an example of a fungus brought an excellent specimen, unfortunatley it was attached to a dead rat. He said he had it in his room and was "studying" it.

- The smelly kid (there's always one in a class) who's addicted to chiken wings and ate them at break every day. He goes batshit loony if they run out so the dinner ladies saved some for him in the end.

- One boy (about 13-14) came up to me in the first week and said that he'd decided he was going to call me "dad", and he did for the next 6 months.

I have more and these are all in comprehensive schools so they don't even have the excuse of being mongs.
Oh and don't even get me started on the cluless shmucktards that are the parents. /endrant.

Phew. I wonder why I left?
(Bo Nidle Coming back in from the cold., Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:26, 8 replies)

I got a few
in the wonderful world of Stratford upon Avon, on my way to work I often encounter a man who walks up and down the streets, singing really loudly to himself, forgot his name, but apparently he works in homebase but when hes on the job hes really quiet...

Also in Stratford, theres the Antique board man, a guy who walks up and down high street handing out flyers for the antique shop, donning an A-board and a pair of earphones, apparently hes been in the trade for many many years

The best was back when I lived in Sheffield, me and a bunch of friends were on our way home after the usual adolescent activities on a saturday, and we walked through a garden bit where a tramp man and woman were sat enjoying a bottle of el cheapo cider. The man shouts at us-
'excuse me, ya got the time!?'
'nah, sorry mate, but theres a big clock up there, why dont you just look at that?'
'BAH shurrup ya cheeky bastard, grr!!'

hes gets up making a pathetic effort to try and catch us, collapses after a few yards, gets up and sits back on the bench next to the tramp woman, and shouts-

'AND YOU CAN FUCKIN SHURRUP N ALL YA STUPID BITCH!!!'

and proceeds to beat seven shades of shit of her, the poor woman
(Lord Chode, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:23, 2 replies)

Oh my...
Cardiff has a selection:
Shake hands man- the dubiously-stained old dude who rambles about attempting to shake hands and shake down people on Queen Street

Toy Mic Tony- sings classics such as My Way using a children's microphone.

Best of all is African Les- apparently ex-Forces, smells of White Lightening at 8 in the morning and will hapiily sit and chat about his time with whichever regiment taught to kill with his bare hands. But don't ever ask how many men he killed. African Les does not like that. The police have warned many a passerby...
(Medibot, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:19, 3 replies)

Hollowed out like a pumpkin eh
My mum had a hysterectomy, where docs scoop her girly insides out, several years ago. she was still all groggy and high when she woke up to me sitting at her side like a good son.

she said, "You breathe like a fuckin' cat."

Excuuuuuuuse me.
(yourworldwontcollapse reminds you, it isn't incest after second cousins!, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:10, 2 replies)

cat weasel
she was a legend when i was growing up. she'd stalk the high street, swinging around lampposts and yelling at the top of her voice, usually along the lines of "milkmen are not for sale! my plant! mine!"
however, the most bizarre thing i ever saw her do was in boots. i was only 4 at the time, my little sister was 18 months old and sitting in her pram, being pushed around boots by mum.
all of a sudden catweasel leaps out from the next aisle, reaches down and attempts to both smother and claw my little sister. mum, naturally, went ballistic. she punched catweasel in the face, knocking her to the floor. catweasel was back up in a flash, as if she were spring-loaded and, within 2 seconds, was firmly clamping onto my sister's face again. mum again knocked her down, again she sprang back.
eventually, 2 burly security guards came over and freed my sister from this utter mental.
only for a few seconds, though, as she squirmed free of their grasp and attacked sis once more.
it took all of the guards' strength(and mum's, too) to finally get her out of the shop, but fortunately, there was a policeman walking past, who arrested her on the spot.
very much shaken up, mum took me and my badly-scratched and scared sister back home again.

the last time i saw this borderline psychotic, she was playing marbles in the street.
with potatoes.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:08, 2 replies)

Much as I probably shouldn't admit this
it's true that I'm probably considered a bit eccentric by many. I've been known to be walking along in public and stop and start inspecting things seemingly at random and taking an interest in things that most people might run from.

One day, for instance, I was in Maymont Park with my kids and was waiting down on the path by the Japanese gardens while they went running through the bamboo forest. Being too big to follow them through the paths that children had carved through there- and not really feeling a great desire to go pushing through bamboo anyway- I stood below waiting for them, when my eye caught on something.

I stepped over onto the grass and inspected a lump of grey fuzz about the size of a golf ball. I looked at it for a moment, then got a stick and started poking at it.

"Find something interesting?" an unfamiliar voice said, with a trace of mockery. I looked up and saw a guy and his wife looking down at me.

"Yeah, actually, an owl pellet."

Now he looked intrigued. "A what?

"An owl pellet. It's the bones and fur and stuff that the owl can't digest. They spit it out." I poked a bit more. "I think that's a shrew skull."

Within minutes I had a dozen people surrounding me as I used the stick to pull apart the wad of stuff and inspected the bones. We took our best guesses at the skulls and other bones, and finally I stood up and backed away so that the others could see it for themselves.

How many other people could get a group together at random to inspect owl puke?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 31 Oct 2008, 18:07, 6 replies)

Better To Be The Eccentric
Living in Albuquerque, I once took a "Plants of New Mexico" class. I learned that a common weed, while not tasty, and far too gooey, was nevertheless edible. Tedious conversations change tone when you bend down, pick some sprigs from between sidewalk cracks, and start idly chewing away.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:44, 2 replies)

Picture the scene.
Your open plan office is quiet save for the rhythmic tapping of fingers on keyboards.

The occasional phone bleats into life and is swiftly silenced by its owner, who then proceeds to mutter into it in hushed tones.

A conversation is in full swing at the other end of the room, but at such a level that you aren't disturbed by it.

Then he does it again. The little bald fella, who appears to be working diligently, snorts then quickly tries a fake cough in the vain hope that no one has registered his laughter. It stops as suddenly as it began and he reverts to staring intently at his screen. It's as though he's sharing a joke with himself. As though he's laughing at the thoughts in his head, again.




I know this doesn't look good. I know this is why I really shouldn't look at b3ta when I'm at work. I don't know why I can't learn this simple lesson.
( Moey, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:27, 1 reply)

Middleton
is full of eccentrics or just plain freaks. Either way, I'm not going back there.
(I've got the clap has some cool sentence here, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:17, Reply)

Landor Rd, Clapham
Every morning when my girlfriend and I left the house, we would pass this same guy, and each time he would yell at us "Good morning secret police!". Then one day he just wasn't there any more. Perhaps the real secret police got him...
(mrming, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 17:17, Reply)

Tip of the iceberg...
There's an old client who comes into reception at my office every week, just to show us the receipts for the things he's bought that day, for no apparent reason. The receptionist has given up trying to explain that it's really not necessary and just acknowledges that he does indeed have receipts for his items.

I don't know which is stranger, the receipt displays or the fact that he only ever buys one white shirt from the market and an orange.
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:44, Reply)

Me old Physics Teacher
was completely eccentric. He knew his stuff inside out, joking that a good sign of insanity was drawing perfect cirles in chalk on a blackboard, which he'd do immediately after telling us this fact and grinning mentally. He kinda resembed a ginger version of a 70's Doctor Who, and talked like a Goodie. He was awesome :D
The only prob with this genius was that common sense had no room in his skull, and working with kids in a rough school led to lots of practical jokes backfiring. One kid got a 12volt variable transformer from the electric cupboard and got a single wire, plugging it straight from + to - and whacking the transformer to full power. This led to smoke pouring from the equipment and the school kid smirking like a lesbian at a fishmongers.
How does teach react? He runs out to the back office screaming, then grabs a bucket of water getting ready to throw it over while it's still live. It took 3 kids to stop him killing half the class while the substitute teacher ran out the back to kill the live circuit.
Ahhhhh, great days :)
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:32, 1 reply)

Shane MacGowan.
He's basically a rich, talented tramp really isn't he?

But he's not the eccentric one. His girlfriend is.


(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:25, 10 replies)

Eccentric - and a bit mad
I was sitting in the doctor's waiting room when the man who sells watch batteries from a market stall came in.

He went to the receptionist, and said he wanted to make an appointment. The receptionist asked him his name. "It's Mr Fxxxx," he said. She flicked through the record of registered patients.
"Sorry - are you registered here?"
"Yes. Oh - wait. I changed my name, but changed it back. You might have me under my old name..."
"And that was?"
"Mr Campaign-to-Expose-Staffordshire-Police-Corruption"

[pause]

"Ah."
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:22, 9 replies)

Last week my girlfriend
and I were on our way home on a tram. We witnessed one of the strangest things ever: two men sat about 15 feet away from each other, facing different directions, having a conversation.

At first I didn't know what was going on - it was like encountering two seperate mentals at once. It was as if they were rambling about complete rubbish independantly but it just so happened to make total sense as a conversation.

By the time we reached our stop I was convinced it was an installation art piece contrived by students...
( valoukh newsgash.wordpress.com, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:16, 1 reply)

The drunken', fightin', (hairdressing) Irishman
Another customer.

This one was about as stereotypically Irish as you could get. Permanently drunk and he would quite literally start a fight with anyone. Oddly enough we had a second drunken Irishman who frequented our library too, so that was always fun when they were in togther.

Anyway, the staff had learnt that the best approach is, unless he's actually fighting or urinating or breaking the lawy in some way, just ignore him or acknowledge him as little as possible, and for the love of god, don't make eye contact.

Back last Christmas I had decided to put an end to my black, gothy hair and be a grown up man with my natural shade of blonde. I also drunkenly shaved my beard off whilst on a foray to Edinburgh, so I turned up to work looking radically different after the Christmas break.

I was just closing up the reference library and I pass the Irishman, who up to now has never spoken to me. Then all of a sudden...

"You've changed your hair"

"Erm...yep!"

"I miss your old hair. You used to have beautiful hair."

"Oh...thanks?"

"Reeeeeaaaaalllly beeeaaauuutifuuulll..."

So there we have it. Drunken irish reprobates in small Kentish seaside towns like goth-men.
(GONEism, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:15, Reply)

the number of old guys
who harassed me or tried to guilt-trip me for wearing army surplus...

in the end I moved out of Berlin.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 31 Oct 2008, 16:10, 2 replies)