Dundrum / Sandyford, Dublin
Used to work around that area, and there would be an old women, _allegedly_ a hoor, who can't have been a day off 75 (either that or she'd had a hard paper round) wandering around in a black mini-dress, asking you if you were looking for business.

She would put on a fake falsetto screech while speaking, and would pre-empt conversation by checking her shoes (thus lifting her leg high enough so that she exposed her manky old clopper to anyone in range).

She's probably still wandering the streets round there right now.
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 17:33, 3 replies)

Oh Dear
It is often said that if you look around and find no oddities, you may just be the oddity.

Having mentioned that, I realize I seem to collect empty boxes of all shapes and sizes, but especially the larger ones. I just can't seem to pass up a good empty box. I've been doing it for years. If they get damaged, I repair them with box tape.

And I'm not even planning on moving house anytime in the future.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Sun 2 Nov 2008, 17:01, 7 replies)

No one can make you feel quite so loved as your own family
My aunt has a nineteen year old cat who is decrepit and disgusting and has various forms of cancer and is totally deaf and probably completely fucking miserable every second he, bafflingly, stays alive. She feeds him baby food, although 'he will only eat it straight out of the jar- so really it's a terrible waste as his little beak can only reach the very top layer' and tiny little cubes of imported Irish cheddar- organic only.

Once I asked her, in a kind and cat- friendly way 'Why don't you just let him die?' Her horrified response: 'What if your parents said that about you?! Yes, she's had eighteen years, let's just let her die!'.

Yes. Because that is the same thing for sure.

Also, cats don't have beaks.
(Mr._F is not actually a man- this username is a lie!, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 16:40, 3 replies)

Jacko aka Plinkety Plink Man
Sorry if this has been posted but this guy is a Liverpool legend. His guitar playing makes Hendrix look like a schoolboy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef49cHXG87Q&feature=related
( rjmrjm, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 16:15, Reply)

My family and other animals pt 1
My great uncle Eric, was a man whom I never met. He hated children. He wasn’t too keen on women either and never married. The reasons for this were actually quite sad.

He had as a fifteen year old, run away from home to join the Army Air Corps during World War One. It being 1915 / 1916 ish nobody was too hot on checking age or identity and he was swept straight into flight officer training.

He was badly affected by his experiences on the Western Front, and was according to my grandfather, never quite the same person. He managed to re-integrate himself into society with a rather stiff upper lip attitude, but remained quite an odd individual.

The first time my mother went to stay at his house (probably in the seventies), she asked if she could use his television to watch Corrie.

‘I don’t have a television,’ he said.

‘Yes, you do – I’ve seen one through there.’

‘No, I haven’t.’ he said more firmly.

‘Well, what’s that then?’ she asked.

‘Not a television.’

My mother slightly perplexed, approached said television, and tried to switch it on. Nothing. After pressing a few more buttons and twiddling the tuning knob, she ventured around the back to look for the plug. No plug. In fact, the television had a distinct lack of plug, back and insides – it was just an empty shell. She looked up to Eric enquiringly as he said:

‘I told you I didn’t have a television. I have a wooden cabinet with a screen because my elephants look good on it.’

He’d actually bought a TV, had the insides removed, so that he could keep his Indian ornaments on top of it.

Apparently, his favourite sport was screwing with the minds of the TV licence inspectors. When they arrived at his house to check up on him, he’d usher them into the front room and then deny all knowledge of having a television. Used to keep him entertained for hours apparently.
(sugar_tits, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 16:10, 2 replies)

In good ol' Dewsbury....
Our local drunk is a 4ft 10 man called Colin who wears at least two manchester united shirts at a time. Generally seen walking around town singing or in the local pub singing. He even does requests for money.

My personal favourite was his rendition of San Francisco, which should of been;
If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there

however his version went like this;
If you're going to sang frank friscooooo
Don't....
its full of fucking poofters !

He also dressed up as a postman for halloween
which consisted of his normal clothes but with a stolen royal mail hat.

What a guy!
( Mr Nerdy-Speccy-FuckNuts Ouchy ouchy wa wa!, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 16:01, Reply)

Carl.
I was walking down to 't Spars with the bint the other day when some randomer called Carl who was more off than on anything to be fair started walking beside us and told us random jokes that would make a sickipedia member blush. He also kept walking into lamp posts and apologising. When we got to Spars he turned around and walked back the way he was coming from.
Nice man, this Carl.
(aarghapanda, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 15:45, Reply)

Mental Mum
my Mum has a weird eccentricity where she can't utter the word "homosexual". She has to mouth it. A bit like Les Dawson's housewife character when talking about her uterus and women's troubles. And it's only that one particular word. She hasn't got a problem saying "lesbian" out loud, bizarrely.
She thinks that if you turn the thermostat on the heating up to 24 degrees it heats up faster than if you only select 20, for example. As if the little gnome that lives in the boiler burns extra logs for that additional four degrees.

My Mum also eats bananas by mashing them up inside the skin and then sucking out the filling from a hole made in the side. That's not eccentric really, that's just gopping.
( Sallyrsm, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 15:09, Reply)

the doctor said
I might need a catheter.

I said "are you trying to take the piss?"
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 14:54, 1 reply)

the whistler
theres an old guy that drinks in my local occasionally a pretty decent chap but when he's talking to you will suddenly stop talking mid sentence and whistle, not through his dentures and not a song just a random burst of whistling. i dont like how everyone takes the piss out of him, he must know, i feel sorry for him
(fernbrittonsexcessskin will give a shit later, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 14:11, 2 replies)

Horace/Stanley...
This is fast becoming less and less about family and more just about general lunatics, so I thought I might as well chime in with this mad-man. I remember Horace being told of before on these pages on the Local Nutters QOTW, but he fits in here as well.

He has three discernable names which he is known as, Horace, The Best of Luck Guy, and lastly but definately the best, Stanley.

He is called Horace because that is his name (probably)

He is called Best of Luck Guy because he can be heard screaming the best of luck at the top of his lungs wherever he goes. Used to come into Sainsburys in Muswell Hill when I worked there as a till monkey, walk around the ENTIRE store with nothing but peach flavoured water in his basket, and yelling "The BEST of luck! The BEEEEST of luck!!!" Always made my day.

If you called him Stanley however, it was a different matter all together. He'd go fucking mental!! His new mantra became "CUNT! YOUR BASTARD YOU FUCKING CUNT! YOU FUCKING CUNT! YOU FUCKING BASTARD, etc". For ages

In fact, here he is,

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PO-YHxE_tn4

A true mentalist leg-end.
(Formaly Over say's hello, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 14:02, 5 replies)

Amiga Wars
Back in 1999, I hate to admit, but I was a total Eccentric. I was absolutely crazy about the Amiga computer.
The Amiga had just about left mainstream, and people were buying their wintel pentium boxes. The Amiga still had a loyal following that were turning their "games consoles" into high end systems that kicked the arse out of any PC on the market. It was also trying to make a bit of a comeback and be a serious competetor to Billy Gates and his PC croneys, and I was in full support.

Infact, I was rather obsessed with the whole thing. I actually dislikes people if they just went out and bought a PC blindly. I mean how stupid can you get? Duur well everyone else has got a PC so I will get one. Yeah enjoy your crappy Windoze 95 that needs virtual memory because your 16meg isnt enough. Hmm well sorry I can cope just fine on 4 meg of memory WITHOUT the need to use my hard disk for Virtual Memory. Oh and how much data do you fit on a floppy disk? Aww 1.44meg? I store 1.96meg on mine. Aww limited to 8 character filenames? ha ha fuck you!

Seriously I would start arguments and debates in class that would almost get physical. I even wrote a book called "Why the Amiga is better than the PC" and sent it to everyone in college.

It was true, The Amiga WAS better than the PC at the time. I was doing far more with my Amiga than a PC of equivilent hardware spec could even dream about. PCs just had no idea what pre-emptive multitasking even was. We would laugh at the whole issue with IRQ conflicts. Sound card conflicting with the mouse? WTF??? Thats what you get you PC Lamers for having inferior systems!

Amiga was ahead of its time, and I do still wonder to this day how much better computers would be if Amiga had continued onwards, and not been screwed over by shitty Pee Ceeeee companies that bought them out.

So yes, I was a complete Amiga nut. I preached it, it was almost a religion to me.

Then, and thankfully, my bollocks dropped and I found a girl to be fanatic about instead.

Its always with me. My first baby boy will be called Jay... Afer the almight Jay Minor. May him and the Amiga R.I.P :)
(Miggyman, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 13:39, 14 replies)

this lady
who live a few streets away was considered very unusual

we was walking past her house, she jumped out and shouted

'IM A VIRGIN NOT A WHORE!'
(Lord Chode, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 13:20, 1 reply)

Catweazle
In our town, we have have several notable eccentrics.

Victorian Woman - She's perfectly normal, probably middle-class, but ALWAYS wears faux Victorian costumes she makes herself. In bright colours. With matching hat and parasol.

Preaching Woman - A small, rotund West Indian lady who likes to wear flowing robes and sings about Jesus in the town centre. She's probably just religious, but definitely weird with it.

Catweazle - So called because of his slight resemblance the the TV character. I say slight, because our Catweazle prefers to wear a selection of torn eco-warrior style jumpers teamed with stripey tights (covering twig thin legs) and fetching combat boots (winter) or sandals (summer).
He never trims his fingernails or toenails, which are long and ragged and yellow. The toenails click on the ground in summer.
The hair is long and straggly and yellow, with matching beard and moustache ensemble; mad, staring eyes complete the look of acid-voyager who took one trip too many back in the sixties.
Catweazle likes to frequent pubs. As mad bastards tend to. No one knows where he gets the money from, but he always keeps it in a plastic bread bag.Once in the pub and in possession of a pint of cider and black, he will put some music on the juke box and proceed to dance. Given that he is immensly thin and wears such loose and flappy jumpers, the sight is not unlike what I imagine watching a pterodactyl chick learning to fly might look like.
He enjoys attempting to steal barstools, and is responsible for the Peanut Bomb.
The Peanut Bomb involved Catweazle coming into the pub one day with a large plastic bag full of unshelled monkey nuts. He had a few drinks, danced around the back garden waving his t-shirt as normal, then went back inside the pub, grabs his bag o' nuts, lifts it above his head and SLAMS it against the edge of the bar. Bag explodes, nuts go everywhere, Catweazle takes off with surprising speed down the high street.
No one ever found out why.

Would apologise for length but am stoned as balls and thus could not care less.
Go me.
(solindiges Cheap - but not as cheap as your girlfriend., Sun 2 Nov 2008, 12:47, Reply)

Probably falls under mental rather than eccentric
I haven't seen him personally (a good thing in my book) but I'm told that there's a man who walks around Asda in harpurhey (Manchester) with a shopping basket on his head. And you are NOT supposed to make eye contact with him.
(europe-who, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 12:25, Reply)

Beardy weirdys
There is a middle-aged guy who lives on my street in a boarding house who is a beardy weirdy. He has a massive beard and always wears sunglasses and a cap. He never talks to anybody or says good morning. Every day he catches the train into town and sits in the main street all day watching people and smoking (I know cause I've seen him a few times). I sort of feel sorry for him, but at the same time I don't want to be nosy.

Also I work in a library and there is this old guy who always comes in when I'm on the night shift (because I let him turn the volume up when he's watching youtube). He's really deaf, but dosen't wear a hearing aid so he ends up bellowing at everyone in his eastern European accent. He's a nice enough guy, but mad as a cut snake. He dresses really casually in a hat, shorts and thongs (like he's going to the beach) and then tops it off by carrying a brief case.
(rattus, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 9:20, 2 replies)

The Loon
I would like to nominate the late great Keith Moon as one of the all time eccentrics. Although i have and will never meet the loon his legend lives on. What else needs to be said of the alleged inspiration for Animal in the muppets. He was the yard stick for almost every rock and roll excess . Drive a car into a hotel swimming pool ? Been done.

Who else agrees?
(welgar, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 7:40, 6 replies)

Welsh Lightning
Follow the link to hear for yourself the amazing ramblings of a ever so slightly eccentric old dear who liked to hassle my friends call centre.

Recorded for training purposes...

web.mac.com/ozanners/Anners/Welsh_Lightning.html
( Ozanners Underwater Photography: www.arewedreaming.com, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 7:31, 6 replies)

my great-aunt(?)
believed that telephone poles were magnetic. Which was why cars always crashed into them.

I don't think women were allowed to be clever in those days.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 7:14, Reply)

googling the names of girls from your high school
eccentric, or creepy?

Erm...not me, a friend.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 7:13, 5 replies)

V2001
Now this may be very slightly off topic as I neither knew this man nor am I related to him.
Whilst in the cashline queue at V2001(the north version) we spotted a man who was clearly an eccentric. Or at least a budding comedian.

If you've seen the film "Tommy" and I said he looked like Keith Moon as (Wicked) "Uncle Ernie" you would be able to describe him. Except he looked scruffy and was collecting rubbish. Every so often he would find a fag end and put it in his mouth and try to light it (it never lit.)

He would also accidentally empty his bag undoing all his hard work.

Now this was almost certainly set up but I couldn't see any obvious friend filming or anyone for that matter watching him. He was attracting no crowd whatsoever.

He was funny though, and I've posted this because around 1% of me reckons this was the real deal.
(muzzvsworld, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 6:30, Reply)

whoever runs the post office.
Surely beaming messages into my head is pretty eccentric?
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 5:15, 1 reply)

Ex's nan
She was a lovely old bid, as they all are.
But she had 2 odd things about her, one was impressively odd, the other was just odd.

Every week she used to give the ex and I a choccy bar or some other normally lovely sweetie type snack, (this is the impressively odd one), but not once in 5 years was any of them in date.
In the sense that if it was the 1st may 2000, we'd get a galaxy bar that went out of date on 28th April 1995.
Every week she'd give us a kit-kat, or mars bar that was nearly always EXACTLY 5 years out of date.
The only time she ever broke this rule was just before christmas 1997 when I got given a Marathon bar, and i last saw them in about 1988.


The second thing about her is the fact that flowers are to difficult to look after, and her front garden is full of lovely neat and cared for plastic flowers.
Have you ever walked down a road that is full of oxygen thiefs and seen them all gently pruning their queen liz roses and trimming lawns with nail scissors then all of a sudden seen some daft old blue-rinser with a bucket of soapy water cleaning the dust off her plastic plants by UPROOTING them (she does actually put them in the ground) and dunking them in her yellow bucket before putting them back in the ground.

But i'm not sure whether i'd call her eccentric or not, she was more freaky then an off-licence full of Amy winehouse fans, but she could hold a sensible conversation.
(Mensa Reject has gone out, I'll be back on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 2:10, 2 replies)

This will never make it into the top 3 BUT...
There was a chap that me and my school chums affectionately called 'Kriss-Kross'.. We'd see him walking to school and, moreoften, walking home from school. We'd turn onto the main road leading to our school and there he'd be, totally on queue, walking in front of us, with haste.

Give it a minute, and he'd cross the road. Give it another minute and he'd cross the road again. We used to place bets on how long it would be til he crossed the road again. 20 Seconds? 35? Maybe another minute? But sure as hell he'd cross that road. Kriss-krossing like nobodies business.
(BeardyMat, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 1:46, 4 replies)

BT Bob
I'm calling him BT Bob cos I dont know his real name. Only that he worked for BT. *Someone* else must know this guy. His 'distinguishing features':

-Often found clucking like a chicken in datacentres and exchanges.
-Replaced his cars accelerator with a THROTTLE FROM A PIPER CHEROKEE where the handbrake should be.
-Complained about the colour of his own car. Went to B&Q, bought 3 tins of orange emulsion, and painted the car in an evening with a pasting brush.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 1:46, Reply)

bacon
Bacon.
(Mensa Reject has gone out, I'll be back on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 1:41, 5 replies)

In Chester
there is a chap who, by is accent, is of Eastern European origin. He is regularly seen with an old bicycle overloaded with various signs, placards and other paraphenalia. He is in the habit of standing in crowded public places and furiously denouncing smoking. I don't mean that he picks on individuals and denounces them, but he makes impassionned speeches deploring the practice in general.

There are quite often born-again Christian types preaching on street corners in Chester, but No Smoking Man puts them to shame with his rousing oratory.
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Sat 1 Nov 2008, 23:12, 2 replies)

IT Departments
Are a little bit weird to say the least.

When new employees started at my old company they were informed/forewarned that we had a transsexual working for us. What they didn't mention was who the transsexual was.

The office transsexual was 7ft and looked like Hagrid (thoroughly lovely chap/chapess) but no one ever knew unless s/he told them.

Now I'm a bit of a tomboy and have never quite grown out of it (to the extent of actually liking women in the lesbonic way) so I do look a bit boyish.

New employees used to jump to the conclusion that I was changing sex which was mildly disturbing to say the least.

Kev was an older chap who looked a bit like David Ike. He knew every bus timetable in York and once brought in a book he made about his house which he rented. The book had photos of the house, different rooms etc.. and captions/mad ramblings written in green biro underneath. The company had to eventually let him go after he was 2 hours late because he bumped into Mike Neville in a coffee shop and talked to him about how bad the company was.
(DryGoldfish, Sat 1 Nov 2008, 23:07, Reply)

Weddings
My Dad is getting married again next month, and I'm the best man.

I'm giving him the rings, he's giving me back my sock that he froze in a cup of water when he met my girlfriend for the first time.

Git!
(Golden Harris, Sat 1 Nov 2008, 22:21, 3 replies)

My dad, the SS officer
My Dad used to shout at us in German whenever he wanted us to do something/get a move on/shut up, he would scream "Achtung!! Raus!! Schnell!!!. This comes from watching too many war films I think, however, this little habit has passed down the line to me. Which has got me into trouble once or twice.

2am I am working (Radiographer...takes x-rays) back in the UK. Old fella comes into my room on a trolley, bit confused but physically OK, in for a Chest x-ray. "Please sit forward Sir...no response. Could you sit up Mate...Still nothing. Now I was tired as well, so i slipped into my youth and..."Hande Hoch....SCHNELL!!"

The poor old fella sat bolt upright, hands flew into the air...result!! obvoiusly this guy loved war films like me Dad!

So I put the film behind him and take the x-ray. breathing in wasn't a problem as he was breathing deeply. Lovely film, job done.

The problem came when I wanted to send him back to Casualty, I couldn't get him to put his hands down. i didn't know Hands down in German. "OK Sir, you can lower your hands...(Oh Shit) Please put your hands down..(buggerbuggershit)

So he goes back to Casualty, bolt upright with his hands raised. his daughter asked what happened, "Dunno (says I) he just sat upright when I got him into the room" "Oh, he must be reliving his youth, he was interned in Germany during WW2" "Oh...how terrible" said I, beating a hasty retreat.

Apparently he stayed like that for another hour or so.

Its all dads fault..I was only following my training.

Sorry old POW fella.
(micmac is happy as a pig in shite, Sat 1 Nov 2008, 20:02, 2 replies)