I've met my share of pub weirdos
One particularly memorable occasion occurred a several months ago, in a pub in Andover. I had the fortune and privilege of meeting a legendary immortal, a man loved by all who know him, but whose name tragically escapes me.

I sincerely hope he was drunk, although it is debatable.

I was enjoying a non alcoholic drink owing to my chronic under-ageness, with my fellow band members, surveying the stage we had set up for our imminent show.

This true colossus of a man presented himself to our group, and took a seat in the circle. He seemed to go about his own business, sipping his pint and occasionally interjecting his own opinions into the conversation, in the form of unintelligible mumbles.

He gradually managed to collectively freak us out with his nonsensical ramblings. I, trying to desperately be polite, attempted to hold conversation with him, to no avail. The most I could determine from him was that he held a strong passion for meatloaf. The music or food - who can say?

I failed to notice that around me, my friends had all excused themselves on account of the presence of this strange individual. And I found myself left quite alone with him, and with no covering sound or distraction.

Our dialogue soon failed, as I literally could not understand what he was trying to tell me, and a terrible silence gripped us. I glanced from my drink to him, then quickly back as I realised he was staring at me.

After a moments pause, he leaned in very close and quietly, feebly yet with perfect diction, uttered the words: "Don't be embarrassed..."
(ShitBitch, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 13:15, 2 replies)

Veronica Loopy Lou
This young lady entered my life as friends girlfriend. Seemed OK, although she did have a habit of staring at you, with a slightly buck-toothed grin.
The long story of how they split up, and her fixation with me is for another QOTW, but her strange behavior fits nicely here.

For example, in a pub with her once, she said she had a headache and was going to take a paracetamol tablet, but she hated the taste. I was just about to suggest swilling it down with her drink, when she popped it in her mouth and started CRUNCHING it!

The waiting with her and her mother for her brother to arrive home from work "as it's his turn to make a cup of tea" was a bit unnerving. Then when he did come in, she insisted on making me a ham sandwich, which I was convinced was carved off a dead gasman hidden in a kitchen cabinet...
(Kliper Filllets Getting noticed by twats on the internet since, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 13:11, Reply)

Is this normal?
My great-grandad and my grandad were communists. They both worked at the paper-mill, and the communist-party was well represented, particularly amongst the union-members. So they worked in the factory, and were both members of the communist party. Not all that unusual. But the communist party was never going to be a force on a national level, it was too small and insignificant for that. After a while, my grandad thought his vote would be better used to vote Labour, rather than vote communist party. So being a decent sort, he left the communist-party, and joined the Labour party (I'm not talking about the UK here, by the way, different country all together. Labour, back home, was actually relatively far left, particularly back then)
Anyways, a few days after my grandad had joined Labour, his dad came on a little visit. He came three steps into the living-room, sniffed the air, and said "Something stinks in here!", turned around and walked out. They didn't exchange a single word for a little over ten years after that.
Reading a bit between the lines, I think my Great-grandad could be hard work. I knew him as a very tall, skinny and kind old man, but apparently he used to be the local hard-nut in his youth. He also had a great time fighting the Germans during Second World War, well, untill they caught him anyway. He was packed off to a prisoncamp, and basically just "disappeared" A short while after the was was over, he kicked the front door open, and, shaking with rage, demanded to know "What the FU** is going on here!?!?!" Turns out they (Wife and family) had painted the house in a colour he didn't like. He calmed down after they had fed him.
(Lump, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 13:07, Reply)

Pub reader
Years ago, there was a pub that had bands on a Wednesday night (sadly, after 25 years of this, they had to throw the towel in recently due to lack of patrons -like most pubs).

The bands were hardly ever clapped, yet the pub was packed to the seams.

There was always one bloke who would stand inches from the band (I know, I played there a few times myself over the years) and read a book. Usually Catcher in the Rye or something of equal merit, but ever so often a serious technical book about astromony or phsyics.

No matter how loud the band was or the type of music, he would always be standing right at the front reading. Never spoke a word to anyone in all the years I saw him there.

Rumour had it that he was a genious and his brain had just snapped some years ago and now he was building it all back up again by taking in music and books all at the same time.

I thought it was a crock.
(dchurch bah, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 13:05, 3 replies)

TPFKA MattDP reminds me
of my days working in a pub in Dover when I too got the reputation for being, as my boss put it, a 'mongol magnet'. You could guarantee that when I was working a shift some weird bum/real ale nutter/escaped lunatic would come in and generally baffle us with their strange tales/odours.

This was truly confirmed one day when this sweaty little guy with a wild, unkempt beard showed up at the bar and asked me for a lemonade. My co-workers were already starting to pull faces at me from behind him when he sighed and started to talk to me in his thick french accent.

Crazy bearded Frenchman: 'Tired'
Me: 'Why's that then?'
CBF: 'I walk here'
Me: 'Oh right, how far?'
CBF: 'From France, costa-costa-costa (while saying this he moved two of his fingers to indicate walking) around Spain, Portugal, Spain again. Then England, costa-costa-costa, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England then I come here!'
Me: 'Riiight'

Turns out he wasn't lying. He had been on the road for two years and was aiming to walk round the coastlines of Europe (costa-costa-costa) for World peace! And if that wasn't eccentric enough he had taken his bed of nails along for the ride! We didn't believe him until he took us outside and showed us. We asked him about his travels and he produced a scrapbook full of newspaper clipping of him in various places performing with his bed of nails. I meantioned I was from Glasgow so he rooted through his scrapbook until he found a picture of him out on Sauchiehall Street sandwiched in his bed of nails with one of Glasgow's MSPs standing on top of it!

So in exchange for dinner and lodgings he agreed to do a performance that night in the pub which was fantastic. I did take loads of pictures but it was before the digital revolution so I can't post one. I did find this on the net though it was taken during his time in Ireland:



I can't remember his name and I never heard if he finished his epic quest. He told us he planned to finish on the Champs Elysees about five years after I met him so I presume he's done by now. Pity about the whole lack of World peace thing. We met him in late September 2001 when the outlook was bleak. He was determined not to let it get him down though. Don't think I can say I've met anyone more eccentric.

Length? Nothing compared to the combined coastlines of Europe!
( Raindance Work is inversely proportional to post-count, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 13:05, 4 replies)

Willie Gut
In the snot-hole I grew up in during the 60s and 70s, there was a chap called "Willie Gut".

He wandered round town wearing what looked like *all* his clothes and a cap, (looked like the same ones as well, for the best part of 10 years), shouting "Dirty knickers! Dirty knickers!!" at any one younger than 20.

In his youth, he'd been a prize fighter, known as "Battling McKenzie", and he'd definitely lost his share of bouts.

The local shops let him sweep up to keep him in food.
(Haviland drinking like they're going to ban beer., Mon 3 Nov 2008, 12:26, Reply)

Freak Magnet
My partner and friends have - independently - commented that I seem to have a strange ability to attract weirdos.

The best one ever turned up whilst I was sat on my own in a pub waiting for a friend to arrive.

A complete stranger walked over and kissed me on the head. Not a quick peck, either but a full on, wet, lingering, semi-open mouth smacker right on my forehead.

He proceeded to sit down opposite me and started talking to me like I was his best mate. Except that most people wouldn't threaten their best mate every time they disagreed with any expressed opinion, no matter how trivial, such as "nice weather, innit".

After ten minutes of this I was starting to get seriously scared. Whereupon my friend arrived and, luckily for me, said friend is built like a brick shithouse and had no trouble at all ejecting the dangerous eccentric from our table.

We still thought it wise to move pubs afterwards though.
(MattDP (Squiggle), Mon 3 Nov 2008, 12:13, Reply)

The fine line....
Where do you draw the fine line between eccentricity and madness?

A friend of mine used to host a damn fine acoustic session in North London. In between the featured bands would be an open-mic slot where usually quite good acts would do a couple of numbers. One afternoon, he was setting up the gear, when onto the pub shambled a medaeval troubadour.
Yes, resplendent in manky Lincoln Green doublet and hose and carrying a sword and a guitar case, Edward the Troubadour had arrived.

Naturally, his repertoire was kind of stuck in the 1500's, but there was far more to him than that. Apparently he had recorded as Teddy Paige for the legendary Sun Records label in the late '50's (home of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash)and had been a record producer in Memphis until an unspecified incident in the early '70's forced him to leave. Rumours floated around Memphis that he had died in the Jonestown suicide, but the truth was even more strange. He had decided that he wanted to live the life of a travelling musician from the 14th century, and took off for Europe.

However, times had moved on and poor Ed found himself an outlaw, with his sword constantly being confiscated by the Sheriff of Nottingham's dastardly henchmen (the police)

Ed was clearly a very strange man, but fairly harmless (so we thought.) People were always willing to hear him twang his way through 'Greensleeves' and a band was put together so he could blast some Rock and Roll again.

Then this

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3020266.stm


Poor old Ed is now in a high-security psychiatric hospital with, as he put it, "all the fruitcakes."
(Pickettywitchfinder General, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 12:12, 2 replies)

A few years back,
I was stuck for money, so moved out of my nice flat in Balham to go and become a lodger while I re-financed.

I knew her through work, so thought it wouldn't be too bad. And, in fairness, despite very quickly finding out that she was rather desparetely lonely, once I'd set some boundaries, (No, I will not watch soap operas or be having dinner with you every evening. Or any evening actually) it wasn't too painful.

Until her batty old Mum set fire to her kitchen and had to move in with us.

Suddenly the place became an asylum, the kicthen became a tip, the washing machine was never empty for me to use, there were clothes everywhere, I couldn't cope.

I'd hear strange noises and screams in the night. I'd get woken up at 4am and find all the lights on and the back door open.

I eventually decided that I had sorted out my finances enough to move on when I came home from the pub at closing time one night and found the insane old woman standing at the kitchen sink

with her knickers round her ankles.

Washing her old lady bits.

With the sponge we used for dishes.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 10:54, 8 replies)

The Amish are going to get us.
In my creepy backwards hometown, the biggest ‘minority’ were the Amish. Our local Amish weren’t your average no-electricity-having simple-dress-wearing types, oh no, they were Xxxxtreme Amish. They only spoke German, wouldn’t speak to women, shunned cameras, wouldn’t ride in a car, only wore black…an easy summary of what these people are like can be found on Wikipedia: “Men frequently wear a single suspender to avoid what is seen as the pride of two.”

Suffice to say, these are simple folk.

Upon first visit to my friend Michelle’s house, it was quickly noted that there seemed to be an array of binoculars and notepads at their front window. I thought nothing of it, until later in the night when an Amish buggy trundled down the road. Michelle’s mother ran to post and began watching them intently, furtively scribbling in her notebook.

“The Amish are going to take over the world,” she said.
“Those Amish over there have a nuclear warhead ready and waiting in their barn,” she said.
“The beards are fake, they hide an elaborate walkie talkie system,” she said.
“Billions of dollars in gold is buried in the corn fields,” she said.
“They have spaceships and can fly around, silently spying on us,” she said.
“LAAAAAAAAAASERS!” she said.
“The farm down the road is a concentration camp, a concentration camp for people like you and me,” she said.

Hm, I guess they fund all of their apocalyptic visions by selling eggs, pies and quilts.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 10:46, Reply)

John Resnick
I met John Resnick in a bar in Cannes in 1996. I was sat there getting cnuted on French lager, and smoking tabs. John was sat on the next table, and was reading his paper. He was a dishevelled kind of character, almost trampish, but had very clean well manicured hands. He had his own supply of tabs, and seemed to be able to afford his own beer, but was frantically circling with a pen parts of a newspaper he was reading.

At some point, John leaned over and said, in an American twang, "You boys English?"

We confirmed, and he sidled over on to our table. This is where John proceeded to tell us of his rather colourful, and exciting life.

John had come over to the Cannes Film Festival in 1968, and whilst he was there, someone stole his identity. That is, a doppleganger assumed his life and went back to the States, meaning that John could not go back home. His family, his job, his life now belonged to someone else.

Of course, it wasn't long before John explained the CIA's involvement. And boy were they involved. John told us how the whole of France was just one big experimental zone for the CIA - and that every man, woman, child, and even pet that died had been systematically killed by the CIA. At this point he showed me his newspaper. He had been reading the Birth Marriages and Deaths pages, and circling the names of people that had died, and was writing them in a book he was keeping.

I pointed out that it was also curious how people listed in the deaths column also seemed to die in alphabetical order. John dismissed my comment and went on to tell me what he needed me to do. He needed to get a message to sympathetic friends outside of France... he then wrote down 2 names and contact numbers and passed them under the table to me.

I was to call these people the moment I got back to the uk, and the tell them that John Resnick was alive and well in Cannes.

I pocketed the paper, we made our excuses and left.

Outside, I looked at the paper. He had given me the numbers for Dave Geffen and Paul McCartney.

Just as I was reading this, I heard the crack of a rifle going off... I hit the deack and rolled into a shop doorway... but it wasn't a rifle, just either something backfiring or some other associated noise.

I stood up and brushed myself down, then went to casino and won. I threw the telephone numbers in the bin.

I hope John got home ok.

Apologies for length. The BMD's were printed on a broadsheet, about 9 column inches.
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 10:22, 3 replies)

My grandad
Was ever so slightly eccentric. One day, we were visiting, and I was watching TV in the front room. He marched in and switched the telly off.

"Right son, on your feet." He indicated that I was to stand next to him, both of us facing forward.

"...but..." i protested. "Ssshhhh!!" he replied, "stand still, face forward, arms by your side and say nothing."

We stood like this for about a minute.

Then he relaxed and said "well done son, go back to your TV programme" and walked out of the room.

"Erm, grandad?" I called out after him, "what was all that about?"

He poked his head around the door, slightly confused as to why I asked.

"Elevator practice" he replied.


(I learnt years later that he may have stolen the gag off of Tommy Cooper but I havent confirmed that).
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 10:04, 2 replies)

The busker
There used to be a guy in Hull who would play the accordion on Monument Bridge. An odd instrument for a busker, but he could get a decent tune out of it. He was obviously appreciated because his accordion case always had a fair amount of coins in it.

The oddest thing, he was blind. He also wore the sort of jumpers that only a blind person who dresses themselves would wear.

Actually, I suppose the oddest thing was that he looked like a cross between Jocky Wilson and Fred West.

In the week before christmas, he would be wearing a Santa outfit and play christmas carols.

After a while, for christ knows what reason, he swapped his accordion for a Casio keyboard of the cheaper variety.

He couldn't play the keyboard.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 10:02, Reply)

Sir Jester's Hello man post
reminded me a guy I remember from about 30yrs ago. When I was about 6, I had a pedal-car that I used to go everywhere in. I also used to go call for a friend every evening after tea. If my parents had ever found out that I pedalled for almost a full statutory mile alongside a busy dual-carriageway, they would've throttled me.

Anyway, one evening, as I'm tootling along, maybe doing 2mph tops, I hear from behind me, a childishly high pitched but definitely grown up voice, calling the word:

"HIYAA".

As in the greeting, not the Miss Piggy punchline.

I look over my shoulder, and there was this thin weedy bloke in a brown suit, who looked about 20 feet tall from my viewpoint closing in on me at great speed. Not running. Just striding, very quickly.

I tried pedalling faster to outrun him, but to no avail, he caught me up, constantly chanting "HIYAA! HIYAA!". As he passed me, he looked down, waved, said "HIYAA" a few times, and strode off into the distance, still calling "HIYAA!"

I used to see him striding about going somewhere only he knew. It became clear that he wasn't right. On a Victorian census, he would have had a tick in the box marked "Imbecile, idiot or lunatic". I'm no doctor, but he was clearly not of a full compliment of synapses.

By the late 80s, I never saw him anymore. Maybe he died, maybe he just got too old and would just be sitting in some home somewhere, pissing off the carers with his constant "HIYAA!"

I've mentioned this guy to several people and I've concluded that the guy must've walked for miles everyday around East Hull as he was seen all over the place.

Completely harmless. Kids used to just watch him race past, or maybe shout hiyaa back, which must've made his day. Nowadays, he'd have probably been happy-slapped or had stones pegged at him. It seems that's how harmless people seem to be treated in some of Britain's more vibrant neighbourhoods.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 9:54, 2 replies)

The Running Man
I spent the weekend in Essex visiting family.

A drive along the A128 to Brentwood reminded me that last time I was there a few weeks ago, I saw a sight that I had forgotten from my childhood.

Our school bus used to go along that road, and virtually every morning for the entire 7 years I went to that school we’d see The Running Man.

He was a middle aged gent, always smartly dressed in a brown suits, brown shoes, brown tie and light brown shirt, no matter what the weather, who would run along the path, always at a steady pace. I think he had a deformed arm, cos it was always held across his body at chest height and his hand curled into a kind of claw.

Now, I started at ‘big school’ in 1985 and left after my A-levels in 1992, so its 23 years since I first saw him.

I go back fairly frequently, probably once every 6 weeks or so, and often get a lift into Brentwood to go out with old friends etc.

Last time I was there, I looked out the window and a great big grin came across my face as I exclaimed ‘Running Man!’

He’s old.

But he’s still alive! He’s still running!

He’s still wearing the same bloody clothes!



Yay Running Man, I am glad you’re not dead*.

*Running Man was not dead as of August 2008. This information may no longer be correct and the author accepts no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this information.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 9:07, 3 replies)

Number 5 railway cottages.
Back in my electricity board day I got to hear the legend of number 5 railway cottages. Some of the older blokes that i worked with had experienced it first hand.

The house was occupied by a woman and her two children who were in their mid 20's. The woman was obese and confined to a wheelchair. Her son used to push her around.
Not too strange you think.

The wheelchair was an old fashioned cast iron and oak Victorian relic. I must have weighed at least 10 stone. She used to get pushed over the hill to the nearest town on market days , about 3 miles each way.They would wait untill the end of the day and take the bruised fruit and veg that was destined for the bins home.

In the front room were about 20 televisions that the son had aquired on rubbish days. By using diffrent combinations of sound and vision they were able to watch diffrent chanels. For example bbc1 on tv 1 sound on tv 9, bbc 2 on tv 4 sound on tv 5.

The Meter was a coin operated affair mounted low in the back of a kitchen cupboard. It was said that when emptying the meter you NEVER turned around. The daughter had a habit of sitting at the table with one leg up on it and skirt hitched up. Making "come to bed" eyes she would proceed to frig herself off in the kitchen.

It was strongly rumored that the son and daughter were unnaturally close, as was the son to his mother. It was a bit of a case of the family that plays together......

If the call ever went out on the r/t for this address everyone was suddenly on an urgent call over the far side of the county. This was pre cellphone days in the late 80's early 90's.
The family moved on before i started so i was spared this experiencee .

Is inbreeding considered eccentricity?
(welgar, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 7:11, Reply)

I have not raised normal children
I've posted a few of the odd things they've done. Tonight is just normal stuff though. It is 8:30 pm and my lovely girls are lounging on the sofa, relaxing before bed.

The 7 yr old is watching one of her CSI videos, pointing out all the gore and theorizing who the bad guy is....she always guesses correctly.

The 5 yr old is browsing through an anatomy textbook and pointing out different internal organs....with the correct name.

At least they are interesting to talk to. More so than many adults (non-b3tan adults that is).
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Mon 3 Nov 2008, 2:46, 3 replies)

Hello Man.
Not like, "Hey Dude, how's it going".. but more literally "the man who would say hello." To five, 3-8 year olds siblings in my family the most ingenious name we could give him was "The Hello Man".

This was 30-35 years ago.

Just like all young kids would run outside to greet the icecream van as it played its Greensleeves tune and wave it by, wishing that one day it would stop and for once not be empty, we would watch the world go by from the front verandah waiting for the Hello Man to pass. Without fail, every Saturday and Sunday of every weekend of every month of the year at around 5pm he would appear - walking down our side of the street with the daily paper under one arm and a bag of groceries in the other hand.

His age would have been anyone's guess but to my 5 year old mind at the time he was ancient. Not the 30-40 years that kids typically believe to be "ancient", but proper old. Greyed hair, time-lined face, an aged but ever-clean suit and a hat that nowadays I am reminded of in the old 50's movies. Even at my age then I knew he had lived a long life. I wished a contented life. Back then I always felt him to be in his 80's. I still do.

I always considered him to maybe have lived alone. Maybe he didnt have any grand kids. Maybe his wife had passed and his weekend ritual was something that helped fill his final days.

The Hello Man would shuffle down the street toward our house and any of the five us home would rush to the veranda with cries of, "The Hello Man's coming. The Hello Man's coming," and wait. As he passed the halfway point of the property, directly at the end of the path that led to our front door, we would call out "Hello" in unison and wave frantically, with big smiles on our faces. He would *always* turn to look at us as he continued his passage and offer a kindly and sweet, "Hello" reply along with a slow and meaningful wave of his hand.

We then watched til he continued down the road then rushed back in to continue our play. This was like a routine for us and I'd like to think, for him also.

I looked back years later, many years ago to realise that this man was the closest I had ever been to any elderly person that my childhood mind had known - my family emigrated to Australia before I was 12 months old and all my grandparents had passed many years beforehand. So you could say that one of my own Eccentricities here was to see the Hello Man as my own version of my grandparents - You watch them come and go and are always excited to see them.

Now, here I could go on and say how one day I watched him pass and somehow I knew that was the last I would ever see of him. But I won't. I really can't recall either when he stopped passing by or if I simply stopped looking for him to come.

Time came to pass and all I know is that I never got to say Goodbye to the Hello man.
(Sir Jester, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 2:17, 2 replies)

Love meat tender
I love my family eccentrics dearly. Gran's a prime example; we're never sure if her habits devolve from her pragmatic, Depression-era upbringing or if there's moderate dementia present. For example: Collecting all plastic bags = good. Flattening and folding every single bag into a neat square, to ensure they're stored with maximum efficiency = ...unusual.

Here's one of my favourite recent incidents.

Dad on the speakerphone, calling from his mum-in-law's place:

"I'll put the phone close to Gran. Can you hear what she's doing?"

...there's a noise like chopping, but dulled, somehow.

Dad: "She's tenderising the steak."

There's a grin in his voice.

Me: "Oh, she's got the meat tenderiser going?"

Dad: "No."

Me: "What? Then what's she using? (I shout genteely:) WHAT ARE YOU USING, GRAN?"

Muffled complaint from Gran about Dad.

Dad, chuckling: "Gran's tenderising the steak... with a real hammer."


Me: "... What?"

Dad: "She calls this a meat hammer, but it's the same as a normal one, only smaller."

More muffled complaining, more thudding.

Dad, to Gran: "That's right, it's a meat hammer. And it's got the claw on the back so you can pull the nails out of the steak."
(bezoar, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 2:06, 2 replies)

When I used to work in Portsmouth Boots
I used to stack shelves early morning, when the shop opened a the time we were for some reason forbidden to wear our tabbards, so we used to take them off.

If I was just about to finish, I would just kind of carry it around with me rather than go to the locker room and come back.

So on many an occasion this very happy Inidan man would come up to me, almost pissing himself with laughter and say "Oh look, you are carrying your tunic." He never said anything else to me, ever.

I never did understand why it was soo funny.
(Lympicita, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 0:03, 3 replies)

Dave the Rave
As the title suggests his name is Dave and he loves Rave. He hangs around the bomb site which is Sunderland city centre bopping his head to whatever Happy Hardcore choon is on his Walkman.

Rave isn't his only love though, no. His other his God. He really, really fucking loves God. He's willing to tell anyone who wants to listen and many who don't about his love of the man upstairs via the medium of MCing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L27T4VjzzSk

Because of his charva look and slightly in your face antics people think he's a knob. Funnily enough i've chatted to him a few times and despite having a screw loose he's completely harmless. He doesn't drink and he doesn't take drugs. He's just high on God's love.
(Peter Sutcliffe's Right Bollock, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 22:54, Reply)

Moses of Kingston
Any of you that have had the displeasure/mental trauma to have spent any time in the centre of Kingston Upon Thames have probably come across Moses. He is a black, slightly overweight schizophrenic guy who seems to spend his days wondering around Kingston doing eccentric things. Back when I was in school he was quite the legend and many stories arose from encounters with him. I'll recall some over the following paragraphs.

He would dress up in full jockey gear on the day of the Grand National. He'd wear an American Football outfit for the superbowl. I once saw him hitting a kid with a riding whip. He's also got an outfit of Baron Samedi from James Bond.

He'd sell fake joints to school kids for a pound. He'd just roll up a bit of newspaper/chip shop wrapper and stuff it full of soil or grass.

Some of his quotes include
"I'm not being racist or nufin, but I well prefer white girls, I dunno why really, its just a bit like the titanic"
"You're gonna be the next Millie Dowler" (to some young girl)
"You don't love me you love the cleaner" (to an old man on the bus)
"hey, kid, you shouldn't smoke. I used to be in the police and they're after you. really watch you back. don't trust anyone"
etc. etc. There are hundreds of these.

He told two of my friends that he was one of the head architects in charge of designing the Millennium Dome.

Although most people old enough to remember know that he was a famous drug dealer during the eighties, he still tells school kids that he is a millionaire African tribal leader who came to Kingston to find a bride. It is scary how many people believe this rumour.

The man is a complete legend and is held in quite affectionate thoughts with most who meet him. Which is quite nice in some ways.
(The Oscillating Gibbon is eating curried squid, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 22:35, 3 replies)

Joke Man!
There is a guy I sometimes see around town and every time I pass him he always stops me and tells a rubbish joke.
"What's better than a pioneer? Pie in the mouth!" etc.
I've seen him do this to everyone he passes.

One day we had an open day in college, he came in and went around the canteen and told a joke at every single table. Then he left.
(cH3$h7846J#7, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 21:44, Reply)

Eccentrics?
Does anyone here work in mental health?

Enuff said.
( Tesco Quality 60.825659, -0.788337, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 21:35, 3 replies)

GFootball, Oliver Cromwell and the Global Elite
I watch a fair bit of football, and travel the country watching my beloved team. There is often a group of us and we generally get blind drunk, swear lots and upset as many locals as we can. This in every day terms may be frowned upon, yet when it comes to footbal,l this behavior is deemed perfectly acceptable. Not only acceptable, but fucking well imperative. Anyway, one particular game, Middlesboro away I think, I got chatting to this guy in a bar. I was talking to him about ex-players who have gone on in their retirement to become public speakers or comedians, making money telling stories about their careers. Anyway, this guy was quite well read and told me about this ex-footballer who had gone onto do something similar. A bit drunk, yet interesting in what I was hearing, I politely wrote this footballers name down on a beer mat and told the guy I would check him out when I was sober.

The next day I decided to read up on the guy in question, David Icke his name was. He was forced to retire from football at the tender age of 21 due to chronic arthritis. Upon reading about this guy, it became clear, he not only had arthritis, he was also madder than a box of frogs. I remember at the time of looking this guy up I had just finished reading the biography of the late, great Peter Cook, who was a total genius but also eccentric and somewhat troubled. I remember thinking, fucking hell, this guy is an equally avantguard individual.

Since his football days, David, or crazy Dave as I am calling him from now on has devoted himself to researching the puzzling subject of who and what is really controlling the world. Ickes theory, basically revolves around some central group of higher powers he refers to as the ‘Global Elite’ who basically call all the shots. Interesting theory I’m thinking, until wait for it, this global elite is in fact made up of ‘Reptilian Humanoids’ and figures such as Tony Blair, Queen Elizabeth and Oliver Cromwell were indeed Reptiles. For the record, Oliver Cromwell was not a fucking Reptile, Oliver Cromwell was a great man, and the fact that his statue that stands at the end of Whitehall has not transformed into some psychotic nemesis to the Mighty Morphin power rangers, makes me feel David is pissing into the wind with this theory.

Anyway, this barmy fucker has been preaching this shit for years, brandishing statements such as, descendants of the reptiles engage in child molestation and satanism. He has wrote 15 books about his theories and oddly only dresses in the color turquoise.

As I continue to read upon on this bizarre yet equally interesting character it’s clear crazy Dave is some sort of camp Nazi and thus has been accused of antisemitism, claiming that the Holocaust was actually the work of the Jews and Adolf Hitler was in fact funded by Jewish banks.

You could not make half the shit he’s preaching up. I just can’t believe he is English and not American. Sorry to any offenced caused to our beloved state side friends but you do tend to have a knack of exaggerating and sensationalizing stuff. In fairness though, I do agree that tragedies such as 9-11 and the Oklahoma bombings were government funded operations. For what reason I have no idea.

Seriously though, have a read about this guy, he’s definately what I would call eccentric.
(Sir_Digby_Chicken_Caeser [email protected], Sun 2 Nov 2008, 20:56, 8 replies)

The older members of my family
Being half Iranian means I don't get to see half of my extended family very often, but when I do I realise where the genes that make me find you arse whipes so funny come from.

I haven't seen my grandma much in my lifetime. Her age and the regime in Iran make travelling very difficult so she's only come to the UK a couple of times, but when she has I'm always left with moments to remember. I remember her years ago watching me and my cousins going through a newspaper drawing crude cocks at every opportunity, and her finding this just fine for a bunch of ten year olds to do for entertainment.

More recently though, she was in an airport somewhere transferring flights with a long wait. Having just had an operation on her knee so she wasn't in the best state. However, she used this to her advantage by requesting (god knows how, she only speaks Persian) a man to come and push her around in a wheelchair for the period before her flight. He does this for two hours as she goes from shop to shop as old people do, looking at things that really aren't that exciting. When it came to her being taken back to the station where all the wheelchairs were kept, she jumped out of her chair Little Britain style, wheeled it back to its position and walked off.

When she arrived in the UK, my dad picked her up to take her home. It had been a long flight, so they stopped at a service station for her to go to the toilet. It was only after they were back on the motorway that Granny Sebastiano brandished her knickers in her hand, explaining she needed more of a breeze.

As my Persian doesn't stretch beyond swear words, my communication with her is limited and mostly takes form through my dad who acts as a translator. It was slightly out of the blue then, when dinner conversation had hardly got underway, when she starts things off with "so, how often do you wank then?'" How then hell do you answer a question like that?

Things were even worse when I took a trip to California two years ago. I was at my great uncle's house, brother of the grandmother in question. I don't think I got as much as a "hello, welcome to San Diego" before he sat me down in front of various relatives I'd never met before and said to me "I'll give you $50 to show me your dick." Amidst it all, I seem to remember replying "make it $100 and you've got a deal".

Length? You'll have to pay me to find out.
(Sebastiano, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 20:47, 1 reply)

I used to hang out with a guy
who thought he was God's gift to women - despite living with his parents into his 30s, not being married, not having a girlfriend, not having ever had a girlfriend as far as I know, and the only two women I ever saw him with were a) his Mum, and b) a 'sex worker'.

He was a real charmer with his male friends as well - eg announcing out of the blue that "one of you're gunna dog on me" [ie inform on him]. Wouldn't say which one, or for what, or how he knew of course.

Oh, and you know how I said he thought he was God's gift to women? This was literally true. Someone said to him "you think you're God's gift don't you?" and he smiled, and I guess Minder must've been on and he thought talking like Arthur Daley was his secret weapon, because he said "yes my son", in this voice of complete confidence.

Mind you, he did rise from the dead on the third day.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 19:57, 6 replies)

i may be posting a few stories here.
first up, my deceased father - he was mentally ill, enough to make his life and the lives of those around him amusing and unpleasant, even dangerous at times, but not quite enough to have him confined to a madhouse. a few times he was violent, but most of the time he just did odd things that made no sense to anyone whose brain worked in a conventional manner.

the house we lived in had a leaky cellar, and to fix that he took a huge drill bit and bored holes through the concrete out into the ground around the house, probably a few hundred of them. needless to say, the cellar just got wetter after that, but he thought water would only flow out, not in via his magic holes.

he would often (about once per week) feel slighted or believe that someone in the family had stolen his property (and since he was a patriarchal asshole, EVERYTHING was his property), and that started him lining up us kids and his wife, then pulling out his rifle and pointing it at us until we confessed. sometimes we had done something nefarious (we were awful little beasts), but more often he was hallucinating and there was no way for us to resolve the problem. the gun was always loaded, too - he made a point of loading it in front of us as part of his ritual. when the boyfriend of one of my sisters heard of this, he removed the firing pin and filed it down so it wouldn't work - dear old dad was enraged when he discovered this.

he beat up a couple of the older kids too, and not in any sort of corporal punishment manner that might be excused by others - they were brutal beatings, lots of blood and at-hand weapons used. i only remember the police involved a couple of times, but in those days (late 60s, early 70s), a man's home was his domain. if there were no deaths, all you had to do was not annoy the neighbours too much and you weren't arrested.

he'd also pick his nose and rummage through communal food items (bowls of snacks, etc.), which was revolting, just so he could have all the food for himself and eat it leisurely.

while all of this was going on, he built a small museum and collected steam-powered vehicles, restoring them with quite a refined hand for someone with zero education. years later we discovered he'd amassed a valuable collection of vehicles and peripheral items, and after his death we've been finding more in warehouses - he may have been quite a bit wealthier than we'd thought. i have more museum stories, but that's another topic.
( postbear has metal knees, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 18:50, 4 replies)

My brother's local...
The pub that my brother frequents is an odd place indeed. It is decorated with pictures of Alistair Crowley, a prosthetic head of Henry IIX, and has an enormous mounted moose head on the wall.... I would rather like to meet the owner, I am sure he would be an interesting man .
(Violet kicks arse for the Lord, Sun 2 Nov 2008, 18:25, 6 replies)