Mad Frank
Oh Mad, Mad Frank!
I was Mad Frank's 'supervisor' at the local community centre. I use 'supervisor' loosely as I was the lowest office temp myself so it says something about Frank.
Mad Frank would turn up for work every day, shirt tucked in, tie straight, shirt CLEAN. At the end of a day, well half day actually because he couldn't really cope in the world of employment, of filing everything in the wrong place and making everyone battery-acid tasting coffee, his shirt would be untucked, tie lost somewhere, dubious stains down the front. The amount of times I had to go back to the archived files and sort out his alphabetical filing mistakes...

I was quite fond of Frank, so don't get me wrong here. But he was absolutely crackers! He was convinced that the police regularly broke into his flat to read his computer files and tap his phone. He also claimed to know the location of a secret police HQ in the area, because he himself was an ex-member of the service, but had to leave for 'personal reasons'. He asked me once if the actual body of the computer should be dusty inside, because his was spick and span clean, suggesting someone had been there to take the hard drive away and have a good snoop.

Once Frank rang me at work to say he would be late and for my sins I said 'Did you hear that, Frank?'
Frank: What?
Me: I don't know, a click or something on the line...

This totally fed into his conspiracy theory and he never gave up that train of thought, pestering me endlessly for what I heard. Oh, I was so bad to have done that! This conspiracy theory was added to by his claim that Charles Saatchi's post was once delivered to his flat - all of his post. So Frank packed off a whole sack load of this 'post' and had it redelivered, retaining the postal receipt.

Which he kept. For his art show. Which consisted of a multitude of pictures of Tony Blair with a pair of women's lips cut from fashion magazines stuck on. Or men wearing leopard print trousers with female model heads on top. And - a hand drawn self-portait of Frank staring out of his letter box with a copy of his Royal Mail delivery note to Charles Saatchi glued on. There was also a visual representation of the night his neighbour started banging on his front door, and Mad Frank just didn't know what to do...because he was naked....and he just didn't know what to do...but he wanted to open the door...but what to do...he was naked!!

The best thing was, to advertise his exhibition, Mad Frank left a coded message in the local newspaper with the co-ordinates of the location! I've kept the advert, it's around somewhere. Mad Frank also had his own political party.

He always wanted to try so hard at everything, he just never quite made it.
(Rosemarysbaby, Sat 1 Nov 2008, 2:00, Reply)