I may be in the gutter, but I'm looking at the stars
My sister used to run a hostel for the homeless in London. One of the residents was a well-spoken middle-aged chap whose one downfall was a crippling taste for the bottle. He was pretty bonkers but well liked and affable and in his more lucid moments would claim, in a matter-of-fact sort of way, to come from minor aristocracy and be vastly wealthy. He drifted in and out of the hostel for a couple of years before he eventually popped his clogs while resident in the hostel, leaving my sister to sort out the arrangements. Turns out that far from being a pathological liar, he was indeed a toff with a family estate worth millions. Obit in The Telegraph, etc. So next time you pass a down-and-out in the gutter, it might be worth asking them if they can spare the price of a cuppa tea.
(botchjob, Mon 3 Dec 2007, 15:06, Reply)