I smiled at a Tramp once...
...as he bounced off the bonnet of my car.
(Dante licked your nipple on, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 0:07, Reply)

Tramp Punks
Well, in reaction to Michael jackson's 'designer punk' rubbish back in the day, loads of Londons Punks got a bit grubby in a kind of you-cant-fake-that-mofo way...so.... we were looking really vile, viler than usual, and infesting a London Underground tube train like you do. Obviously all the other passengers were suitably terrified at the sheer state of us, aware of all the horror stories etc... All except, one kind elderly Indian gentlemam, he was so upset at our unkempt and obviously penniless state, worried for our well being he actually had the balls to speak to us. Now, in 2009 this sounds a bit wierd, but in the early 80's it really was a step into the unknown that almost nobody made, the Noughties equivalent of hassling gangs of hoodies in dark alleys..... So, the gentleman asked us 'are you OK ? do you need money ? do the government give you nothing ?' ... it was really very kind, so we were nice to him, but aware we had the whole carriage listening, utterly transfixed....

What to do ? Well, we were on our way to do a big LSD deal, so had large wads of cash in our pockets, understanding each other, we just pulled out thousands of pounds in wads from our ripped to death jeans, waved it at him and said 'no thanks my friend, we are fine'

I swear everybody in the carriage still talks today about the Fat Wallet Tramp Punks.


length ? more of a problem than a blessing.
(chemdog, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 22:01, Reply)

last night a tramp saved my life
ok it wasn't last night, we're going back about 6-7 years and Aphex Twin is playing at The Coronet in Elephant and Castle for an acid warp halloween party.

I have travelled up to Brighton from Plymouth to meet up with some old uni mates with the plan of getting the train to The City and from then on to the club.

Adding liquid acid to the mix probably wasn't the best idea...

Having all taken far too much, one of the girls with us starts to freak out on the train, and we have no choice but to get off at the next station - Clapham Junction. Now this can be a hectic place at the best of times, but on acid it was pure hell. The tunnels seemed to stretch off to the horizon, lots of people running around (with screw faces on - respect to skinnyman), and us stuck in the middle with a screaming girl and all getting more scared by the second.

We had to get out, so made it to an exit and out into the calm streets. Only it wasn't calm, it was rush hour and everyone seems to be coming at us, so we leg it. We walk for what seems like hours and hours trying to get our heads together, but in a moment of lucidity i read a sign that says - Clapham Junction - 250 yds. So we hadn't gone anywhere and then one of us nearly gets hit by a car, clearly we are not safe. So its back into the station so at least we know where we are.

And now the tramp. Amongst all the clean, rich, employed people rushing around scaring the hell out of us is a really dirty man in the corner who for some reason seems like the only kindred spirit in the place. I head over and start chatting. He clearly knows I am fucked, and asks if I have any drugs. I apologise and say we've taken it all that is why I'm so messed up. He understands. We chat some more. Just talking to him is making me see clearly again and he is so friendly I feel completely safe. It is bitterly cold so I give him my gloves and £5 as a thank you and whilst my head is still clear, grab everyone, bundle them into a taxi and tell the driver to take us to the Coronet.

We all pretty much pass out in the taxi and he has to kick us out when we get there, nearly get hit by another car but make it into the club (god knows why the bouncers let us in). We then spent an hour in the corner of one of the bars, under a table, thinking it was the main room until we just had to investigate "all the loud noise coming from through those double doors over there".

In the end we had an amazing night, watched THX 1138 on the big screen till the next day and made our way slowly back to Brighton, with haunted faces, mild hallucinations and the promise that we would never do it again... ...or at least take a tramp with us next time.

Thanks man, whoever you were, for saving my life that night. If I ever see you again, i'll save some drugs for you.

Sorry for the length everyone, It's the first thing i've ever felt entitled to share on B3ta
( A Rory Borealis here under duress, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 20:00, Reply)

Rich McTramp
At the law firm where I used to work we had a tramp for a client. No, it wasn't our fees that rendered him tramped up, but I like your thinking.
He was a proper client. He lived in a tent in some local woods and one day had been hit by a car, breaking both his thighs in the process. We got him some compo. A LOT of compo. We opened him a Personal Injury Trust so that he wouldn't lose his benefits, and got the benefits and a bank account for him. Before that he had nothing, no address no bank account, see? No GP either. He has now. Nowadays he comes in the office when he wants £50. He can't have all the money at once, someone would probably kill him for it.
However, being of the trampy persuasion, he whiffs a bit. Quite a lot. It was so funny seeing him sitting in the waiting room with proper, un-whiffy clients, seeing them trying to breathe through their mouths.
He's mad as a bucket of blue shit, but has a twin brother who is Mr Normal. Don't know why he's ended up in a tent. Wish he'd buy himself a bar of soap though.
( Sallyrsm, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 19:30, 1 reply)

Gorilla in the garden!
In my delightful home town we have a tramp/mentalist by the name of Tick Tick. He has a loose grip on reality and is prone to shouting random things for no discernable reason.

Once I was walking up a staircase in Boots and was surprised to pass Tick Tick talking quite amiably and reasonably to a small group of 12-13 year olds. Strange, I thought, and assumed some new medication was working wonders.

As I came down the stairs having completed my business Tick Tick was still chatting away to the kids. As I reached the bottom I heard him scream the immortal words, "Gorilla in the garden! GET HIM OUT!", followed by the sound of frightened children scattering.
(superscape blames it on the bogie, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 18:44, Reply)

Looking through the answers this week it's clear that tramps are great.
Remember how many homelesses there were in the eighties?

Want to relive those glory days?

/David Cameron.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 18:32, 1 reply)

lovely hobo
I came out of Ministry of Sound around 4am and was waiting by the bus-stop with a group of friends, i stepped away to make a phone call and glanced upon, the most cracked out crazy looking old black gentleman, who was running down the road towards me, imagine like modern zombies who can sprint, it was a little bit like that.
Anyway he can running up to me and started shaking my hand and requesting spare change, he couldn't seem to talk very well because of lack of teeth but he wasn't being aggressive and was pleasant just a bit pushy so i gave him a few coins and he thanked me and wandered off.
I finished my phonecall and went to the bus-stop where i witnessed him and my mate Mohammed both chatting. He spots me and grabs me and introduced me to my own friend, we played along and pretended we had never met, he looked so happy to have helped us make friends, then he asked for some change from our group and then continued running across the road to the other people outside the nightclub.

Wavvy lines..
about three months later i was in Brixton with Mohammed again and guess who turns up same guy!
He didn't remember us attal..
which wasn't nice
we assumed he would be so happy that two people he introduced had become great friends
(Bludfoot rushing out since, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 18:06, Reply)

It was night and the middle of winter
I passed a fairly elderly, very down and out looking tramp sitting in a doorway.
There was something about his sad blue eyes that really shook me to the core and I stopped and asked, stupidly, if he was OK.
He replied "I am fine thank you" in the poshest accent ever.
I went to the nearest Wimpy Bar (in the early/mid 70's, that's all there was) and bought back for him a hamburger and chips.

I tried to give them to him but he said "no thank you very much, I am a vegetarian". In those days vegetarianism hadn't even been invented, or rather, it wasn't a fashionable fad. I said "Oh crikey, so am I, can't you just eat the chips?" to which he replied "Thank you for your kind thought but I prefer not to eat junk food".

I still think about him to this day and wonder what tragic event caused such a posh bloke to end up on the streets and yet still retain his standards.
( Flowerpot No longer has the vapours thanks to DTH, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 17:39, 2 replies)

Cheeky Bastard
I'd just come out of a Brixton club in the early hours of the morning and was waiting for a bus when this wild-haired tramp dashes up to me and says "Man, have you got any spare change?"

I shook my head and said I was sorry but, no, I didn't.

No joke, he leaned his head slightly closer to me and, with an expression of mild annoyance, looked me directly in the eye and said "Why not?"
(Gilbo, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 16:55, 1 reply)

McTravelling around the USA
In the late 90's my brother spent 5 months trekking around the USA with 2 other guys. They had a smallish van and a smaller budget so they did anything in their power to make their money last. This basically involved all sleeping cramped in the van as much as possible and avoiding costly hotels at all costs.

The downside of never using a hotel is that obviously your personal hygiene takes a massive nosedive and you hardly ever get to shower properly. What did they care though? They were young and having the trip of their lives. The majority of tasks such as shaving, washing your armpits and cutting your own hair could be accomplished for free in fast food restaurant bathrooms. So for 5 months that is what they did, save for the occasional visit to a cheap motel if they were in a town and thought their might be some booty on offer.

So on one sunny day in Florida my brother found himself at the mirror of a McDonalds looking a bit rugged after another night on the booz and several days of not showering. His face smeared with shaving cream and with a McD's cup of cold water (for this particular toilet didn't have a working tap so he kept the cup from his earlier meal and filled it with water when he left) he began to shave. Mid shave and hunched over the basin the door creaked open and in hobbles the worlds stinkiest tramp. He had unidentifiable skank on his face, dishevelled clothing and a discernible pong about him that could have been used disperse rioting crowds. He ambled over to my brother, put his arm around him and mumbled the immortal words, "Don't worry, we've all been there".
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 15:02, Reply)

York has quite a few.
So I shall be doing my best to think of them all for this. However some that come to mind.

Mr Round-the-corner-from-the-station:
Does the usual lines and so on. "Spare us some change mate?" etc, however one nice sunny day he apparantly was in a crafty mood. He decided to appeal to your softer, fluffier side with a well prepared and thought out line.

Him - "Spare some change mate?"
Me - "Na, sorry mate."
Him - "Do you like cats?"
Me - "..."
Him - "I had a cat once..."

I gave him a quid for the pure random-ness of it.

Miss WHATTHEFUCK - Im still not 100% sure of this but Im pretty sure it was a Miss. You'd see it walking around sometimes, feet wrapped in Tesco bags, dirty old skirt and a bright orange, dirty as hell bomber jacket with no arms on along with dirty green beanie hat. Not too different tramp wise in itself but she had a FUCKING MASSIVE BEARD. I mean seriously, Santa would lay down his sled and bow down to this massive, great grey wiry bastard.

Mr Happy (He actually had this on a name tag): Not as such a tramp, he was a Big Issue seller outside the train station that seems to have sadly dissapeared, he was always dressed in brightly coloured clothes and had obviously done a bit too many drugs in the past. He would greet every one with a huge giant HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO and offer his Big Issue vending abilities. I'd usually talk to him and he'd fall into step besides me for a quick chat as I went to work inside the stations coffee shop. However there was twice that he showed his darker, 'Im-fucking-sick-of-people-ignoring-me' side.

Scene one - A mother with her baby asleep in a pram come past. "HELLOOOOOOO LOVELY DAY!" he goes at her. She just makes a face and signs that the baby is asleep, kindly shut up and fuck of and continues walking past. He turns round to face her retreating back and simply yells. "I BET IT ISN'T EVEN SLEEPING, ITS PROBABLY DEAD." then continues to greet other people happily.

Scene two - Im talking to him and 3 women in that full body Muslim stocking (Hijab?) walk past, he greets them and they soundly ignore him. He turns to me and simply goes "Ah its ok, probably lucky we are outside the station." (they where heading inside) "They're probably bombers."

I miss him :(
(Guilt wants to get in your moist confines, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 14:57, 3 replies)

Yay For Tramps!
Old Tramps Old Tramps
We love old tramps
Old Tramps Old Tramps
They are Cool
Old Tramps Old Tramps
We love old tramps
Old Tramps ......... they rule!

RIP Boilermaker Bill - Canberra misses you more than they know!
( Zank Frappa Who let the lefties in?, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 13:48, Reply)

R.I.P jimmy jesus
you'd see him everywhere nearly everyday around sunderland until he died last year in a bus stop. Jimmy Jesus was king of the sunderland tramps with hair like a beavers tail it was that unwashed he would have to go to the hospital to get it cut. Everybody made there own background story for him such as he killed his family and went mad or that he was a genius and went mad but was still rich which is half true he was just a clever bloke who went abit strange and started living in his brothers shed rest in peace jimmy we'll miss ya.
(Agent Dale Pooper k in the p, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 13:38, Reply)

One-armed bandit!
Up in the far reaches of scotland there exists a little place called Stirling, a town devoid of emotions, sympathy and morals. In this faraway town-city of central scotland there was a begger, a tramp and a lot of drunken students. A perfect spot for the one known as the one-armed bandit...or realistically a smelly old guy with only one good hand.

This tramp would wander around the small enclosed city center in an old mouldy looking tweed jacket, a yorkshire cap and look of longing in his small weedy cataract eyes. Wander, wander...he would be everyday and if he spots a potential prey he would pounce on you and very politely ask all manner of innocuous questions like " are you a student....what are you doing...gie me a pound for fags". Normally his beady eyes are raping all the young innocent students of stirling before he moves in for the kill. Then he would very subtly just hold out his decrepit one arm with no hands asks to shake your hand...the horror of it would send even the french tourists streaking back to france. If there ever was a brave soul in stirling who would shake the hand of the devil himself it would look as if he is pulling a one armed bandit and hoping for a jack pot. Not very likely since he smells of cheap cider and unwashed clothing.

And wander still he does...
(EpeeDemic, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 11:11, 1 reply)

Begging...
I own a large, handsome, pedigree dobermann. He is well groomed, shiney coat, shiney eyes, posh teal collar, and a smart leash.

Now, as we all know, dogs aren't allowed in supermarkets. Walking back from the woods with the dog meant that I had to wait outside whilst my housemate popped in for some milk. Being knackered, I sat down and waited. Handsome dog just stands there being handsome. Plenty of people comment on his handsomeness. Nobody comments about me.
Until one. Imagine the nastiest chaviest scum of a family you can imagine. The 'dad' walks up to me and offers me a quid. Naturally, I'd have taken it, but was so taken aback and being mistaken for a tramp that I just stammered that I was fine, thank you...

I mean how many tramps own giant pedigree dobermans anyway?
( Bathory, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 10:28, Reply)

Poxy hotel policy vs hobo = win.
As an infrequent poster, chances are not many if any here will remember my post or two around the time my father died some year-and-a-bit ago. Anyway, while he was hospitalised and in the process of doing so, I was called up to the city at very short notice (ie "they're transferring him to the big city hospital NOW and he might not make it to the morning"), as happens. He stabilised a bit, and we, the family, organised ourselves vigil-wise. So I head into the city to find a room for the night.

I have many years' toil in the hospitality and accommodation sectors behind me, and am thus well acquainted with what I am likely to discover. Or so I thought. Biggish city this, but at 1AM there seems to be a dearth of rooms available. Rather, as I am at this juncture not all that well cashed-up, there are no apparently budget-type rooms available. So armed with my knowledge of general hotel policy at this hour, namely, sell a room at whatever price you can get above cost, I proceed to offer $150 (AUD) on the first $300 room I encounter. Surly geek number one manages that classic trick of displaying absolutely NO change of expression and merely repeats the price of a room. I attempt to use his pity and/or compassion gland and briefly outline my situation. Still $300.

Around the corner I go, repeat the experiment, fail, repeat again, and again. I am tired, emotional, and although I could just have stumped up the cash I just simply resented the ridiculous bumf I was hearing from the mouths of these gormless jobsworths, whose managers would most likely have ripped them new arseholes for not selling rooms at a profit. To a man (and they all were) they just wanted to go back to tossing off or sleeping behind their desks.

I exit the marble and glass lobby into a deserted street, pause, and glance over to my left. Here tucked into the shrubbery is a sleeping gentleman of the road, smelling like his fermented anaesthetic of choice has had plenty of time to work its soporific magic. Here I am, imminent-father-death-stupid-hotel-dork-bone-tired perspective in hand, with the $150 in cash I simply cannot seem to give away for a room. And here is he. So I very gently reach down, tuck the neatly rolled bills safely in his jacket pocket, and stroll off healed of my woes for now, to spend a cold, but dry and safe night sleeping in my car in a park.

Who cares what he did with the money? The moment of joy is the thing.
(dadadali has hybrid vigour, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 8:29, 3 replies)

Do any b3tans have some spare change they can put in my PayPal account?
I'm homepageless.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 5:56, 2 replies)

daffodils
I live near an area of Dundee that's affectionately known as "needle row"... pick a closie and you could wrap a christmas turkey with the amount of used tin foil in it. Between needle row and the town centre, there are plenty "interesting" people to meet. Many are the usual crazy/drugged up hobos you see all over Scotland, but there are a few who are true legends. Apologies now, this is not a funny story, it just kinda highlights that not all homeless people are junkies, some are the complete opposite.

Lisa was awesome. She used to sit in the overpass at the station in the winter, minding her own business and staying warm. She was quite possibly the sweetest girl i've ever met, so cheerful even though she'd had a horrible life.

The first time I met her, it was early December. She hadn't eaten in about 9 days, and was nearly unconscious. The pile of Big Issues she'd been trying to sell lay unsold beside her, no one buys them in Dundee. I took her to MacDonalds and she told me her story. Her parents were junkies in Glasgow, both heavily into heroin, and used to beat her, or worse, pretty much when the mood took them. She'd ran away when she was 15 after they'd tried to prostitute her to earn drug money. She didn't have a proper education, but was desperately trying to get a job. She'd go to the job centre nearly every day, looking for jobs and getting out of the cold for a bit. She'd applied for several jobs, but they all refused her as she didn't have an address. I got her a hotel room once, she insisted that she'd get a job in Tesco or something and pay me back. she ripped a corner off a Big Issue and wrote me an I.O.U. Everytime we met she told me how her job search was going, what she'd been up to, where she'd been. Sometimes she'd spend her day wandering about the parks, picking flowers. She loved them, she was amazed that something so pretty could grow from nothing but dirt. She told me once that it gave her hope in the spring when the daffodils came out, she knew that she would be ok.

For someone who'd lived on the street for nearly a decade, and had no more than a primary school education, she was incredibly warm and quick witted. Any time I was getting a train, or if I was bored in town, I'd sit and speak with her for ages, sharing cigarettes and cider and having a sly laugh at the businessmen who spent their whole day getting stressed over things that don't really matter. Someone gave her an old mobile phone once, the only numbers she had in it were me, a couple of my mates and the Samaritans hotline. I always felt a bit guilty when I went home to my warm house, knowing that she was still out there, huddled in the overpass trying to keep out of the rain. Whenever she saw me going for a train she made sure to give me a hug, and told me she prayed that I'd get there safe.

The council started to revamp the area around the station last year, and knocked down the overpass. Lisa had to move to the station doorway, with no shelter from the elements, but was still her chipper self, chattting to whoever would listen and sharing her last cigarette.

They found her on the 20th January this year, sat in her usual spot at the station doors. She'd died of pneumonia, and was frozen solid. She'd been ill for weeks, but refused to move in case someone stole her spot. She'd been grieving for one of her friends, another Big Issue seller who'd been stabbed outside M&S a week before. It was strange to think that Lisa and her flowers wouldn't be there anymore, and to see the impact she'd made on the lives of other Dundonians.

When spring came this year i made sure to leave a bunch of daffodils in her spot, along with a cigarette and the I.O.U. ripped in half. Next time someone asks you for change, please don't snub them and justify it with some druggie excuse... even if you only have 5 minutes, get to know them a little... they might just be another Lisa.

Apologies for lack of funnies. And length.

here's a link to the BBC site about her, any other Scumdonians on here might remember her and her awesomeness :)

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7861600.stm
(DonMorte Cake is a made up drug, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 5:33, 10 replies)

Blanket Man
Walk around Wellington and you're sure to come across "Blanket Man". Blanket Man worships the Māori Sun God Tama-nui-te-rā and as a way of showing his devotion wears as little clothes as possible. 24/7 365 days a year.

It used to be only a blanket, but these days include a loin cloth (repeatedly arrested for indecent exposure), a tin of marijuana (keeps on getting busted) an iPod (where does he fucking charge it?) and a can of bourbon and coke.

He's got profiles on facebook, bebo and others and has an entry in Wikipedia. He's famous, but for what? Absolutely nothing except for the fact that even in winter (Wellington experiences freezing gales straight from Antartica in winter) he still only wears a blanket.

Fucking Idiot
(Jimmyinnz was sprung at work on b3ta on, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 5:27, 2 replies)

"Would you like to stroke my monkey?"
McDonalds, late evening, Cambridge.

After a few hours of buggering around in the city me and my slightly intoxicated student chum-pals go for some eats at MaccyD's.

While I'm waiting for my apple pie a staggering, homeless Scotsman approaches me and asks,

"Would you like to stroke my monkey?" in an accent rough enough to give you a nasty carpet burn.

Now, at this point I'm panicking. A tramp's just asked me to wank him off in the middle of an almost empty fast-food outlet in the late hours of the night, he might have a knife...

But then the tramp suprises me, he unzips his coat to reveal a cheeky little plush monkey teddy and tickles it's chin. I laugh, he laughs, everythings okay again.
(chrisdood Why yes, I am the shizzle, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 2:17, 1 reply)

Drifting tenuously off the subject...
...but I suppose it can count as an answer because the guy was a stranger, trying to elicit a pecuniary response.

The Oscillating Gibbon and I have just been in the pub with Nettlesteed (a mutual friend of ours) enjoying the fine ales available at the Charles Dickens on Union Street (for the information of any London-based b3tans: it's a great establishment; for all of you: apologies for posting whilst half-cut).

A chap appeared outside said pub with a hat full of change in one hand.

In his other hand? A leash. To what was said leash tethered? An alpaca.

I saw this. I double-took. I looked harder to make sure it was real. There really was a man outside the pub with a miniature llama.

Naturally, upon realising this, I did the only mature thing and stormed out of the pub to pet said alpaca. The chap was collecting for some children's charity and was just leading the llama through London with him.

I'm normally a bit selective about which charities I give to, but to be honest, any charity which will let me fondle a llama for money can probably expect a handful of coinage off me.

I like llamas. And alpacas. And other variants on the camelid theme.

Sorry, started slightly off-topic and just drifted further and further away from it. Meh, have a good evening, the lot of you: I've got to be up at silly o' clock tomorrow to get to Reading in time to give a talk at 9 to what few have managed to get in despite their hangovers.

But I got to fondle an alpaca outside the pub. Oh yeah.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 22:44, 4 replies)

Fickle Bummers
Whilst walking through Birmingham's office sector with a friend, we walked passed a hobo ruffian asking for change for food. Ironically, it was my friends birthday and she had brought a load of cakes for her work collegues. Offering said cake to said hobo, he pushed it away saying "Eugh. I DON'T LIKE THAT!" Seems beggers can be choosers after all!
(apatao, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 22:33, 1 reply)

SpikeyPickle's Rat Man
reminds me of a gentlemen of the road I knew when living in Exeter.
This bloke genuinely had a pet rat. I got to know him - well to talk to anyway, never knew his name - because so did I and he used to get his rat food from the same shop I did. The staff never charged him the real price of course, they just took whatever he offered - often pennies - as this chap obviously loved his little brown rat, which was well cared for and bright eyed.
One day said pet shop got a delivery of these huge plastic clear tunnels designed for ferrets that were about three feet long. Living with a bloke with debt problems I was always short of money so although I wanted one for my rat I had to wait til payday. I was admiring the plastic tunnel on the shop display one day after work when the rat man joined me, his little sniffy friend on his shoulder as usual. He got all misty eyed and said he'd love one for his rat (named Ratty, lol) but he had no chance of affording such a thing. I sincerely wish I'd had had the money as I would have bought Ratty one there and then and had my own rat wait, he was that sincere. She had plenty of toys already !

So I go back to the shop on payday to buy said rat accessory, and find they have sold out. I enquire as to whether the display model is still available, and the shop bloke tells me that rat man came in the day before and surreptitiously stole it. How he managed to steal something three feet long and bright transparent yellow I have no idea, but he did.
He was last seen outside Tesco's, with one end of the tube stopped up against the window and the other on his lap, happy as a lord because his rat had somewhere to play. The people in the queues at the tills in Tescos had mixed reactions apparently.

The pet shop didn't follow it up. And I always smile when I think about it.
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 22:00, Reply)

Me and my mates...
...used to like going camping in the woods. We'd invite anyone who wanted to come along, set up a big fire, get pissed, stoned and high, and fall asleep. No tents, just sleeping out in the warm summer night. Yay for living in rural devon where no-one calls the police, and even if they did they'd take 3 hours to get there.

Still, we never did any harm and it was nice sleeping out under the stars.

It was on one of these trips that I tried some cannabis. Pot really doesn't work on me, it just instantly knocks me out. I go into a deep deep sleep, but not really asleep, so I wake up and feel like I've been awake for 24 hours. Its rubbish. But this time I thought, ah, I'll give another go.

zonk. Straight to sleep.

Next morning I'm woken up by a dog licking my face as someone walks his dog, and all my mates have buggered off home. Great. So I stagger off to the nearest village, with a raging thirst, smelling of woodsmoke and a bit grimey. And Im exhausted, completely knackered. I stumble into the village shop and buy all I can afford - one of those horrible synthetic juice drinks in a plastic cup with a peel-back lid. I dont think you can even get them anymore, but they tasted of plastic and cost about 10p. I sat against the wall outside, peeled back the lid, and quenched my thirst.

And promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up a few hours later, sunburnt and uncomfortable, I found I had acquired a couple of quid in the cup I still held in my grimey hand.

Yay, unconscious begging.
(inflateable, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 20:42, 2 replies)

Honesty in Galway
None of this "Can you spare 20p for a cup of coffee" no; this regular inhabitant of Eyre Sq in Galway would quite brazenly request a "Fiver for a bag of cans". Being a student there at the time I was never able to oblige though I really wanted to know where you could get a bag of cans for a fiver.
(troublebob, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 20:19, Reply)

Can you give us a couple of quid for some valium?
He said to me and a group of my friends as we were milling around town.

For his honesty, he got some monies.
(Multi-Coloured Pop Shop "twat with a ukulele", Fri 3 Jul 2009, 20:01, Reply)

Tramp-clone
Me and the missus were walking through Oxford Street, and we hapened to pass a tramp, sitting there bothering people by the cash machine.

"Oh my god Fantomex", bleated the missus, "look at that tramp!"

There, lo and behold, was a tramp wearing exactly what I was wearing, from head to foot.
Sure, his clothes were grubbier, and smelt of wee, but for all intents and purposes, I had found my tramp-twin.

Of all the luck, owing to a tooth removed by the dentist, I was also at the time missing the same one as my domestically-challenged doppelganger.

Humiliating, yet intriguing.
(fantomex, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 19:08, 1 reply)