Kindness of Homeless
I volunteer with wildlife and at times go to some unusual places to get wildlife out of scrapes and have them treated and rehabilitated. One time I had to go to Circular Quay in the city (Sydney), and find a homeless man who had called us the night before about a bat.

It was weird I hadn't been called out when the call came in as an animal in trouble can die if left and this bat had been left for about 9 hours at this point. I also wasn't optimistic that the homeless man would still be there or whether or not I'd be able to find the bat.

As it was, I found the man and at the same time saw the bat. This man had nothing, was grimy, thin, had a sign asking for money and yet was utterly lovely. He told me all about the bat and it really touched my heart that he had used some of his own money to make the call to try and get help given how little he had himself and how much help he himself needed. These are the kinds of people that, to me, are the ones I would help first - those who are kind and still have a heart.

The homeless man explained to me that the bat was pretty feisty (they usually are when sick and terrified, otherwise they are usually very curious about people and look you in the eye, not as a challenge but because they are interested - and not interested in eating you, stop being terrified people!), he'd given the bat water through the night and shared the small amount of food he'd been able to scavenge as well, which again I found deeply touching.

I went and picked up the bat who had concussion and really wasn't at all happy and people had been walking back and forth within centimetres of this poor animal all day without making a single call about her. Yet a man without a home, money, food, shelter, security or friends who could help him in a material way had ensured that help would come, that the animal would not die of thirst or hunger and kept an eye on her through the night and half of the day until help arrived. Also given how much pain and fear she was experiencing the man had taken a real risk of being bitten, of which he was aware as we talked about it, but he could not see another creature suffer without trying to help. All I did to help him was thank him profusely, and give him $10 and still wish I could have done more.

I have found on several occasions that the homeless will help someone worse off than themselves and while this man was the strongest in his help towards this sick bat, many homeless people have aided animals and deterred other people bent on mischief from interfering with animals.

I hope that homeless man has been able to get help as he was a wonder.
(Dog Bum Cute, wiggly, has scary anal glands, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 9:00, 7 replies)

Homeless, knife-wielding Glaswegian tramp in Amsterdam...
I was in Amsterdam a few months back with a big group of mates, over for the usual - a few days of drunken and/or stoned debauchery in one of the greatest party towns on the planet. Now I'd been there before so I knew what to expect, but I wasn't expecting what's in the title of this post;

Myself and a few others from our group were waiting outside a bar near our hostel just outside the Red Light, standing in a circle chatting. Suddenly this guy comes and stands right behind my mate, who reacts as you'd expect - taking a step forward, turning around to see who's there. Who was there but a filthy, piss-stinking, swivel-eyed, bearded tramp (with one arm in a sling). Who turned out to be a Glaswegian. As if a regular angry crazy tramp wasn't bad enough, he had to be Glaswegian...

He took offense at my mate's actions and shouted, "Don't you do that! - you don't want to make a Scotsman angry, boy!". At which point he proceeded to pull a blade from his sleeve and take a slash at my mate, who manages to dodge out of the way. Needless to say, we legged it back down the road to the safety of our hostel, as we hear the tramp starting an argument with some unfortunate random bastard behind us.

Amsterdam. The craziest fucking town on Earth.
(gunforhireuk, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 0:59, 1 reply)

Top Tramps
Beard length: 16cm

What you got?
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 23:36, 9 replies)

Richard of York: tramp agony aunt
My dad is a vicar. Those of you who have had bad experiences of organised religion, feel free to wave your pitchforks now. Done? Good.

But as a vicar's son, I sometimes glimpse, behind the scenes, all the good my dad does that no one ever hears about. Dealing with people's secret pain - the help he gives to those who come to him in distress. It was one such tiny act of kindness from him that sparked the following chain of events.

It begins with a phone call...

The scene: A small Yorkshire town. The time: summer of 2006. I had just graduated and was inhabiting the strange ghost world between university and real life. I had been fired from a temp job for breaching national security (but that's another story) and with the World Cup on the telly had no intention of getting another for at least a month. So I was guarding my parents' house while they were on holiday and doing a spot of gardening to keep myself busy.

*bring bring*
SELF: "Hello, this is the Vicarage."
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: "Hello, is Reverend Of-York there?"
SELF: "No, I'm his son, can I take a message?"
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: "Oh, well, I hear you've been having trouble with some kids messing around in the churchyard."
SELF: "Why yes, yes we have."
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: "Yeah, well, I've sorted it."
SELF: "Er... yay?"
MYSTERIOUS VOICE: "Yeah, I'm an old mate of your dad's and I heard in the pub you were having trouble with some kids, so I thought I'd come and sort it. I used to be in the army, so I know a few things."

Anyway, we talk a bit more and it transpires he's in town for one night but doesn't have a place to stay. So, I say - and I'm still not sure why:

"Oh, well, if you're a friend of my dad's, why not come and stay here?"

He accepts, says he'll come straight round, I put the phone down and suddenly realise that I've just invited a complete stranger to spend the night with me, and not in the good way. Did he say he was in the ARMY? He sounded pretty tough - and what did he do to 'sort out' a bunch of 15-year-old chavs, officially the scariest breed of mammal found in nature? What if he's not an officer and a gentleman, but some crazed killing machine of a squaddie? What if even now, blood-soaked strips of burberry are blowing across the churchyard?

With these terrifying thoughts in mind, I quickly hid all the family silver (well, the DVD player anyway) and was fashioning a makeshift weapon out of a broom handle and a toasting fork when the doorbell rang.

*ding dong!*

Trapped, like a lamb in a field full of bastards. With bated breath, I approached the door...

Fortunately, on the step stood, not a seven-foot Terminator, but a five-foot five middle aged chap with trace of a West Country accent. I hadn't picked up on that over the phone. His name, he said, was Steelie.

Figuring that if the worst came to the worst I could probably take an aging Bristolian shortarse in a fight, I invited him in. He had indeed been a soldier in his youth, but after leaving the forces had been homeless for many years. It was at some time during this period when my dad had, apparently, saved his life (but that's another story). Eventually, the love of a good woman set him on the right path once more, and as proof of this he showed me a photo of himself in a rather natty suit, alongside a woman who, while not exactly in her prime, was holding up well for her age and looked a pillar of respectability. She could definitely have been the head of a village WI. Steelie told me that she was off visiting her sister, and he was on the road again "for old times sake." Perhaps I should have been suspicious at this point, but I was so reassured by the picture of the WI-lady that it passed me by.

So, anyway, what do you do to pass the time with a reformed tramp who you've invited over for the evening?

We went to the pub.

Here, Steelie told me a bit about life on the streets, including some really quite interesting stuff about 'famous hobos throughout history' (or 'gentlemen of the road', as he preferred to call them). I can only remember a few of the stories now:

- Casanova tramp. This was an Irish fellow who lived in the 1800s and apparently shagged his way around the southern counties; it seems no lady of good breeding was able to resist his twinkling eye and silver tongue. He had something incredibly amusing inscribed on his tombstone but alas, it now escapes me.

- The doctor. This was a terribly sad story about a medical man who lost his wife and kids in a fire. Something went snap in his head and he took to the living on the streets. The last time Steelie saw him all his teeth had been kicked out by a gang of youths.

- These two other tramps who stood about under a tree all day waiting for some guy. Actually, I may have heard that story somewhere else.

Anyway, it gets to chucking-out time, we stagger home, I show him to my sister's room (shut up, she was away as well) and say goodnight. The next morning I haven't been murdered, he's still there, I give him a cuppa and send him on his way. End of story, or so I thought.

That night, he was back.

The old chap looked somewhat the worse for drink. "Mate," said he, "you've been generous enough already, I'll just sleep in the garden if it's all right by you." He wouldn't accept the offer of a bed, so I gave him a sleeping bag, and he laid himself out on a bench.

The next morning I awoke, looked out of my window, and saw him still down there. Being the ever-generous soul that I am, I made a cup of tea and took it out to him. Steelie, it was clear, was in a perturbed state of mind. He had a kind of dismayed expression on his face, as if he'd just heard Princess Di unexpectedly come out with a really racist joke.

"I really need to see my missus," he said. "If you give me some money I can catch the bus to York and she can pick me up from there."

'Aha!' I thought. 'Here comes the sting!' "Listen, I don't feel comfortable giving you money," I said (my generosity strangely disappears when it comes to parting with actual cash), "but you can ring your missus from here and hitch-hike to York." He agrees, and I hang around sheepishly in the garden while he makes his call. He hangs up, and comes over.

"A bit of bad news, mate. She's left me."

And THAT is how I found myself sitting on a bench in my garden, in a dressing gown, comforting a heartbroken tramp.

Turns out WI-lady had grown increasingly frustrated with Steelie's unwillingness to fully give up his hobo lifestyle - it's not something you can really do part-time - and they'd had a bit of a bust-up, hence the trip to her sister's and now her callous if understandable phone-dumping. I sat with him on that bench for the best part of four hours, listening to his thoughts on life and women. At one point he got out a little book from his bag and read me a poem. I started wondering if he was ever going to leave - if when my parents returned in a week's time I would have to make out like he was some wacky uncle who'd always lived with us, like when they write in new characters to an American sitcom. It was gone noon by the time he finally decided to depart. I gave him a couple of cans of beer for his journey, and away he trudged, out of my life, forever.

My friend who runs a charity shop in York saw him a couple of days later and gave him some clothes. Beyond that I don't know what became of Steelie. Nor do I know if any of his tale was true, but it seems an elaborate lie to tell for a place to sleep and two cans of Carling.

Personally, I don't think I'd do what I did again, but I learnt a lot about trust and human nature (and famous tramps, obviously). Steelie didn't murder me, and he didn't steal anything. And he did get rid of those kids in the churchyard - not through army skills but through genuine tramp cunning. But that is yet another story...
(Richard of York gained battles in vain, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 21:56, 7 replies)

Grunge is not dead
I was enjoying an afternoon pint with a friend sitting outside a pub in Oxford on a glorious day several years ago, when we suddenly hear 'excuse me guys...'

We both looked up and there's a mid-twenties bloke, thick beard, straggly hair, looking like he's been sleeping rough.

Before he even says anything we both go for the automatic response:

'No, sorry mate...'
He looked a bit surprised
'Eh?'
'Haven't got anything to give you - sorry.'
Now he looked totally bemused...
'I'm... I'm not homeless- I was just going to ask for the time! I'm a student for fuck's sake!'

We paused for a moment, awkwardly as he was still stood there glaring at us, then my companion piped up...

'Well, have a fucking wash then - this is supposed to be a respectable university'.

I laughed my arse off... Then I felt sorry for the guy... Then I laughed my arse off some more.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 21:21, 2 replies)

Tramps
The town I am from is a shithole.
It doesn't really suffer from tramps or begging just the usual old alcoholics from the New Connection Centre littering the town with empty cans of Special Brew.
However one year the pub I worked in seemed to have an influx of tramps popping in to use the toilet/have a wash/sleep etc. I didn't have a problem with this. My attitude was simple-I didn't get paid enough to care.
Here is a few that stand out-
* Father Christmas, a lovely old man that looked like Father Christmas,he appeared around the start of December(weirdly!). He was very well spoken and obviously well educated and used to sing 'slow boat to china' to me. Told me about his life and how he became homeless when his business went bust 20 years previously. Used to let him sleep in the corner, occasionally waking him up to give him a free coffee. After xmas he disappeared! But he was nice, clean and didn't drink!

*Skate boy-this guy was the opposite to F.Christmas. A horrible little twat to be honest. Blatantly on some sort of drug he was rude to the customers and stole anything that wasn't screwed down. Eventually got banned from the premises for pissing all over the toilet walls.

And finally vomit lady, one of the customers came to the bar saying that the female tramp who had just left the toilet had a slight accident. When I went to look it was like a horror movie. Slight accident my arse. There was fucking puke everywhere, on the doors, toilet, ceiling, window, sink, needless to say I had to clean it up. It smelt like shit and took about 2 hours to clear up.

Funnily enough after the last incident I found a job that paid better.
(Jayde bored of shit tv!, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 20:33, 5 replies)

Trampism & alcoholism
I knew a tramp once who'd regularly (that is, every day) drink the best part of a bottle of vodka, then go and put his kids to bed. After a night of deeply troubled sleep, he'd get up and go to work, until that is, he was 'made redundant' after the booze made him take loads of time off work, due to his evening habit's propensity to make him 'stressed' and 'depressed'. After 4 months' off, and his drinking continued, he found that his only outlet was posting stuff to the web. His wife hated him, his children were distant from him, as he to them. After several months of this, he found a pattern into which he could fit. It was called "functional alcoholism". He was a tramp, or what we like to call a tramp, but his missus washed his clothes for him, so he didn't smell.

O hang, on...

Shit.
( petuniadb, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 20:04, 1 reply)

No Home in Motown
After my third divorce, I had lost my wife, small daughter, house, job, car and all. Another girlfriend had thrown me out into the streets and I was using a reconditioned bicycle to make my way around town and from bar to bar looking for the free luncheon tray on Sundays.
Hopelessly alcoholic, I stood tottering on a bridge in the rain one night and shouted to the heavens above, "Give me MORE, you motherfuckers!" That night some asshole stole my bicycle.
Clean and sober six years now. Re-united with ex. Still writing bullshit on websites.
(Devilbabytales, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 19:51, Reply)

I apprended a ham-thieving tramp
in the Peterborough branch of Te$c0 Xpress a few weeks back. I went to do my weekly shop one night after work and as I was about to select some cold cuts for sandwiches, I looked down and noticed, aghast, there was a drunk tramp sat in the chiller cabinet eating ham from a packet. I shouted a security guard and the tramp promptly tried to leg it, stuffing the packet of open ham into his pocket. He was caught and the ham was removed from his person. Strange thing is, he stole Value range ham. Surely if you were going to nick some you'd steal the pricer stuff?
(SpongyMonkey is an honorary East Anglian on, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 19:49, 3 replies)

And, in an almost cosmic piece of coincidence....
I just looked out the window and saw another of our local, er, "characters".

I'm currently sat in a bath robe in bed, suffering from a mild cold and a major hangover. My friend phoned me a few minutes ago and when I'm on the phone, I pace, so I got up and started wandering around. As I passed the window, I thought something was amiss outside, and closer inspection proved me right. There, on the grass behind the leisure centre, lay the woman who lives down the street. I thought at first she was dead, but she slowly struggled to her feet. It was like watching Bambi, but with the cute deer replaced by a witch. As I watched, she staggered out into the car park, where she promptly went down like a sack of potatoes again. I was about to get dressed and go over to help when som passing kids helped her up and took her home.

She went down like a ton of bricks in that car park! She'll probably not feel it though.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 19:35, Reply)

Lee, the happy hobo.
When I was about 15 I knew a guy called Lee. He used to hang around with me and the group of friends I had at that time which was fine because he was a fairly happy, decent guy and was pretty fun.
What was not fine was how dirty he was.
Now when I say “dirty” I don’t mean that he was just a bit smelly, I mean that he may have actually become toxic had he been allowed to live in that condition for a short while longer. During the time that I knew him he
leaned against a wall in another friend’s house, only to leave a stain that could not be cleaned off and actually seeped through and appeared again whenever they tried to paint over it (to my knowledge it is still there today),
randomly caught a pigeon then decided that cleaning his hands wasn’t necessary but just spraying them with deodorant would be good enough. Now that was bad but moments later he proceeded to eat using his pigeon-diseased, stinky spray encrusted hands,
turned a girl into a lesbian solely due to the fact that he was so disgusting and
threw himself down a fairly steep hill to get a pound that someone had dropped.
A few years later I happened to bump into Lee while walking through the town centre, he still looked liked a dirty hobo except the main difference to how he was before was that this time he actually was a hobo. But you know what? He was still very cheerful and didn't seem to have a care in the world. So the moral to this story is: you don't need material things to bring you happiness, you just need to decompose the part of your brain that creates emotions through years of living in filth.
( Mellicious is made of candy, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 19:20, Reply)

Sadly missed tramp.
I live in a small village which has more than it's share of...... normality impaired people, I suppose is the PC term. These days there's loads of junkies, weirdos and oddballs, but when I was a nipper, being eccentric made you a novelty, and one old fellow became legendary.

I'm not sure if "tramp" describes him fully as he did have a house, but apart from that he ticked all the boxes..... incoherent rambling? Check. Dirty, dishevelled appearance? Check. Rampant, special brew fuelled alcoholism? Check. The kids tortured him, but secretly we all loved old Wullie.

You'd see him every day, staggering round to the local shop. The shopkeeper would only sell him one can at a time, so every half hour he'd make his pilgrimage..... usually without much more than some loud incoherent ranting, but occasionally with a bit of indecent exposure to the girls who worked in the shop thrown in. When he was allowed into the local pub, he'd have hushed, intense arguments with an imaginary drinking partner about whos round it was. But two incidents really stick in my mind as the defining moments in his legendary career.

The first incident was when he was caught short, evidently after a huge bout of boozing. The fact that he was at home must have slipped his mind, as he burst out his front door, bollock naked, closed the door, pissed up it and with a tirade of abuse at onlookers went back inside.

That's nothing though. He set his house on fire.

The fire brigade arrived and put it out though, and not much damage was done. Before that though, Wullie managed to evacuate the building. Following fire safety guidelines rigidly, he did not attempt to take any valuables with him. Or any clothes. He burst from his smoke filled house in a hail of unintelligible ramblings wearing only a pair of slippers and a hat. That's not the best part though, oh no. His slippers were on fire.

He died a few years back and passed into legend. I heard that his wife had passed away when she was very young and he had never got over it, turning to drink to help cope. I found that very touching and sad.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 19:11, Reply)

Man of action.
My most fun encounter with a shackless bum was on the Queen's Jubilee weekend, and climaxed with me in the back of a free black cab being anxiously reassured by the driver that it would all be ok, and that we'd be at the hospital soon.

Ten minutes previously, I'd been taking a pleasant and very drunk walk back to my house with my girlfriend and another female acquaintance. As we neared the building, a particularly disturbed and dishevelled gentleman emerged from an adjacent alley, letting forth all manner of x-rated insults to the two women I was with.

In their wisdom, the ladies politely ignored him and continued on. I however, full of piss and righteousness, turned round and told the unwashed fuck to fuck the fuck off.

He stormed at me with madness in his eyes, so I gave him a hefty push and he fell to the floor. Then he stood up, pulled a knife out of his pocket, and shoved it between my ribs, just missing my very lucky heart.

Lol.

The downside of being that drunk is that I didn't appreciate the seriousness of the event, thinking he'd merely swung a punch, and I immediately fluctuated into "love" mode, accepting his frantic and (to me) inexplicable apologies and gently chiding him for being so confrontational. He disappeared sharpish, leaving me bewildered by his sudden change from angry psychotic to sheepish apologist.

Then I looked down at the alarmingly painful spot where he'd 'punched' me, and it all became very clear.

I don't initiate physical violence anymore. And if I were to, I certainly wouldn't initiate it with a fucking push. Idiot.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 18:41, 1 reply)

Cliche
I once saw a tramp fighting a pack of stray dogs for some food, then doing a runner hotly pursued by the same dogs - who were then chased by two cleaver wielding chinese blokes.

I had to stop and actually (cartoon style) rub my eyes and confirm what I was seeing.

Eastern Europe rocks.
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 17:56, 1 reply)

Inarguable logic
A mad boho mate was in london from berlin, nice summer day and we are 3 pubs in on a crawl. tramp with blanket and dog near the princess louise in holborn, 2 banks next door with cash machines doing the bleating act.
We are beer and sun enjoying and getting fed up with the noise.

" i`m hungry, can you help" after about 20 repetitions, graham is on one, puts on his best glasgie accent at full glasgie volume: ( assume capitals)
"ay pal, I can help, a bit of advice... eat the fucking dog" and there was a round of applause.
It got up and left with blanket and dog.
(tootired Is searching for a funny sig, nothing good so far, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 17:52, Reply)

long, sad story time
There's a woman who lives in our village, I'm not sure she's a tramp exactly but the rumours have her bouncing from one halfway house to the next.
As a younger woman she was quite the looker, a model, married with kids, good house etc. Unfortunately her husband had a problem with drink. The problem of course being that when he got pissed up he would come home and abuse the living shit out of her. Stories abound of the torture she had to put up with and it took its toll on her health but she stuck by him for love.

Until the time he locked her under the stairs and left her there for a week. She was only rescued when the neighbours wondered why the kids were going mental. He was arrested, they thankfully divorced but she was never the same. Her already fragile mind just snapped and she developed what can best be described as a serious multiple personality disorder. She lost the kids and house and began to turn up around the place over the years getting more and more dishevelled and more and more crazy.

Her day is spent walking the four miles into town and hanging around at the bus station, swearing to herself and shouting out the most random things at the top of her voice. Her favourite seems to be "RABBITS!" or possibly "RABBIS" I'm not sure but every person who passes by her is treated to a conspiratorial "YEAH HAHA! DON'T I JUST KNOW IT."

I was talking about to her a work colleague many years ago and he admitted she sounded familiar, I asked him to take a walk into town that lunchtime and have a look for himself. He reported back with much disgust that he passed by her as she was "sitting on the town hall steps, shit smeared tights around her ankles, literally pissing into the air."

I find it so sad how people can fall so far, sometimes through no fault of their own... but to my shame, I also laugh, I guess I'm a horrible human being.
(Suddenly, zebras Safe and sound for eternity, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 15:56, Reply)

Homeless Profiling
This tale lacks any sort of funny and is just more just a profile of homeless types.

I'm assuming most of you know what the UK homeless are like, often smelly, many fallen on hard times, alcohol, but quite often you can see they're in need of some food, water and maybe even a little small change if they seem the slightly more trustworthy type of hobo. It is very rarely that I see a homeless guy or girl and think "she's just lazy".

Very rarely, that was, until I went to Montpellier last week. I have never seen such a collection of lazy 'bohemian' bastards in my entire life. Now, there are those that are obviously addicts to some substance or other (how you can get off your tits on anything in that heat I just don't know, there's no motivation to when you make squelching noises everytime you try to peel yourself out of bed), but there are also those that no doubt spend all the cash you give them on weed and baggy trousers; someone needs to teach them the difference between bohemian and parasite.

There was one on the street regularly pestering me and the lady friend as we went by for a few euro each time. What put me off giving the cash to him in particular, even worse than the rest? The two sticks of incense burning next to him. There are people who are generally down and out and you have tossers like this taking the money that they otherwise may get and spending it on incense. One packet of incense costs the same as a litre bottle of water.

Fucking hippies.

(Aside from that, Montpellier, Sete, Nimes and Avignon are lovely cities, hell, the whole Languedoc Rousillon region is, and if you're strapped for cash you can always eat in the kebab shops that litter the region - South of France, not just for rich types!)


Tale 2: The fat little shit.
They start them young in Montpellier. Maybe it was the summer holidays or such, I don't really know the French school time table, but there was this around 13 or so years old Algerian kid - see the title - who would pester people on the street for "dix cents!". There was no reason that could be seen for this tosser to be on the streets hanging round the train station and nearby tramstop, he was well clothed, evidently very well fed, he was just an all round little shit. The thing that tops it off is when there's some lady walking through the train station eating a baguette and the kid adopts puppy eyes and points to his mouth whining, did I mention this kid was fat? She hit him.
(Frozen_Banana Shaved against the grain; thoroughly unrewarding., Sun 5 Jul 2009, 15:17, Reply)

One of my friends...
was drunk and made the comparison that tramps were like pigeons. Obviously we called him an idiot and put it down to drunk talk, then I actually thought about it.

They both hang around city centres.
They are both dirty.
They both live on the street or occasionally a derelict house.
They annoy and harass people
and if they don't get fed by food, money or cigs regularly then they will soon move to a different area of the city where they do get fed.
(Ginger_Whinger got in the newsletter!! =D, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 14:44, 1 reply)

The tramp thats not a tramp...he just doesn't believe it!
I have a friend of mines who believes in the world through age old eyes, all the morals of being a gentleman, a decent person, a hard working-elbow-grease kind of person...until he became old enough to leave his mum and become a STUDENT!

When the day came to become a STUDENT for the first week he believed in hygiene, proper food and good language but 4 years down the line...he has become more immoral than a tramp pissing on a brand new bmw with shiney wheels. Nuke food, canned beans and tesco value corned beef became his diet, language that makes even the chavs and neds blink stupidly and his pulling techniques on a saturday night. His morals are sunk lower than the titanic.

"Hey burd! you want a shag!" can be heard bellowed in the local night club full of skanks and chavs boozed up on white lightening and lambrini.

This once morally uncorruptable young man, believes that sitting on a street corner with eyes glazed and jaundiced coloured skin tones begging for spare change is better than working for minimum wage. Whats also most deprived is the fact he believes they are all happy being like that...

I weep for the future of mankind...in scotland in particular.
(EpeeDemic, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 14:34, Reply)

Down, but most certainly not out!
A few months ago, there was a scruffy looking female hanging around the doors of a Te$c0 supermarket a few miles away from where we live. She was uttering the usual 'Big Issue'chant to try to get the exiting shoppers to put some coins of the realm into her grubby palm in exchange for a copy of her quality publication.

As usual I just looked the other way so as to avoid any eye contact, but as we passed I could hear that she was talking quietly in between her 'Big Issue' chants. I could not help but look round and my gast was absolutely flabbered to observe that she had a mobile phone clamped to her ear, hence the talking.

Jesus H. Christ on a bike thought I, It wasn't that many years ago that only people who were of a high status in life would have a mobile - now even the fecking tramps have got them.
(Sir Les Patterson, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 14:22, 1 reply)

the tramps are my friends.
They're blowing in the wind. The tramps are blowing in the wind.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 13:24, Reply)

First day of secondary school
Me and a friend noticed there was a large amount of pennies on the floor,
mainly because people threw away thier change, so we picked up every
single penny we found of the floor that day. We made a bad first
impression to others considering everyone thought we were tramps, but we
made nearly a fiver in 3 hours..
( Scrambled Edd www.eddsworld.co.uk, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 13:16, 1 reply)

and finally
anyone who's ever been to hammersmith will know the mad old woman with the zimmer frame and a serious case of evil. she looks so frail and doddery, but only a fool will try to help her cross the road or to do her shopping... go near her, and she looks you in the face and screams:

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT GET THE FUCK OFF ME FUCK OFF

or words on a similar variant of this theme. she got me in tesco car park, when she was hobbling towards the doors at 9.55pm. there were kittens roasting away in hell with a better chance of getting their shopping before it closed at 10pm, so i naively offered to run in there for her. never again. my ears were ringing for hours.

she also loves to stop the traffic on the shep bush road, which is not, as such, what you might call traffic-free at the best of times, by hobbling sloooooowly across... then back again.....

but the real reason i hope she dies slowly and painfully, and then gets her corpse anally raped in the morgue, is that every single time i have to walk past her, she yells:

"OI BIG TITS" at me.

every.

single.

time.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 12:01, 16 replies)

No one I know
heard it on the radio years ago:

This woman was calling her cat, Whiskers, one night: "Whiskers. Come here Whiskers, I've got some food for you".

An old tramp with a beard came wandering up her garden path.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 11:55, Reply)

tramp dating
my friend evie is known for her randomness. she is forever picking up strange people or habits, and then just as carelessly forgetting about them.

so when she went to a friend's party by herself one night, she was very surprised when the hostess came up to her after about an hour, looking pretty fucked off, and said:

"evie, that guy you brought has just necked back everyone's beer."

evie had to really think for a minute, before saying in bewilderment that no, she definitely hadn't brought anyone with her.

turned out a stray tramp had followed her into the party. because it was evie, everyone had just assumed that they were together. unable to believe his luck, he had simply headed into the kitchen and gone to town on the free booze.

i really must try this tactic one evening...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 11:53, 2 replies)

rejection by tramp!
a few months ago, we were all out in london, helping my friend fliss get drunk enough to forget that it was a rather majorly depressing birthday number. fliss had just started seeing a new man, a very gorgey but silent and rather repressed swede. fliss was pretty keen, but she complained to us all the time that, whatever she did, the swedish robot remained incommunicado and non-tactile.

so at the end of the evening, we all staggered to covent garden tube. lots of people were pissed enough to buy hotdogs from the ebola shack outside the station. it was not a good look. people were smothered in mustard, ketchup and gurning away with mouths full of pigeon-meat. apart from the swede, who looked as if he had precision cut his hotdog with a protractor and scalpel.

when we got to the platform, there was a tramp sprawled out, holding up a card that said "HUNGRY". he had a rather weary-looking dog with him, which turned giant brown supplicating eyes on us. fliss decided that that the right thing to do, was to give the dog her sausage. now, arguably it's rude enough to feed someone's dog whilst ignoring the owner. but it's a damn sight ruder when you are drunk enough to think that catching your (appalled) boyfriend's eye whilst "seductively" sliding the sausage in and out of your mouth to suck off the mustard is "sexy". especially when you are plastered, and have hair and makeup everywhere.

so having performed her sausage fellatio, fliss sank theatrically to her knees and offered the sausage to the dog. which, having witnessed the same performance as the rest of us, naturally refused it. fliss tried a little harder, pressing the sausage into the poor mutt's face. the dog growled. at which point the tramp drawled possibly the worst line of rejection i've ever heard:

"please leave my dog alone. can't you see he doesn't want your sausage?"

rejected by a tramp's dog. does it get ANY lower than that?!

ps: she dumped the swede shortly afterwards in any event, when she caught him backcombing his hair over a baldpatch... and spraying it into place...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 11:47, 3 replies)

I once
helped out a young tramp lady, gave her a quid if she was waiting near my bus stop. We struck up a rapport, she'd ask me how my day'd been and I'd ask about hers. Then one day she'd gone. I was worried cuz she was on the game, I thought something terrible might have happened to her.

Turns out she got a flat in a housing association and a job as a cleaner in a local factory. Things were lookin up for her.

On the downside, though, bang went my one pound blowjob after work.
(Smitty Foster, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 11:42, Reply)

Blanket man
I saw another post about Blanket Man on here, which didn't seem too complimentary. He might seem a bit mental, but I'll never forget a story my brother-in-law told me about him.

He was in a convenience store trying to buy a coke, but didn't have enough money on his eftpos card. So Blanket Man pulls out a little purse and offers him $20 to pay for it.

My friend said he saw someone get a pile of cash out of a bank machine once, he has quite a following; homelessness isn't quite so prevalent here in Wellington.

Here's his wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hana
(hamishl, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 11:26, 3 replies)

Not funny on QOTW!
I stop and talk to most of the homeless people in my local town and the stories are all similar lots of times involving drugs, alcoholism etc but there was one guy and I couldn't get over how "normal" he looked. We got chatting and it turned out that he had lost his job and had come home to find his missus with someone else and the locks changed. He had literally lost everything in a very short period of time and back then you had to have been unemployed for a bit before they would help you. He was begging to raise enough for a deposit on a flat some he could beat the stupid "No house can't get a job, no job can't get a house cycle" Yeah Right I thought, thats what they all say. He was cold so I gave him my gloves a couple of quid for his tale of woe and off I went.

3 months later I walked in to my local Tes*o and there he was on the checkout. He had raised enough begging to pay the deposit on a small flat got a job and was on the road to recovery.

It just made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
( Peej, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 10:11, Reply)

Mistaken identity
I always was a scruffy chap, but neither really realised or cared. Until the day I sat down to sort out my shoelace in town and an old dear put 20p in my Fanta.
(DownhillGardener no-one does it like that anymore, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 8:26, Reply)