An Englishman in Poland
A few times I was saved from certain violence merely by being a foreigner. On the first occasion, I was being dragged into a notorious mafia dive where they steal your phone and wallet and make you pay for their return. The cyclopoid gorilla dragging me in froze startled when I said "Sorry I don't want to be robbed today, thanks." It wasn't my Wildean repartee that stopped him, just the fact that he had no idea what I was saying.

Another time, I was waiting for a bus in a shelter where a drunk was systematically smashing all the windows with his foot and wailing insanely about something or other. Noticing my presence, he roared up to me and yelled some spit-flecked anguish into my face, to which I responded: "No, sorry. You'll have to say that again in English." Dumbfounded, he politely muttered apologies and went back to smashing up the shelter.

It didn't work, however, in Warsaw train station - a hive of begging junkies last time I was there. When a human scarecrow approached me and asked for a few groszy, I said that I didn't understand Polish and he responded, "Oh, forgive me. I wonder if you could spare a few coins for my drug habit."

They have a better class of drug addict there.
(frankspencer, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 14:54, 1 reply)

my brother...
...always gives money to beggars who are honest about what they want to spend it on ie booze and drugs. The old 'I need £10 to get into a nightshelter' bollocks cuts no ice with an ex-hardcore squatter.

a) nightshelters are surely free, and
b) £10, eh? Coincidentally the same price as a bag of smack. How odd....
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 14:57, closed)