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Actually that's a good name for a band. Anyway any one got an odd character living in their neighbourhood? Or a funny fella in their sweet shop? Or did you used to work with Captain Howdy?

I work in Westminster and there's a really peculiar man/woman that wanders around that I see walking down Victoria Street occasionally. I'll call her she as it makes it easier... Anyway at all times of the year she wears the skimpiest clothes. Bearing in mind, it's currently freezing out there I saw her on Monday wearing a so thin it was transparent white cotton dress that just covered her crotch and a flimsy anorak that was unbottoned. No tights so these huge slabs of very white porky legs were uncovered and no bra so two enormous water melon sized boobs were rolling around. The only recognition that it might be cold was a woolly hat. Reading that description you might think she's a hooker but bear in mind she's about 60 and walks like a man, legs wide apart as if they're accomodating another pair of water melons between them. She also has a large head with rugged manly features. If it wasn't for the enormous breasts (that you can see are genuine because the cotton's so thin) you'd have no doubt it was a man. Weird, er, man.

Any more?

Good lord. Poor love, where are the families or friends of these unfortunates? Well this thread will last to the end of the year as my haunting ground/several jobs/past/present/hopefully not future is in woolwich. One guy sticks out, love him. This african guy, who I call the brolly basher, curses the buses as they pull out. He taps the windows with his battered brolly and says 'Today you die.' He's being doing it forever. I found out the story behind it when I was running a jewellery concession in woolwich when I was 18 yrs old. The market traders told me that he came over from Africa decades back to work and his wife and child were supposed to join him when he was settled. Unfortunately they died in a plane crash and ever since he's felt compelled to make strangers lose their loved ones on transport too I used to pray he wouldn't choose my bus as i'm a superstitious old goat. He has a few times. Once he stood just staring at me though I never made eye contact with him. Even though he wished for death on us all, I really felt for him. Next week I shall tell you about Growth neck. *Stephen King shuffles in a nervous fashion on chair*

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Jarvis Cocker or David Bowie or AVB or Johnny Borrell, she isn't picky

Cavey Cocker, Cup Cake Queen, Saint Thomas.

Cavey’s yarn reminds me of a similar character to be found down in Brighton. He’s one of those old men of an indeterminable age – anything from 50 to 90 – sporting one of those bulbous, red noses and has that look that is 50% wino tramp and 50% well-heeled eccentric (is that tweed jacket a family heirloom or did he just half-inch from outside a charity shop??).

Anyway, he walks up and down Western Road all day and every time a bus comes past, he stops, beckons the driver and does some conspiratorial nose-tapping and finger pointing, while grinning inanely.

Alas, I don’t know why he does this, though he seems to be saying “I know your game, young man, driving a bus eh? Hardest game in the world that.. 30 years man and boy.”

That said, he could equally be wishing death on everyone on board. I simply do not know.

Every Saturday this woman stands on the spot outside Finsbury Park station and listens to her walkman. I suppose it's not that odd but when I moved in to my flat in Stokey I had to go past that area three or four times in about 7-8 hours and she was still there on that same spot jigging about... she must get through a load of batteries.

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Tall, moustachioed alcoholic - plays firewood with a bow.

Too many in Hackney. I wouldn't know where to start.

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If Ian Curtis had lived, and enjoyed the ale…

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It's weird enough, VV - a walkmen in today's ipod age? Growth neck man I accounted while working for Dorothy Perkins. At 4.45 I used to stand at the exit to watch the high street world go by and one day I caught his eye. He had a growth the size of a pool ball dangling from his neck - what kept it suspended was tissue/skin - too thin it would appear for the job in hand. Anyhoo, I digress, from then on he'd come into the store bearing gifts for me. He asked me to marry him on several occassions and after being rejected for the umpteenth time he became agressive. He handed me a note one day with his number/address on and said that if I never came to live with him (i'd been demoted from the marriage league it would appear) something bad would happen to me. I told him that 'something bad' was my life so I would not be able to tell the difference. I never saw him again. Next week, Kids, Fagan and the Pikey twins...

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Jarvis Cocker or David Bowie or AVB or Johnny Borrell, she isn't picky

Cavey Cocker, Cup Cake Queen, Saint Thomas.

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Jarvis Cocker or David Bowie or AVB or Johnny Borrell, she isn't picky

Cavey Cocker, Cup Cake Queen, Saint Thomas.

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Looks like Elijah Wood. Supports Liverpool. Likes Coldplay.

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If Ian Curtis had lived, and enjoyed the ale…

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Is the subtitle of this thread “…apart from members of this board?”

It’s a bit conformist to define “normal” behaviour. As punk rockers we should be embracing the transgressive. Or are we ‘rebels without claws’? Anyway, what’s ‘normal’ behaviour in London?

I used to see a guy on the tube who either had Tourettes or was just aggressive, who used to mutter all sorts of profanities that only people around him could hear and then shout “bunch of cunts!” to the whole carriage. Always wore baseball cap and dark glasses. Then there’s the bloke who I see if I’m so late that I have to catch the 8.59 from Bromley South. You don’t notice him until you’re suddenly aware of a bloke motoring between about 4 carriages, bumping people and seemingly looking for a seat (there are usually lots of empty ones) but always harrumping and then moving at speed in the opposite direction. And then back again. He’s like an uneasy ghost but his behaviour is so extreme that people laugh at him rather than punch him.

I also used to have a temp in my team at work who told us that he was only temping until he joined the Paras. He used to go running at lunchtimes and weekends with a rucksack full of bricks, though he never seemed to get any bigger. His credibility dropped through the floor when another member of my team found out that all his clothes (moleskin trousers, etc) were bought for him by his mother at Harrods. He never made the Paras or even the TA (I still see him occasionally, off to his dogsbody’s job at a stockbrokers).

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Pukka Pie pest

Embrace the margin
Always Changing at Retford http://sptxx.tumblr.com/
Not Changing at Retford http://sptxx2.tumblr.com/

just to back up Tom, there really are too many to name if you live in Hackney...it's just one of those places.

i used to hang out with Giorgiana from Mitten a lot and there were all these mad, mad characters that would walk up and down her street (not in Hackney) and she used to talk to them and was really kind to them and stuff. i think she may've even recorded them for her songs. you could tell she really cared about them.

the ones i seem to come across though are more of the 'angry, toothless crackhead. variety...

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"Baby, don't make the Egyptian Lover come in there and show you what time it is"

I bet he doesn't even need a wheelchair. I recal today blind eye willie - when I were a barmaideth in Welling (I survived) there were a man without the use of his eyeths - I had been there a week and he felt his way to the bar and said 'Would you guide me to the toilet please?' Wanting to help the general public in any way that I could I abandoned my surroundings to taketh his hand to walk him to the gents. From behind me a hand tapped my shoulder, it were my fellow barman. 'Can I speak to you a secondeth' he asked. I told Colonel Blink to stand still while I engaged in convo with my partner in closing time. 'He knows exactly where the loo is. He's been coming here for years. He asks each new member of staff to guide him to the loo - then he asks you to come in with him and then he asks you to get it out for him and hold it and guide it.' Barmaneth was whispering to me. 'Well I wouldn't have fallen for that one!....tell me you didn't hold it for him?' I added. He avoided my eyes as he gruntled 'No I didn't, but several have!'* So I wandered back over to the Colonel and started to guide him to the exit. 'Where are we going?' he asked while licking his lips. 'To the gents, Sir, as requested.' I replied. 'But this way leads to the exit.' he informed me like I did not know. 'Well if you know that, Sir, you can find the tinkle factory on your own.' I concluded before washing my hands off him.
*Yes, I can't believe people actually held it for him too...

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Jarvis Cocker or David Bowie or AVB or Johnny Borrell, she isn't picky

Cavey Cocker, Cup Cake Queen, Saint Thomas.

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sometimes I write things....

In Poole, there's a bloke who, every Saturday, will engage in a long conversation about a Deep Space Nine DVD, ponder over whether it's the right one he's looking for, buy it, only to return it within an hour, claiming that it's not the one he's after. Every week.

Similarly to Jim Gibb's blokey, there's also a woman who can regularly be seen swaggering from one end of the high street to the other with long bedraggled hair, massive sunglasses, not saying a word to anybody, just carrying a (loud) beat box on her shoulder.

There's also a man who, if you make eye contact, will talk to you for hours on end about how he hooks his PC up to his home stereo so he can watch DVDs. He can be found in the most random of places, at the most inconvenient times.

In Farnham, there's a man called Eric. He walks around all day, mumbling to himself. He's built up such a cult fanbase, and everyone is so endeared by the man, that he now can't get from one end of the high street to the other without somebody saying, 'Hello Eric!', and this makes him angry. Rumour has it, he was once up for a nobel price in mathematics. How true this is, I do not know.

Just back from Lewisham. Jeez that place attracts the nutters. You get stared at down there if you're not standing around with a mini PA shouting "Eat less protein!" or sat in the window of a charity shop drinking 59p a can 9% white cider. Had to race off to Greenwich for some culture and bargain CDs.