Nutter of the week
July 14th, 2006 at 18:51

A few days ago I was in Leicester with JD. It was around lunchtime, and I was taking advantage of the Pizza Hut Slicebar. Whilst eating, we sat on one of the benches around the central clock tower, and ruminated over the major issues of the day (ie: Israel Vs Lebanon, DRM Vs Fair usage, Daddy Vs Chips).

Things turned a bit sour when a strange man approached us. “S’cuse me mate, couldn’t give us a quid could you?”. Not a very original opening line- I’ve had a number of nutters say this to me. What makes it interesting is the value they ask for- a female nutter in Northampton a few weeks ago asked for only thirty pence to make a “phone call”. This being a low value, is she expecting more punters to cough up some dosh? Does a low amount create a higher success rate? Would she overall net more money than a similar nutter asking for a pound or two? What would be the optimal amount to ask for? It’s like supply and demand in action!

“Sorry, I’ve got no money”, I eventually replied after thinking all of the above. What made this worse was his fixed gaze… he just kept looking at me, and didn’t seem to blink once. When he wasn’t speaking, his mouth hung open slightly, so that you could see the missing tooth on the bottom of his jaw. Or more accurately: the space in his teeth where the missing tooth should have been.

“How about a bit of your pizza then?”

“Sorry, I’m really hungry” – this wasn’t a lie, I was genuinely hungry.

“Just one slice!”, he said, looking increasingly frustrated. I believe at this point he clenched his fists even more- although I might have made this up to make the story slightly better.

“…Sorry…”, I said in a timid voice.

“I only want a bit!”, he persisted. I was getting a bit worried at this point because he just wouldn’t take the hint and go away. I suddenly remembered I had an iPod in my pocket, and a fairly decent (it has a colour screen) mobile phone.

For some reason JD decided to chip in at this point, “have you forgot your wallet?” in an upbeat way that contrasted nicely with the nervous wreck that I had become.

“No, I’m fuckin’ homeless!” the street urchin angrily scowled, before storming off.

When he thought the coast was clear, JD remarked “that’s one way to go about it”. Unfortunately, another tramp was sat near to us- we should have realised because he had a dog on a piece of string and a big beard, and he called at the bloke, and he came storming back.

“What did you say?!”, he cried at JD in a “I’m looking for a fight, as I’m at rock bottom with nothing to lose” tone.

“Nothing, sorry”, JD said, saving his life and my iPod in the process. And the nutter finally walked off.

The worst thing is that I feel bad about not surrendering my lunch and money to this Nutter of the Week because he was homeless. He’s probably sitting in a cold sewer crying right now, whilst I sit here in my penthouse lighting cigarettes with 50s.

Tip for the homeless: the more threatening you act, the guiltier your victims will feel!

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Nutter of the week
May 4th, 2006 at 23:32

I had an exam today, for the first time in nearly a year. Unusually, it was a “seen” exam, which meant I had 24 hours beforehand to spend on Wikipedia revising, so that what I would end up writing would be super-excellent. Instead of doing this, I spent the time refreshing my Google Adsense account to see what sort of silly-money I was making.

I was quite worried about the exam for one reason, and one reason alone. I hadn’t used a pen since that last business studies exam eleven months ago- would I remember how to hold it? Could I remember how to write? I had to fill in a form when I bought my laptop on Monday (for a Staples loyalty card)- it provided little boxes in which I could write each individual letter in my name, and even then my scrawl was practically indecipherable. And now I had to write an entire essay by hand.

As it turned out, I couldn’t actually read back what I’d written, and my handwriting seems to have turned into what looks like Hebrew, or one of those alphabets where each character is connected to a line.

As I’m now an invigilator, I was sort of hoping for an “is there a doctor on the plane?” moment. I wanted one of the people at the front of the room to cry, “Oh no! Our star invigilator is down! We might have to cancel the exam… unless… Is there an invigilator in the room?!”, at which point I’d leap up and answer the call of duty. Unfortunately the closest this came to happening was when I deliberately tried to trip one of the real invigilators up as they walked past me.

After the exam, myself, Mike and Rob, who you may remember from previous blog updates, went to Polar Bear for a few games of Pool. After I’d thrashed Mike a couple of times, and he’s got hilariously angry about it, I encountered my latest Nutter Of The Week.

Polar Bear, as you might have guessed by its hip name is a very studenty pub. In fact, it’s just across the road from my university. It has loud music, a quiz machine, pool, big TVs, a video jukebox, sofas, and very studenty branding. Everyone in there is under-25. Or so I thought.

A man who looked like he was in his 50s, who was wearing a fairly smart, light blue shirt approached us, pint of beer in hand, and introduced himself. “Hello, my name is John”, he said, shaking our hands. “Could I play pool with you?”, he quivered. He looked like a slightly creepier version of Michael Palin, with less hair.

There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to play pool with this guy- here was a man who was blantantly too old to be in a pub of this nature, as it just looks wrong. When I told my mum this story, she suggested that he might have been a paedophile.
Rob, Mike and myself looked at each other nervously, as if to say with our eyes, “how can we get this strange old man to go away?”. My eyes darted from Mike, to Rob, to John, whilst making “Umm…” and “Erm….” sounds, hoping that stalling would allow him to take the hint, rather than prolongue the agony. “I just want to play… because I love the game”, he said, pitifully. He looked like he wanted to cry.

After a lifetime of half sentences, such as “We were just about to…”, “I’m going to…”, “You’re a bit…”, he finally took the hint and sighed, and looked genuinely disappointed and saddened by our declination by proxy.
This didn’t deter him though- he approached the other two groups of people around the other two pool tables. The first seemed to handle it better than us, and got rid of him within seconds, and the second seemed to be having either an encounter as awkward as ours, or were having a chat with him. Either way, they didn’t end up playing pool with him.

On his way out, defeated, he walked past us again, asking for one final time, “So you don’t want to play pool with me, then?”. He’d turned away and started walking before we’d even opened our mouths.

Poor John.

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Hustler II
April 22nd, 2006 at 01:36

I’ve just been to the pub with JD, Fundar and Andy. It’s a nicer pub than the one I used to go- it had a relatively friendly atmosphere, the paintwork was largely intact, and the customers were not just four old drunks sitting at the bar. There were perhaps 40 moderately drunk people of varying age instead.
After enduring watching Fundar play on the pinball machine for what felt like hours, I’d put in a pound for three games, and had only played the one. The theory was that I’d go back to it after having a break to have a drink and discussion about Berlusconi with my friends. Unfortunately, a freeloader man of perhaps his mid-thirties came along and used my two extra credits- I daren’t say otherwise.

After a few minutes he turned around to our table, which was strategically positioned between the pinball machine, the women’s toilets and the sewage pipe which used to be outdoors until they built an extension, and wanted to know if we’d participate in a bet. His first offer was £10 if Fundar could beat him at pinball- seeing that he’d scored a tiny amount on my two credits, it sounded like a good idea.

However, we were slightly smarter than this- the last time we were hustled (though at pool), the hustler had acted dumb, not knowing how to put money into the machine, or set the balls up, up until the point where we declined the bet… then he cleared the table. I think this latest hustler was merely playing badly to try and encourage us to bet.

After Fundar continued to refuse his offers, he changed his tune- “I’ll take your watch if I win, or I’ll give you £200″. After much laugher, and challenging him as to whether he did actually have £200, he produced a wad of £20 notes out of his back pocket. He was either a career hustler, a crook, or someone who is reasonably well paid. In cash.

Fundar wasn’t having any of it- continual refusal to bet lead the man to frustration. “£200 says the next person to walk through that door is a women”. Needless to say, this bet wasn’t agreed to, as the hustler obviously had some sort of stooge just waiting to walk in.
Minutes later the door swung open to reveal a man, who got a huge cheer from our table (well, the other three), and directly pointed at by Fundar. The look of bewilderment on the innocent man’s face was obvious.

Later in the evening we moved to the nice part of the pub, the part that wasn’t near the toilets, now that less people were there. From our new seats we could see the hustler, this time playing the fruit machine and winning. He soon came over to us again, whilst we were looking through the Daily Express for references to Princess Diana (there were seven), and he said to Fundar, “a five says there’s a bird [woman] on the next page”, followed by the slightly more bizarre “£200 says the next person to walk through that door is a woman… if you lose, you shave off all of your hair”.

I think he was a bit of a nutter.

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Nutter of the week #4
February 16th, 2006 at 23:31

I was walking back to the station today, minding my own business- literally! I was listening to Audioslave, as you do, oblivious to the world around me.

I felt a tap on my shoulder- I spun around and pulled my headphones out expecting to see someone I vaguely knew- only to be confronted with the grinning face of this week’s Nutter of the Week!

He just grined at me and laughed at the fact that he’d surprised me, as my listening to music meant that I couldn’t hear stealthy pedestrians. What made matters worse was that some of his teeth were missing, making him look even more intimidating. I was fucking terrified.

“Sorry!”, I cried- apologising for nothing, before running off as fast I could. I turned back to see him laughing. He may have been pointing too but the fear meant that I only had time to see his awful face, now tilted back with his mouth gaping open in laughter at me.

From this point until I got home, I oscillated my head back and fourth like a radar, terrified that he was going to return for the actual rape.

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Nutter of the week #3
February 8th, 2006 at 00:13

I was walking into town with Mickey (of Uni fame… you don’t need any backstory on him, he’s essentially a one-dimensional character with a catchphrase) and a man who was quite clearly on a “come down” from drugs spoke to us.

“Sorry to be cheeky, but you couldn’t lend us a…”, he asked pathetically.

“Sorry!”, I cried, cutting him off, before ducking my head to make myself more aerodynamic, and increasing my walking pace away from him.

Michael later explained to me how this drug addicted street vagrant had asked him word-for-word exactly the same thing a few days earlier- proving that being a drug user is equally as creative as being a tillmonkey. More interestingly and alarming still, it turns out that Michael, who in the past is known to have given a monk four english pounds, gave this nutter eighty pence. Its not even as if this money will go to a good cause, like what might have happend with the monk- it was clearly going to be spent on drugs.

I think the most unusual thing was how smartly dressed this vagrant was. He obviously wasn’t wearing a suit- but his casual wear appeared cleaned and ironed. I can’t quite figure at which point in the injecting/begging/sleeping in the gutter cycle it will occur to him “Hmm… maybe I should iron my clothes?”. Maybe he just buys steals some more clothes every few days? I’d imagine his hoodie will have a fair few holes in the arms after a while. Any drug addicts know why he was so well presented? Use the comments function below!

I suppose it’s not all bad being a drug-addicted street vagrant though- who knows, one day you might end up being James O’Malley’s Nutter of the Week!

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Nutter of the week #2
October 18th, 2005 at 19:08

In between lectures today I went into “town” with Michael, or “Mickey”, as I’m attempting to nickname him. Three pictures say more than hundreds of words ever could:

We first came across this shop – “Why spend more, when you can spend less?” was the slogan (I’ve fixed up the grammar. It’s just… stating the obvious… and rubbish.

I spotted this hilarious sign outside one shop- two hats for £4. The sign, in keeping with the Leicestershire accent, is written “Two ‘ats”, which I think is brilliant. I especially like how they’ve added an apostrophy, rather than just ommitted a letter. Maybe they should have shortened it to “Tw”ats”?

I’m afraid to say that I’ve got another “Nutter of the week” – I think I was tempting fate by hoping in an earlier blog entry that it wouldn’t be a regular feature.

When in town, this bloke in a bright orange coat approached us, and had a slow, calm voice of Kofi Annan-proporitions. He explained in an annoyingly slow way how he was a monk (despite not looking like one) and was doing charity work. Then, of course, “would you like to make a donation?”

Mike, not being as street-smart as me immediately offered up FOUR ENGLISH POUNDS as a “donation”. He’d just given £4.00 aka: 4 litres of Coca-Cola, to a nutter!

To be fair to the nutter, though, he did insist that Michael take a “free” book about being a monk or whatever. For some reason, Mike used this opportunity to ask a horribly open-ended question… could he explain what both book choices were about?

So he made his sales pitch- this bloke compared what I assume to be his equvilent of The Bible to Lord of the Rings, claiming it was full of monsters and wizards- and taught lessons along the way! I don’t know what sort of religion you have to be to compare your holy work of fiction to the novelisation of a popular film (I know, I know), but it’s not like… good for credibility? Surely?

I don’t know. After making a swift exit from the monks field of vision- Mike still clutching his free £4 book, we continued on our way- including a stop at WH Smith to see how much The Beano is these days. It’s 80p!

Mike spent some time reading his book, as he’s into extremeist politics and ideas. Here’s a picture of him ruminating over the meaning of life:

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Nutter of the week
October 11th, 2005 at 21:21