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Odd People: Cranks, Eccentrics & Nutters

I was sitting in the car on Mother's Day while my daughter fetched some fish and chips as we hadn't had take away for ages and she had to wait in the car for 10 minutes till it was ready because of social distancing.
Anyway I noticed this chap from the local group home walk past. He's a large person with a bushy beard and hasn't changed in the 10 years since I last saw him.
I noticed a movement and saw him on the footpath and wondered if I should ring for help as there's no way I would have been able to lift him.
Then I saw he had a mobile to his ear and that he was calling hello to people as they walked past, some of whom gave him money
When I told my friend who lives not far from there she said he does it all the time. and that the other one from the home who asks for $2 was back and asked them if they would drive him home although they had walked.
He's one reason I don't shop there now as he always appears and wants a ride and or money.
Apparently they are are given an allowance by some government agency but they want extra for cigarettes and drink.
The woman who used to come and actually took money from my hand I was waiting to pay for bread rolls hasn't been seen for ages so it's thought maybe she's not allowed out now.
 
Iris said:
I was sitting in the car on Mother's Day while my daughter fetched some fish and chips as we hadn't had take away for ages and she had to wait in the car for 10 minutes till it was ready because of social distancing.
Anyway I noticed this chap from the local group home walk past. He's a large person with a bushy beard and hasn't changed in the 10 years since I last saw him.
I noticed a movement and saw him on the footpath and wondered if I should ring for help as there's no way I would have been able to lift him.
Then I saw he had a mobile to his ear and that he was calling hello to people as they walked past, some of whom gave him money
When I told my friend who lives not far from there she said he does it all the time. and that the other one from the home who asks for $2 was back and asked them if they would drive him home although they had walked.
He's one reason I don't shop there now as he always appears and wants a ride and or money.
Apparently they are are given an allowance by some government agency but they want extra for cigarettes and drink.
The woman who used to come and actually took money from my hand I was waiting to pay for bread rolls hasn't been seen for ages so it's thought maybe she's not allowed out now.
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You always have your "con" wo/men no matter who they are. I work with people who are developmentally challenged and some try various things to get extras from people. It is mainly because of patronizing ( not directing this comment at any one, just my thought) ideas that people have towards others who are different to them, that they believe they don't know better. Believe me they are not different and certainly know different, they just know that most will let them get away with it.
I try to treat people equally, and I call them out on the con if they try to use it on me. Often then I'm left alone.
 
The health tips of John McAfee. I have no idea what this stuff is:

I'm 74. How do I survive 2 quarts of whiskey and 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes every day?

Because I also take 3,000 mg of N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, inject 5,000 mcg. of Cyanicobalamin and take massive amounts of milk thistle extract, magnesium, calcium and thiamine daily.

Simple. https://t.co/hqChbbCYf9

Methelynedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV)

a-php

a-pbp

Absolutely NOT for beginners!!!!!!

I FUCKING MEAN IT!!!!!!!!!!

And as a Catholic I should be offended by his evening prayer but I'm too much amused for that:

Yes. Forgot.

"Dear gods, ... whichever one of you is awake and caring, if any, please bring as much pussy into my life as I can handle. Amen".

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1265325435606519809
 
uair01 said:
The health tips of John McAfee. I have no idea what this stuff is:

I'm 74. How do I survive 2 quarts of whiskey and 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes every day?

Because I also take 3,000 mg of N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, inject 5,000 mcg. of Cyanicobalamin and take massive amounts of milk thistle extract, magnesium, calcium and thiamine daily.

Simple. https://t.co/hqChbbCYf9

Methelynedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV)

a-php

a-pbp
Click to expand...

N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine = semi-essential amino acid
Cyanicobalamin = synthetic vitamin B12
Milk thistle = might or might not be good for the liver
Thiamine (vitamin B1) = Thiamine might not properly enter the body in some people who have liver problems, drink a lot of alcohol, or have other conditions

Methelynedioxypyrovalerone = stimulant illegal in many countries ("bath salts")

Summary : He's taking in dangerous levels of alcohol and drugs, and supplements to try to counteract the effects it'll be having on his liver.
 
uair01 said:
The health tips of John McAfee. I have no idea what this stuff is:

I'm 74. How do I survive 2 quarts of whiskey and 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes every day?

Because I also take 3,000 mg of N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, inject 5,000 mcg. of Cyanicobalamin and take massive amounts of milk thistle extract, magnesium, calcium and thiamine daily.

Simple. https://t.co/hqChbbCYf9

Methelynedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV)

a-php

a-pbp

Absolutely NOT for beginners!!!!!!

I FUCKING MEAN IT!!!!!!!!!!

And as a Catholic I should be offended by his evening prayer but I'm too much amused for that:

Yes. Forgot.

"Dear gods, ... whichever one of you is awake and caring, if any, please bring as much pussy into my life as I can handle. Amen".

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1265325435606519809
Click to expand...


Yeah well, Be that as it may...how can he afford It?!
 
He "nicks" those hats and sells them on eBay (?).
 
cycleboy2 said:
Not sure whether this lives in this thread but it's definitely Fortean and Viktor Wynd lives up to the 'strange folk' epithet. I can't see him mentioned on this forum but feel free to move if it's a repeat/clash.

Viktor basically collects fortean exhibits that he shows at a museum-cum-absinthe bar in East London. The whole story smacks of an elaborate scam but I'm assuming the Guardian aren't pulling an early April fool on us!

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...ector-museum-of-curiosities-unnatural-history
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Not managed to visit Hackney yet but it's on the list.

Bad Bungle said:
I visited the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle yesterday - I still cannot believe it has been 15 years since I saw the devastating flooding on the News. The trip did confirm one small story for me though: I half-read that a wooden sign for the "Witches Cottage" had been swept away out to sea with so much of the debris, but had been later discovered on a beach in Wales. I suspect I had seen this on the web-page of the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities (the best WunderKabinett combined with a Tapas & Cocktail Bar in Hackney), as it was collaborating with the Boscastle Museum on an exhibition last year.
I mentioned the sign to the Museum Staff who were sufficiently intrigued to phone up a colleague who had been around long enough to remember. Yes, the sign had been found in Wales and the discoverer had travelled to Boscastle to hand it over to the Museum personally.
If it had been me, I would have been tempted to have kept it.
Click to expand...
 
Train on the way home pulls into a station platform and stops. Chap in opposite window seat looks out, sees it's his stop and stands up. He then neatly fold his newspaper, opens briefcase and puts paper in. Closes briefcase. He then opens another case and puts his laptop away. He puts his coat on, puts his pen (used for crossword) in a pocket and checks his ticket wallet. He then picks up his bags and saunters to the train door. As no-one has got on or off in the carriage, the doors have remained closed and he is jabbing at the 'open' button. But the doors won't open as the train is now on the move again. He gets irate and jabbing action increases, but finally he has no option but to sit back down until the next stop. He was ready for that one.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Train on the way home pulls into a station platform and stops. Chap in opposite window seat looks out, sees it's his stop and stands up. He then neatly fold his newspaper, opens briefcase and puts paper in. Closes briefcase. He then opens another case and puts his laptop away. He puts his coat on, puts his pen (used for crossword) in a pocket and checks his ticket wallet. He then picks up his bags and saunters to the train door. As no-one has got on or off in the carriage, the doors have remained closed and he is jabbing at the 'open' button. But the doors won't open as the train is now on the move again. He gets irate and jabbing action increases, but finally he has no option but to sit back down until the next stop. He was ready for that one.
Click to expand...
First time on a train? Or he's landed in his own parallel universe. His real one involves riding a train that runs on his schedule.
 
AlchoPwn said:
I also own a kabuto that sits on the mantle piece in my study. Does that make me a Samurai? Nope, just a cashed up tourist.
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I note you already sport a fine piece of headgear. Therefore, using the deductive reasoning of Lyndon Larouche I therefore can categorically state that you are in fact Jay Kay of Jamiroquai, and nicked at least one kabuto from John McAfee, whilst also inserting subliminal messages in your darn catchy jazz-funk tunes in order to lay us open to your hat-acquiring antics! o_O
 
This might not be the best Thread for the article below. If a Mod spots a better one then please move it.

Then & Now by Jason Wordie
Cranks and eccentrics: the Westerners who tried to assimilate in Asia
30 July 2020



Officers of a French mission in China, circa 1890. Photo: Getty Images

Officers of a French mission in China, circa 1890. Photo: Getty Images

“Orientalist”, in both scholarly and popular writing, has been a term of abuse ever since the publication of Edward Said’s deliberately controversial polemic Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (1978). This now-pejorative word generally refers to a “white” male authority on some aspect of “non-white” cultures. But there was a time – not that long ago – when “Orientalist” was an admiring label that recognised a consuming desire to learn about, know and understand cultures and societies profoundly different from one’s own.
Instead of reinforcing a sense of racial or cultural superiority – as Said and his acolytes wearily insist – why could it not equally end, as the late Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans noted, “in admiration, wonderment, increased self-knowledge, relativisation and readjustment of one’s own values, and awareness of the limitations of one’s own civilisation?”

Alexander Grantham, governor of Hong Kong from 1947 to 1957, pithily observed Orientalists in his chatty memoir Via Ports: From Hong Kong to Hong Kong (1965). “A few Westerners become almost Oriental in their mental make-up,” he wrote. “But whilst they cease to be European, they do not become completely Asian and are neither one thing nor the other. Neither race accepts them; but of this fact, they are pathetically unaware.” ...

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post...77/cranks-and-eccentrics-westerners-who-tried
 
This just came up in my feed about a fellow names Wim Hof, aka The Iceman:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...t-will-anyone-listen?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Here he is, claiming to hold the secret to curing MS, arthritis, diabetes, fear, depression, anxiety, pain, PTSD, bipolar disorder, cancer, you name it, and nobody seems to care. It doesn’t matter to him that over the past few years he’s become some kind of global cultural phenomenon, making media appearances all over (Discovery Channel, ABC, NBC, National Geographic Channel) to provide the lowdown on not only his breathing technique but also his nearly superhuman ability to withstand cold, which is another part of his method and always a crowdpleaser. In all, he has claimed 26 world records for his various feats, including the Guinness World Record for longest ice bath (1 hour, 52 minutes and 42 seconds), enabling him to rightfully be called “the Iceman.” But that’s not enough for him. He wants more. He wants to change the world.
Click to expand...

And later:
Caught up in the moment, Hof allows a few departures from the science behind his method, barking stuff like, “We are changing the chemistry! You’re becoming alkaline! Carbon dioxide is not working! Your body is supremely present! We are going past the lymphatic nodes! Adrenaline is shooting out of your body, resetting your body! Yes, yes, go with your mind!”

It all sounds kind of nutty, of course, but in a 2012 study, Hof’s theory was put to the test by university researchers in the Netherlands, who examined samples of his blood and found that, as Hof claimed, he could indeed manipulate his immune system at will and, in so doing, fight and win battles against diseases of all kinds. Not only that, but in a 2014 study, researchers injected 12 other WHM subjects with a toxin that normally causes flulike nausea and fever. It hardly fazed the deep breathers – or at least not as much as it could have.
Click to expand...
 
The Man with Nae Troosers

"Strange" is too harsh but I wanted to talk about the Man with Nae Troosers who lives near me. He first came to my attention when I was walking to my running club one night during the winter. I was carrying some things for a collection for the food bank and emergency services that the club do and was concentrating on not dropping them. So I didn't notice there was a man standing in his doorway without any trousers on until he drew my attention to it by apologising for not having any trousers on. (they were dirty and he was getting out of them before going into the house). Anyway that sort of thing sticks in your mind so I began to look out for him each time. I have since seen him getting cross with his shed for not closing properly and keeping a wooden pelican in his garden with various things in its beak. Recently he has taken to whistling the theme from The Good The Bad and the Ugly whenever I walk along the street. He seems like a nice man but I just think it is kind of sweet so wanted to share. :)

Edit - just to make it clear. He has had his trousers on at all other times apart from that first one.
 
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