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Odd People: Cranks, Eccentrics & Nutters

Not sure if the locally-famous 'The Man With A Box On His Head" has made an appearance in this thread, so here he is!

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/local-news/man-box-head-spotted-walking-5400141

"A man with a box on his head with a smiley face drawn on it has been spotted again on the A37.
It is becoming a regular sight for drivers and local residents of Farrington Gurney and Paulton...
"

The mystery man with a box has been spotted again

(Image: Laura Macey)
 
Not sure if the locally-famous 'The Man With A Box On His Head" has made an appearance in this thread, so here he is!

From that article

"This made me smile, I gave box man a wave."

is just perfect! Do you have a picture of the smile? I don't want to search and get an alternative and less satisfying Man With A Box On His Head by mistake.

And is it drawn on or something like the existential angst box noted by @Godafoss30

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/pareidolia.55195/page-6#post-2067452
 
From that article



is just perfect! Do you have a picture of the smile? I don't want to search and get an alternative and less satisfying Man With A Box On His Head by mistake.

And is it drawn on or something like the existential angst box noted by @Godafoss30

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/pareidolia.55195/page-6#post-2067452
From earlier this year, March 2021:

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/man-spotted-smiley-box-head-5225557

"A man has again been spotted wearing a cardboard box with a smiley face on his head in Somerset.
The strange sighting was made at the roadside yesterday (Wednesday, March 25) in Farrington Gurney at around 12.45pm.
An eyewitness, who described what he saw as "strange behaviour", said the man with a box on his head was waving at traffic.
The pictures show the person was wearing a white sheet around his body and the cardboard box with a smiley face drawn on it....
"

0_EFR_BRI_250321_cardboard.jpg

(Image: Tom Hopkins)

0_image0-612jpeg.jpg

(Image: Adam Ollerenshaw)

Apparently he's upgraded from a mere brown paper bag (August 2020) to a deluxe cardboard box for 2021!

2020:

0_paper-bag-man.jpg

(Image: Amanda Hughes)
 
Used to see this man standing on the pavement in East Finchley, he died over eight years ago.

Horace White.

He was well known in North London for approaching strangers in the street, then there would be a slight pause, and in a voice not too dissimilar from Boris Johnson's, he'd wish you,

"The best of luck."

Wouldn't say much else mind.

https://blackcablondon.net/tag/horace-white/

http://camdennewjournal.com/article...our-horace-man-who-wished-strangers-best-luck

View attachment 35844

I've just spent an enjoyable few minutes looking up this gentleman! He had learning difficulties and diabetes.

He is very fondly remembered in the local area, with a memorial bench/chair, people wearing a special sweatshirt to his funeral which in turn gave a charitable donation to the hospital that treated him, and a song written about him.


https://richardosley.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/horace.jpg


From https://www.whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=17584

"Whittington Health has bought an essential piece of diabetes equipment thanks to a donation of over £1,300 to the Whittington Health Charitable Trust by friends and family of the late Horace White, a renowned local personality in Finchley and Barnet..."

Song:
 
I used to live in Norfolk VA US and saw the hula hoop lady many times. The link below gives a very sympathetic view of her. However, when I lived there, although I was empathetic to her mental disability, her blocking traffic in the intersection of the busiest road in the city, while hula hooping and waving to people was a PIA. Traffic backed up for many blocks in all 4 directions during her infamous stand-off with the police.

I had personally experienced her in the intersection – not the grassy median – more than once. One of the roads in this intersection was the main exit from Norfolk Naval Station, the largest in the US, and was always busy.

I am glad to read that she is ok and actually got a little money from her lawsuit against the police. I can’t locate any photos of her in the intersection during the infamous police stand-off.

Whatever happened to ... Norfolk's Hula Hoop Lady? - The Virginian-Pilot (pilotonline.com)
 
Women in Supermarkets.
Alright, I'll be more specific : a woman in Morrison's in front of the lettuce mountain, squeezing each one in turn. I have no idea whether a soft lettuce is better than a hard one, certainly it's no indication of ripeness. Once she had finished on the outer layer of the display she got her self-conscious daughter to help pull out the inner ones, until all the lettuces had been groped. No-one could get near the shelves until she'd finished and I had to bite my tongue not to say 'Oi Love, you missed one !' - but I didn't want to appear rude and she hadn't.
 
Women in Supermarkets.
Alright, I'll be more specific : a woman in Morrison's in front of the lettuce mountain, squeezing each one in turn. I have no idea whether a soft lettuce is better than a hard one, certainly it's no indication of ripeness. Once she had finished on the outer layer of the display she got her self-conscious daughter to help pull out the inner ones, until all the lettuces had been groped. No-one could get near the shelves until she'd finished and I had to bite my tongue not to say 'Oi Love, you missed one !' - but I didn't want to appear rude and she hadn't.
!!! This stuff will make me faint in the age of covid. I got into an altercation with a gentleman who was licking his fingers every time before he rummaged through the produce with his freshly licked fingers. He wasn't wearing a mask either. I sometimes pretend I am not from nor on planet earth. It helps a lot. :)
 
Women in Supermarkets.
Alright, I'll be more specific : a woman in Morrison's in front of the lettuce mountain, squeezing each one in turn. I have no idea whether a soft lettuce is better than a hard one, certainly it's no indication of ripeness. Once she had finished on the outer layer of the display she got her self-conscious daughter to help pull out the inner ones, until all the lettuces had been groped. No-one could get near the shelves until she'd finished and I had to bite my tongue not to say 'Oi Love, you missed one !' - but I didn't want to appear rude and she hadn't.

G'day B.B. She's squeezing each lettuce to determine which one has the firmest (fullest ) head. Vegie growers do the same to tell when a lettuce(or cabbage) is ready for the table.
 
G'day B.B. She's squeezing each lettuce to determine which one has the firmest (fullest ) head. Vegie growers do the same to tell when a lettuce(or cabbage) is ready for the table.
Thank you for that, I've learned something. When I attended a series of Procurement seminars in my younger days, I remember one on specifications. Two major supermarkets in the UK (Tesco and possibly Sainsbury's) have/had their own drying sheds for mangos - this is so every mango for sale in these respective supermarket is the same size, has the same proportion of green to red, the same degree of ripeness etc. I assumed every wrapped lettuce was identical, just like their tasteless polished apples.
 
Today I encountered "invisible football man".
he dibbled an invisible football across the road several times and all down the village high street, as our pavement is very narrow and the road was quite busy it took ages to get along the whole 200m. cDrivers were amazingly patient, pedestrians less so ( it was raining)

Just realise d we are not far from Anony Joulz Box headed man on on the A367, perhaps a road trip of local celebrities and tea shops is in order fro when we are allowed out to play
 
I remember, when I went to Dublin as a girl au-pair for a month in July 1990, aged 22, seeing the
Dancing Lady.
https://www.thejournal.ie/mary-dunne-dancer-oconnell-street-1304222-Feb2014/
1622214683013.png

I came from from a South Western city in France and never saw someone dancing in the streets of a city and without music, before. Nobody said anything to her and the Garda didn't bother, either. I first thought she might be drunk, but she was minding her own business, smiling while dancing.
I just learned she died at age 87, in 2014. In 1990, she must have been 63 years old. Rest her soul.
 
In that same O'Connell street, I remember also seeing a horse and carriage in the middle of rather heavy traffic and it was not a touristy one.
In a street, in a suburb, I saw a car passing which had no headlights, bumper or even number plates.
I was quite baffled how the driver of this vehicle was not arrested by the police or something. In France, at the time, the cars in the countryside had often bumps or mirror missing, but were never in such a state of disrepair.
 
In that same O'Connell street, I remember also seeing a horse and carriage and it was not a touristy one.
In a street, in a suburb, I saw a car passing which had no headlights, bumper or even number plates.
I was quite baffled how the driver of this vehicle was not arrested by the police or something. In France, at the time, the cars in the countryside had often bumps or mirror missing, but were never in such a state of disrepair.

Around that time you still had horses used as working animals, pulling trailers. Even in Dublin though a car in such bad condition wouldn't have evaded police attention for long.
 
I remember, when I went to Dublin as a girl au-pair for a month in July 1990, aged 22, seeing the
Dancing Lady.

what a wonderful find! I wish I'd met her. Makes me think of 2 Samuel 6:14 - which is about King David dancing in the Temple. So much delight!

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.
 
I saw cardboard box man on the A37 on Monday, he was doing a little jig on the corner in his sheet and box. My partner had a close encounter with invisible football man earlier in the week.- they had not realised that his little dances and shooting actions were dribbling a ball ( we are not sports fans) now it all makes some sort of sense.

It does surprise ( and please) me how tolerant people are towards those who are singing from a different song sheet.
 
He had been a maths teacher. until he became a Christian, and then, "of course I had to give up maths after that".

I'm still at a loss to explain that one.
Oh, that's a good one. I had a pair of proselytizers come to the door and, while they were coming up to the door and I happened to be in the front room (and could overhear), commented "Look out for the lizards; you know what that means."
Our area has endemic lizards, so they're not weird. I really should have asked them what that meant before I sent them (politely) on their way.
 
From twitter:

One of the guards at the Lady Leverhulme Gallery in Port Sunlight told me that a member of the public used to weep inconsolably in front of a portrait of Napoleon on the Emperor’s birthday.
 
He's just being arty.

A homeless musician making an artistic statement left Cork City Council with a €2,000 repair bill when he dug up paving slabs around Cork city centre and left cut flowers in the holes.

Eric Geaney, 29, pleaded guilty to a total of 17 charges at Cork District Court for which he was given a total jail term of four months.

On another occasion he was sitting outside a pub in Cork City putting strings on his guitar and asked for a cup of coffee. Sergeant Pat Lyons said that when the member of staff returned with the coffee, “she was alarmed at the subject matter of the song he was singing and she alerted the manager.” Geaney ended up being prosecuted for assaulting the manager.

Gardaí at the Bridewell heard banging outside the station and went outside to find Geaney slapping traffic light poles and railings with an iron bar claiming that he was making music. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/courtandcrime/arid-40319015.html
 
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