turbo
Gold..... What is it good for? You can't eat it, you can't smoke it, yet everybody wants it.
posted
Sometimes you come across mad people in your life who are so convincing, it makes you wonder who's the mad one. Last night I was the last one at the office and was 'lucky' enough to answer a phone call from the US from a man calling himself Socrates. Our conversation went something like this:
S: I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE PRESIDENT! T: Erm, you mean the president of our company? S: YES! I want to speak to him now! T: I'm afraid he's on vacation at the moment. What's it concerning? S: A $10 million project! Yes, you heard me right! $10 MILLION! I've heard you're good and I can guarantee you this project but I need to speak to the president TODAY! T: As I said, he's on vacation. Perhaps I can get someone else to call you back tomorrow? S: TODAY! It has to be today! You're not aggressive enough. I'm an aggressive man. T: I noticed. Well, I'll try to get someone to call you today. S: YES! TODAY! You've got to realise this is VERY SERIOUS. I deal with billions of dollars EVERY DAY! T: I'm sure you do. Someone will call you shortly.
I then called a colleague in the US and as soon as he heard the name, he started to laugh. Apparently the guy is a complete lunatic who calls loads of companies and tries to get them to invest $200k in his company and he will guarantee them this $10m project which doesn't even exist. He's been doing this for years and I can only assume some poor sod must have invested in him at some point, because he does quite well for himself. My colleague called him back and got all sorts of insults thrown at him, after which Socrates declared he was going to call our CEO. My colleague told him that was fine, he was going to call Queen Elizabeth himself in a moment.
The thing is, this guy was so convincing and so scary that he has had various senior members of our management team running around putting together proposals for his non-existant project. Who have you come across who is mad as a hatter but benefits from it?
[ 05.08.2004, 05:55: Message edited by: turbo ]
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posted
I'm not sure if he'd class as Mad as a Hatter, but a fellow I used to work with was so possessed with the gab that he would just start talking to anyone who wasn't walking quickly in the other direction. The strange thing is that he was so good at it that he'd have girls giggling in crowded shop lifts within one floor's travel, and blokes going "Alright Jim, mate?" after a single brief and irrelevant encounter in the canteen queue.
Anyway, one day I came into work and mentioned to him that we'd bought a new car and were really looking forward to it to be delivered in about a month or so...
"A month or so??!! What you on about, mate? Didja give 'em cash?"
"Er, yeah. They said they couldn't give a discount though, unfortunately. They were really sorry about that."
"No discount??!! Hang on..."
And then he picked up the phone and called the local dealer, put it on the speaker and got this salesman to agree to sell him a better spec car, with a big discount for cash and delivery next day. While I listened to the whole thing.
posted
I met a fantastic mentalist the other day and I even have him on film. He was clearly Mancunian, although claimed to be from Liverpool. He had two tone ochre-black teeth and a habit of lunging towards the person he was addressing when a tricky fact he'd been struggling to land suddenly broke the murky surface of his mind. "Black and white! Black and white! Black and White!" Lunge, lunge, lunge, he went, as he explained the story of his life. Apparently he'd invented a picture phone and sold the idea to Sony for... "three thousand pownd!" [PAUSES FOR STUNNED REACTION]. The phone was solar powered and featured all kinds of accessories, such as calculus babies (later interpreted as "calculators for babies"). He'd designed the phone to be black and white "because of the cathodes" and he'd cleverly laid the black over the white... "that makes grey." That was but one of his inventions, he'd also designed a power station built in the sea which ran on ecstasy (I assume he meant the drug, not the state of elation) to create "Steeeeeaaaammmm!!!" [crazy doc brown hand waving at that point]. He's the favouritist person I've met in a long time and luckily enough I've captured the whole experience on tape, so I'm thinking of remixing his words with a catchy beat and releasing the single in time for Christmas. Look out for Black and White Steam in all good record stores.
The encounter happened because we'd set up a camera in Leicester Square. It seems this is a sure fire 'character' magnet. Afterwards we discussed the idea setting up in various different locations and waiting to see what kind of monologues we got from anyone who approached, then cutting it together with animations illustrating the stream of consciousness flowing from their mouths. Serious question, is that a shamelessly exploitive and downright cruel idea?
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quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: we discussed the idea of setting up in various different locations and waiting to see what kind of monologues we got from anyone who approached, then cutting it together with animations illustrating the stream of consciousness flowing from their mouths. Serious question, is that a shamelessly exploitive and downright cruel idea?
It'll just mean they'll be going round saying, "...and then I did a voiceover for a cult animation film by that Gérard de Jonesy-Neufneufneuf, which was... NICE!" [*lunge*]
posted
I was on the train from Purley to Victoria last summer on a baking hot day when a boy (early twenties, I think) came at sat opposite me. Hot weather! I was <ahem> 'glowing' and headed for an interview, so I was wearing a strappy top over which I'd put a shirt when I arrived at my destination. Also glowing pinkly across the shoulders thanks to some sun I'd picked up at the weekend in my mother's garden.
One stop into the journey, he came and sat next to me. Face bright red from similar sun exposure, freckly and round. Hair close-cropped. Solid. Conversation went roughly as follows (it's hazy in my memory, so account for small errors and lapses in detail):
Boy: I'm going to sit here in case someone wants to sit in that seat.
Philomel (looking up from book): um, ok.
<silence. P continues flicking pages, vaguely uneasy>
B: You've caught the sun a bit, haven't you? <touches P's exposed shoulder with back of hand>
P (flinching and demonstrating excellent conversation skills): um, yeah. I was in the country at the weekend. Sunburn. Um...
<generic conversation about the weather. Smiles and nods>
B: I've got learning disabilities, you know. People don't like me, I've always been trouble. They're scared of me and my brothers because we can go a bit, you know, crazy.
P (concerned expression): oh, really?
B: Yeah, when I was younger I saw my dad kill my mum in front of me. He's in prison now.
P: ! God!
B: 's'alright now. But people take the piss. And I don't like it.
<pause>
B: Where are you going, then?
P: um, to an interview...
<B grabs P's clammy paw in his fist and traces patterns on palm, explaining the journey of life, confidence, how you have to get what you want etc etc.>
B: You know, mostly when I talk to people on the trains they ignore me or get up and move. They get all shocked if I go towards them.
P: I think, you might be a bit intimidating. You know, touching girls you don't know on trains, women find that bit, you know, intimidating...
<lapse into silence>
<crawling over the bridge at Battersea. P relieved she's about to get off in approx four minutes>
B: Look! <pointing at Battersea Power Station> There's Wembley Stadium.
P (weakly): I, er, I thought Wembley was in North London.
B: Nah, it's there, see?
P: oh, ok.
<scurries off train as doors open and heads off, head down, towards the Underground. Doesn't look back>
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posted
A couple of months ago, the missus and I were walking down our road and a crayzee was coming the other way. He was a very smart crazyee: starch-pressed brown suit trousers that screamed "charity shop!" worn with grey deck-shoes, a light green shirt with orange pinstripe and a green beanie-hat. So he's walking towards us on the pavement muttering to himself in his native tongue (he looked Indian) but infact it could have just been utter nonsense.
Anyway, we step aside a bit to allow plenty of pavement space for him to walk past, when BAM he totally shoulder barges me on his way past. I turn to look over my shoulder and he's looking back at us still muttering.
"Watch where you're fucking going!" I say. He stops. He marches back over to us. "What did you say to me?" he says. "I said, watch where you're fucking going." "You insult me, sir. You're a peice of shit" Obviously a nutter, I go, "whatever" and turn to start walking away from him. When he spits at me! So I turn round again and call him a filthy little **** . Then we did this fairly pathetic back and forth routine: "What did you call me?" "A filthy **** ." "why?" "Because you spat at me" "I spat at you because you insulted me" "I insulted you because you deliberately barged into me." "You are the son of a whore." "Whatever..." "Don't walk away from me you swine" (seriously, he called me a swine!)
In the end I just walked off. I've actually seen him several times since - the last time being yesterday - and every time he calls the same thing at me across the street: "I fuck the Queen of England!".
I actually really enjoy our little encounters now. I don't do anything to encourage or provoke him, but it makes me smile to think that he obviously regards that as a terrible insult.
posted
My six year old daughter told me the other day about "the running man" that her and her dad see on the bus quite often. He was on there the other day.
Apparently, when the bus gets to a busy section of town, he'll get off, run like hell to the next stop and get back on the bus and ask everyone, "I was fast wassn I? Fast yeah? Did you see how fast I was?" At which point her dad started singing to the tune of "Dry yer eyes mate"
Rest your legs mate, You know you're far too old To be running up and down The street like that, It'll wear you right out.
[or words to that effect]
Elle hasn't stopped singing it since.
Which one is madder than a badger? The running man or her dad? The jury is out.
We also have a guy that walks constantly on the road between two local towns. He always has on a huge pair of headphones over a woolly hat, regardless of how hot it is and is always talking away to himself and twitching. It makes me feel sad every time I see him.
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posted
When I'm driving home from night shifts I regularly see an old black guy walking along north pole road in North Kensington carrying a huge crusafix-style cross over his shoulder.
I'm not sure he's properly "crazy" though, just has a bad case of religion. I often wave to him now and he waves back.
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posted
oh right, is it a case of last dick in = the current defender? because if thats the case, i'm 4000 miles away and she's open for attack. open i say.
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posted
I think I may have told the story of my favourite random mad person interaction thing before on here but never mind, I'll re-tell.
I was on the tube going out one evening and this old bloke was sat opposite me. He started coughing loudly to get my attention so eventually I did that brief eye-flick upwards, polite smile and look away again thing. He started banging on his chest and pointing at me and trying to get the attention of a few other people in the carriage.
People started looking at him, then looking at me, smirking and looking away again. Eventually I looked up at him again and he started saying "Men and Sex. Next destination!" and pointing at me whilst banging his walking stick on the floor to empasise each point.
He repeated this mantra for the next three tube stops and I had to look away because it was making me laugh. Occasionally another girl would catch my eye and smile sympathetically. Eventually he got off the tube, but not without one final loud MEN AND SEX NEXT DESTINATION! and a flourish of his walking stick in my face.
posted
I have just been to the supermarket, and clearly had a "please talk to me!" badge on. After a lengthy discussion of how many types of rice there are (over 28 apparently!), and how I should be making rice pudding as opposed to sushi, followed by a debate on the relative merits of plastic carrier bags, back packs and simply keeping the shopping basket in order to carry goods home, I made my escape.
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posted
A friend of mine once prevailed upon me to ghost write a book for him. It was a book of great social and political import, which would tell of the great enlightenments and insights he had had. I agreed, to humour him, and to get him off the phone. He turned up at mine thirty minutes later and insisted that I ring the Vatican for him, because he needed to tell them that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. I told him that there is a hospital just down the road, called St Ann's, that is packed to the gills with people who think they're Jesus, and if I don't believe them I'm certainly not going to believe him.
I've not seen him for a couple of years, but apparently he's off the ketamine these days.
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posted
i once rang my mate up to ask him what the capital of liberia was. because i was mailing a letter to the leader of the west side boys volunteering mine and my mates services as members of their rebel gang.
later that night i punched my mate and then we had a knife fight.
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posted
I have been in Brussels for 6 weeks now, and to while the evenings away I have a nice little Irish pub where I go for a game of Cribbage (don't laugh - it's the metal of card games) and a few Krieks. There's a mate of mine who I play cards, and spend a few evenings nattering away and whilst counting our 15's.
Tuesday night, we are playing and nattering as always, and bantering with the staff like we do when this chap sits down the other side of said pal. He makes some general converstaion, nothing too much, but we continue to play. Then he starts on two young lassies who after about 30 minutes decide to escape.
Anyway he starts again on my pal Sean, saying about how he had been to Bath uni or something. He was a very intelligent chap, but something is not quite right when he starts on about wanting to read my mates thesis (the strangest chat up line ever) - but being insistant on it, and where it was kept.
The odd thing is, my mate who has a PHD in something or other was being polite, yet once the chap found out I had no degree, it was like I became invisible - not really a problem, but if he say, asked about the playing cards we were using and I explained they were dutch and came from my local, he would simply ignore it then ask again a while later, but only if my pal explained would it register.
I realised he was obviously a nutbar when he started saying how wonderful Phil Collins was, and asking me if I liked the man. This to a guy in a Ramones shirt?
He later started asking my mate for where he worked, the address, telephone number, email address, home address and all sorts.He also wanted to know if either of us knew the scottish lecturer at Bath uni, and kept informing us that Katherine Hepburn spoke Dutch Beautifully.
He actually scared us away from our local for a whole night.
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Public Transport Tourettes Man was a local celeb whan I was younger.
He smelt a bit, which is obligatory for mad folk I believe, and had the appearance of a gangly bastard son of a mad professor and a vulture.
Harmless enough though. All he did was bark at people and talk to himself in a whiny nasal whisper. And constantly touch his nose.
He always got his own seat on the bus.
Next!
When I was working in retail, we had a regular customer in the shape of "Mister Sweat". He jogged everywhere, always in the same outfit: Bobble hat, grey-green parka, tight jogging bottoms, legwarmers and a rucksack. In summer, the sweat from his parka-pits formed two dark moist umbra stretching from sternum to elbow.
He stank. Not just your average off-milk windowlicker smell, but a wall of stench that smacked you in the face and made you retch. An uber-smell of such magnitude it must surely have had some sort of military application... guaranteed to clear a shop in under two minutes.
What made it worse is that he spoke vewy vewy quietly. It was considered an official punishment to be required to serve him.
Mad people rock.
A story that filtered through to me from a friend who worked at "Walsall Bin" (Walsall Manor Hospital) in the Midlands. In those days, they had a significant in-patient crazy ward. AFAIK, they are all now "in the community" - i.e: given travelcards and let outside.
One particular patient was known through the entire West Midlands county, by all of the A&E admissions staff, because he had a special little hobby.
He could only indulge in his hobby when he wasn't under constant observation by the staff, which frequently happened thanks to our gloriously underfunded NHS.
His hobby was sticking things down his urethra and visiting (by bus) one of the local Casualty departments to tell them "I've done a bad thing..."
My friend in the Bin was on the medical records side and he managed to obtain a list of the items they had retreived from his jap's eye, which must have resembled a leather bucket.
Amongst the usual biro-tops, paper clips and bits of drinking straw removed over his career were such delights as: Safety Pins (open) Several Drawing pins A 5cm length of rusty barbed wire Dried flower stems A broken pencil Two prongs of a plastic fork A length of chain-link fencing wire etc. etc.
I don't know if he's still around, but if you're in Walsall and spot a middle aged downs man walking funny, make sure you don't give him anything smaller than a fun-size Mars bar, OK?
quote:Originally posted by Doctor Agamemnon When: "I've done a bad thing..."
Tag for Dr When?
Also, I'm disturbed by the dismissive use of "the ususal" in the list of winkie-hole plugs.
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