Poor Man About Town

I was at New Cross this morning waiting for the bus, pelting down with rain. It was 9.30. There was Beer Can Man attempting to shake hands with people in the bus shelter. He was wielding a tin of Carlsberg Special Brew. He was all smiles and full of that menacing bonhomie that one associates with street drunks. The people in the bus queue attempted to ignore him but this was like trying to ignore someone with a loaded gun. He tired of his feigned friendliness and had a fight with a lamp-post, he threw a couple of punches at its trunk, lamp-post did nothing stood inert and proud. He looked pained and went back to the bus queue. This time, he was full of aggression and started to act like a drill sergeant - barking orders at the queue to stand to "Attention" and then to "At ease", he repeated this again and again with excruciating monotony. Each member of the queue had that look of "will I be singled out". One woman in her sixties was brave enough to stand up to him and told him in no uncertain terms to leave her alone and her fellow members of the queue. He would not listen, the bugger just kept on and on. In the meantime, police cars flew by with flashing disco lights making noises like flying saucers from a 50's sci-fi film. Fucking marvelous!

Labels: beer can man, buses, drunks, nuisance

There are so many drinking schools around where I live, that the area has become Drinking Academy. You see people clutching tins of beer and strong cider. People in supermarkets buying a bottles of spirits. Then you have the wrecks who collapse anywhere in the street. As I was leaving for work in the morning, I saw what I thought to be a pile of clothes on the corner, as I got closer it was a man in a state of alcoholic catatonia clutching a beer can with another propped by his head to consume for breakfast. I guess that it is the norm around here, no doubt property developers and estate agents will disapprove and have the police move them on to somewhere else and make the place prohibitively expensive in which to live. I don't mind drunks, they keep out the rich.

Stop rising home prices, evict the rich!

Labels: alcoholism, drunks, Estate Agents, Property Development

You may not want a second helping of Beer Can Man, but this is my blog and I shall do what I like with it. I really have to give vent to the things which vex me - I find this process palliatively therapeutic.

Beer Can Man, if you are not familiar, is a part of an urban tribe that makes public displays of it boozing. Beer Can Men usually hang around in groups in parkland and on street corners. Although such groups may appear intimidating, I have never really been harrassed by them. I cannot afford to live in Switzerland nor Bromley where such public displays of human dysfunction are not tolerated. Beer Can Men, however, do make the place look untidy - they are like misplaced litter - I am caused to wonder why they cannot drink at home, where they can listen to sounds or watch the telly. Trust me, many of these people have homes to which they can go.

Live and let live is my motto - they are part of the rich canvas that is the city. OK cool.

Most beer can men will take care of their personal hygiene, but there are some who stink out the place. I was in the newsagents the other day and there were two of them, both of them had the unmistakable of Pissoir pour l'homme. They looked dirty and crusty, they were pissed.

I was in the supermarket today, a Beer Can Man, aged around 40, approached a friend whom he had not seen in ages. Although this Beer Can Man was around two and a half metres away, there was a strong smell of Pissoir pour l'homme. Now the thing that perplexed me the most was that he was with a woman ten years his junior, she looked quite clean. I wondered why she was hanging with this smelly individual, then it occurred to me; it's not so much that love but alcohol conquers all - this couple was rejuvenating its supplies.

Labels: alcoholism, Bromley, drunks, dysfunction, piss, pissed, stink, Switzerland

Here in London, along with the localistas, the M & S brigade etc is Beer Can Man. I first encountered Beer Can Man sitting on one of the outside tables of this closed bistro in the King's Road around ten years ago. He was looking quite pissed and had a can a Tenent's Super Lager on the table. Bistro and Beer Can Man appeared to suit each other, they had a comical ambience. I was to make quite a few more encounters with these street drunks, one remarkable episode comes to mind; in Waterloo, I saw two drunks each holding a can of strong lager while wrestling each other. I was amazed at how they could they could grapple with each other without either spilling any beer. Now, I live among them, they are all over the place - sucking, like babies from the bottle, on cans of extra strong juice. They haven't really caused me any problem but I feel that the potential is there.

Labels: beer, drunks, street drinking