Famous London characters

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Stoke Newington / Stamford Hill top 5:

1) The Mayor -dapper geezer who wanders about a lot, sometimes with a mayoral chain on. Far superior to the actual mayor of Hackney who is the worst kind of blairite tosser.

2) Junkie beggar - affable enough bloke with a great name (which I won't put on here cos it isn't on really) occasionally reverts to victorian values by showing passersby his hugely swelled up legs. I really like him but he seems beyond help really.

3) Punky dog walker. Always looks happy, always rocking a ramones t-shirt or something in a non-ironic sort of way and always has at least 3 dogs with him.

4) Skinniest woman in the world. A senior black lady who mutters a lot and used to drink in the Birdcage before it was poshed up. Well I say drink, she used to wander through asking people to buy her a half of guinness. Thick glasses and erratic headgear.

5) Pith helmet man - recently seen rocking a white rubberised suit and pith helmet - nuff said!

I saw 5) last night in the Sokey 'Spoons! What a legend. He looks about 65, really dapper black guy wearing a goldish suit and a pith helmet. Stood up drinking a pint and listening to music on some in-ear head-phones.

1) is the big broad guy with a slightly Elvish-esque or rockabilly aspect right? He has loads of jewellery and badges as well as the chain I think.
 

STN

sou'wester
1) is the big broad guy with a slightly Elvish-esque or rockabilly aspect right? He has loads of jewellery and badges as well as the chain I think.

yeah, usually sports a fedora, has a Jamaica pendant (for some reason), I think. He glared at me only yesterday. I always fear he's a gangland hangover...
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
yeah, usually sports a fedora, has a Jamaica pendant (for some reason), I think. He glared at me only yesterday. I always fear he's a gangland hangover...

Seems to be a lot of Dissensians in Stokey! The pith helmet guy is amazing, he really put a smile on my face.
 

STN

sou'wester
N16 newsflash! That evil looking biker on Cazenove Road is having his junkshop raided by the po.

Also, anyone know the Dimitar Berbatov tramp, usually seen drinking Skol super on the high street - always in short shorts, come rain or shine.
 

mos dan

fact music
There is a man seen around Clapham, my friend tells me, known as THE BEE-KEEPER.

i've lived in nearby balham most of my life and never heard of this guy - any info on whereabouts in clapham? it's a big place - not all of it full of horribly depressing yuppie bars with revealed brickwork (most of it is though)
 

monkeysblood

born to cry
..an old guy sitting on his own on the northbound Northern Line platform at Leicester Square who looks like Ivor Cutler and always had a piece of card stuck in the brim of his hat with a whacky slogan on it.

yeh i've seen that guy. he had faded into the aether of drunken memories though.
 

Chuu

Well La Di Bloody Da
White guy 40's, longish greying hair on sides but bald on top, walks around Holborn/Bloomsbury/Tottenham Court Road area and always looks like he's talking really loud on his handsfree but he isn't, used to speak to him from our balcony about how the pink panther could never catch him. May have been living in his car.

Sorry it's not much to go on.
 
Last edited:

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
When I first moved to London I remember getting caught out all the time by people who looked like they were talking to themselves, but on second glance turned out to be using hands-free sets. Then after a while I started to notice that some of them really were talking to themselves.
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
I'm a fan of the Orange Juice guy in Camden with his little hat made of Oranges and some nonchalant looking teenage girl popping oranges into his big juicing machine while he sort of stands there shouting inanely about his juice, buying his juice, his oranges and oranges in general like some sort of demented town crier of an Orange Kingdom.

I think his brain might actually just be an orange. I really hope the fire didn't affect his business.
 
There is a man seen around Clapham, my friend tells me, known as THE BEE-KEEPER.

anyone remember "The Clapham Birdman" from the 80s? used to walk around at night with pet Eagle owls on his shoulders/arms.

Going even further back- and also cross species- Tibbles (?) the paddington station cat, who was more like a furry sow than a cat really...she lived in the ladies toilets and i was taken in to see her by my mum...enormous fat fucker could that barely move. people used to write to the cat from all round the world. Not the sort of thing that would go on now....
 
You cold blooded fuckers are easily amused. the periods function as a parentheses. And anyway my mum's dead- and in a wheelchair ;)

like most of western civilisation the cat is now documented
online.

Tiddles. I'd always assumed a she because, well, that would seem more appropriate. It turns out this was a MALE cat who slowly ate himself to death in a ladies toilet. i'm guessing he was a reincarnation of bhudda or some other dude with a bunch of kharma to spare
 
Last edited:

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
3433651.jpg
 

Woebot

Well-known member
spoke to the london cycle courier who has a small toy black dog attached to his helmet last week

twas in an alleyway in the city of a dark evening

i've seen him around for twenty years and grabbed the opportunity to say hello

he said he had had the toy dog on his helmet since 1994 and that it keeps him sane
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Does anybody know The Twins, the two Nigerian dandys from Islington who have cut-glass accents and swan around in orange overalls? They used to routinely come and visit me in Foyles.

Ishmahil Blagrove was the star at SC (retired now), but there was also The Master and Diane the WI Nazi.
 
Top