Only saw this guy once, think he’s left the job now. Was a legend!

At uni, we were assigned a lab partner, and I got to work with this girl who was somewhat odd.

I’d heard rumors that the reason I’d not seen much of her the previous term was that she’d been sectioned because “The Koalas had told her to cut the skin off her little toe, turn it inside out, and stick it back on again” and apparently she’d had a go….

Anyways, so she turns up to the lab, seems pleasant enough, not that scary, and we start the experiment. I go to pass her a flask I’d been heating on a steam bath, and she said “Oh…. I can’t touch that. You know how most people are made of carbon, I’m made of Cobalt Chloride, and I’ll turn blue if I touch it.”

I wouldn’t mind, but I thought the hydrated version is pink so getting wet wouldn’t change her color….

This particular incident (and my subsequent request for a change in lab partner) was followed by running into “Koala Girl” as she’d since been named, at the train station where she had a small carrying case covered in a towel. Apparently she was off to “The rat equivalent of crufts” and she asked if I’d like to see her rat. The thing inside the cage was about as far removed a pet as it was possible to get. Imagine a Tasmanian devil that had failed anger management classes, and it still wouldn’t be as aggressive. I had a feeling she’d “acquired” a wild rat and thought it’d make a nice pet.

The last time I saw her was at graduation, and she said she’d decided to change careers and wanted to work as a nurse…..

“The rat equivalent of crufts”

Actually burst out laughing in the middle of the office 😆

she asked if I’d like to see her rat.

coffee just came out of my nose then!! 😆

There’s a difference between eccentricity and a mental illness.

Usually money.

“The Electric Scarecrow” in Glasgow

Wheres that clip of the bloke leaving a club- early am in Glasgow where he is gurning his face off? It went viral- hilarious as well.

Bit of a bad clip/copy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvYQkT4rFqg

2 cases of “people in need of help”

1 – A classics and art teacher at my school who would scream and abuse the kids in the class – not funny? they usually deserved it as they provoked him… Anyway I went home one day and told my dad about him, turns out he had been at Uni with my uncle back in the day and had been barred from Glasgow Uni QM Union Ball because he got into fisitcuffs with another historian over WWII Polish Tank Commanders beret badges! Talk about standing up for what you believe in. I liked his art classes though.

2 – A guy I used to work with led us all up the Garden Path with stories of his family’s huge fortune, vintage car collection, stable of rare Arabian horses and how he lived in a “wing” of his parents house with his own housekeeper. All went well for him till he pissed someone off with his nonsense and they turned up on the doorstep of his parents rather ordinary bungalow in a neighbourhood of Perth. He then went proper doo lally from what I remember and was “off work” for a while. Thing is he now has quite a high profile job in another part of the country and i wonder if he still makes up all this stuff – Felt sorry for him in the end as he clearly had no friends and serious problems.

A guy I used to work with led us all up the Garden Path with stories of his family’s huge fortune, vintage car collection, stable of rare Arabian horses and how he lived in a “wing” of his parents house with his own housekeeper. All went well for him till he pissed someone off with his nonsense and they turned up on the doorstep of his parents rather ordinary bungalow in a neighbourhood of Perth. He then went proper doo lally from what I remember and was “off work” for a while. Thing is he now has quite a high profile job in another part of the country and i wonder if he still makes up all this stuff – Felt sorry for him in the end as he clearly had no friends and serious problems.

Are you talking about Flashheart 😉

messiah are yours Nobeerinthefridge the same guy ?

According to this (click) joe smith is from the isle of barra too.

Could be mate, I reckon Joe must’ve been about 60 when I was at college, 20 years ago.

mikeconnor – Member
Having worked with people with mental illness, i tend not to laugh at or mock ‘oddballs’, as it’s the ostracisation, alienation nd prejudice from others which can triger/exacerbate their condition. Some of their behaviour is merely them trying to engage with others, but they may lack the ability to do so in a socially acceptable manner. Hence why they may come across as ‘weird’.

Rather than treat them as outcasts in the way most people seem to do, I try to engage with such individuals if they communicarte with me, and have a chat. I’ve discovered that far from being ‘undesirables’, many have very interesting stories to tell, and are fascinating human beings deserving of respect and dignity.

What I find more disturbing is the level of repression, insecurity and social inadequacy in people that mock those who are ‘different’, and their inability to act without the prejudice instilled in them by a society which demands strict adherence to the norm. Normality is, more often than not, very boring. Variety is the spice of life. Individualism is what drives the creative spirit.

Spoilsport

I work on a big European tech project. The overall boss of the project has a screw loose IMO. She hopes to be a really big cheese one day 🙄 I’ve never met anyone who’s knee-jerk reaction is always to bully people instead of listening and thinking. People agree to her diktats and do the wrong thing. The project is not going that well.

Easygirl, congrats on turning the thread from ‘fruit loops I’ve known’ to ‘vulnerable people I’ve bullied’. I hadn’t figured on erring towards mikeconnor’s views on much, but you’ve swung this one for me.

Are you talking about Flashheart

I thought flashy was an international stationary salesman?

I thought flashy was an international stationary salesman?

How can he be international AND stationary? 🙂

How can he be international AND stationary?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MHW69E15zA[/video]

BOOM BOOM

I’m told that there used to be a well dressed chap in Ilford who would get onto a bus, then start making chicken noises “bwaak bwak bwak bwak bwaaaaak” and looking around the bus trying to catch somebodies eye.

Everybody would just stare straight ahead trying desperately to ignore him, for if he caught your gaze, he would spend the rest of the time you were on the bus with his eyeball about an inch away from yours while flapping his arms like the birdy song dance and making very loud “BWAK BWAK BWAAAAK BWAAAK BWAK BWAAAAK” and “COCKADOODLEDOOOOO” noises 😆

A lot of academics oscillate between bonkers and genius.
Spoiled for choice here 🙄

Wierdly enough, after a few spells in the psychiatric unit as a yoot, nothing very exciting to report.. 😐

From a voyeurs point of view, I think my favourite was a young handsome fella of about 19 years old, from a well to do family, who would spend his waking hours furiously and passionately transcribing his internal dialogue (an interesting thing in itself) in large letters in the air in front of him using his index finger..

His internal discussion, I discovered, was an ongoing theological debate between four of five separate personalities, on the nature of religion..

he was pretty cool..

I also know a few narrow minded bigots, who wouldn’t consider contemplating life through the eyes of a neighbour for all the tea in China.. now that is a seriously bonkers condition..

ernie_lynch – Member

Chewkw

Hello! Dear Leader to you …

Now bow down and ask for forgiveness then recite this 1000 times … “There is no truth but Dear Leader!
Maggots infestation must be eradicated!”

To OP,

hhmmm … haven’t really come across any apart from those with serious mental issues in other part of the world I saw as a kid. You see there was a mental asylum near my place so every morning they would be let out and there was this bloke that we never failed to see counting the pavement stones along the busy motorway. There were also two females from the asylum collecting “veg” from the drainage semi nude. As kids we just observed but never saw the funny side of them and no one bothered them. I think one of the female was later locked up because she got pregnant … someone did that to her. Unthinkable. Another is a down syndrome boy (now much older man) acting as a traffic warden directing the traffic near my ex-school. Everyone knows him but when he was in his teen he used to wear clean clothing while directing the traffic but when I saw him this August he was much older but still directing traffic except with very unwashed dirty clothing. Not sure if someone is looking after him but his parents were alive in his younger days.

Where I am now there is a colleague that loves verbal diarrhoea sometimes I wonder if he should be given the “shocked” …

😯

I ride a unicycle, so it must be me.

PAGING Monksie to the thread 🙂

I knew this bottom bracket once… totally eccentric!

I thank you.

I did a little 😆

I used to go to school where there was a kid who used to stand and bark at the hedge outside the school. Every morning and afternoon without fail he was there.

A lad I was at uni with moved into a great big 8-room shared house in the second year. He made the fatal mistake of starting a “relationship” with one of the girls in the house. All well for a while, she was a right dirty wench. But then he’d had enough and tried to split up. Only she wouldn’t let him and went off on one. Post went missing, so bills and rent went unpaid, power got cut off etc. She dropped out of uni and failed to get a job, then after months of the rent not getting paid to the landlord (she’d been pocketing it all) she dissappeared, leaving behind, amongst other things, a pint-glass of pish, with a used tampon, hidden in the bottom of his wardrobe. Nice.

My wifes grandad was pretty eccentric. He lived in a huge old house full of clocks, which all chimed on the hour. He spent his days ensuring they all chimed at exactly the same time and he kept a journal which detailed the dates that he changed every single light bulb in his house – going back over 50 years. He kept another book in which he would record the weight and dimensions of every loaf of bread his wife baked.

I used to have this customer from Cork(Ireland) who was THE weirdest loon I’ve ever met. He kidnapped me… twice, but you’ll just have to take my word for it as it’s a very long story.

My Grandad was the kind of guy who appalled my parents and delighted us kids. Anyone bringing food or drink was “a gentleman”, particularly a young waitress. Any time a hand was put on his shoulder he’d throw his arms up and say “I’ll come quietly!”

I used to lean a bit of pipe on some bricks and he’d go through a full set of artillery yelling before shouting “kerrrrrack!” and blowing smoke from his pipe up the “barrel” of the “howitzer”.

My Gran got interested in foreign holidays and he didn’t want to apply for a passport, as she’d find out he’d lied about his age when they met 60+ years ago! (Of course she knew) His stubbornness brought on this gem:
“Norway, oh Jack we could visit Norway, and see the fjords”
“I’ve been there, didn’t like it.”
“But that was a commando raid on the Lofoten Islands!!”

When he was finally persuaded abroad he carried a bottle of ketchup in his pocket at all times, in order to flavour up that ‘foreign muck’. He approved of German food (a big concession for a WW2 veteran) because they have a lot of sausages.

I could go on forever…

“But that was a commando raid on the Lofoten Islands!!”

Fantastic!! 😆

My mate spent £800 on a CUBE last year and hasn’t ridden it once. Not once, not even round his garden! has entered a 300km Audax event in Sweden next year…

http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/10/4/university-atheist-society-ordered-out-of-freshers-fair-for-displaying-blasphemous-pineapple-called-mohammed#.UG70ca53ffA

I <3 Klumpy’s Grandad.

I worked with a swiss Italian who was barking mad.

Two examples – we were due to go on a customer visit, and being switzerland they start early anyway, but he told me he’d pick me up at 5am (ie: 4am UK time). He drove us up this hill on a smaller and smaller track in the darkness, and then pulled over and switched the car off. We sat in the darkness for about ten minutes until he suddenly leapt into frenzied excitement “Yes! yes! there it is!” I had to admit that the sunrise over the lakes was stunning, but his enthusiam over I assume something he sees frequently was startling.

Another time – at a meeting in France, there was a fitness club / spa / pool attached to the hotel. He and a colleague decided they would take a sauna, and were happily sat in there in towels when HansRudi decided he was going to take a swim. “But you have no trunks2 said his colleague. No problem, said HR, I’ll go onto the edge of the pool, take the towel off and dive straight in and no-one will see me. Unfortunately in between step 1 and 2 a female lifeguard intercepted him and a full blown discussion took place on the pool edge between a cross french woman and a nude Swiss. ‘If you let me go in, no-one can see me!’ Unfortunately, the hotel atrium overlooked the pool and the whole scene was witnessed by several dozen delegates to the meeting who were drinking coffee at the time.

My Gran got interested in foreign holidays and he didn’t want to apply for a passport, as she’d find out he’d lied about his age when they met 60+ years ago! (Of course she knew) His stubbornness brought on this gem:
“Norway, oh Jack we could visit Norway, and see the fjords”
“I’ve been there, didn’t like it.”
“But that was a commando raid on the Lofoten Islands!!”

Noone will post anything funnier than this all year. I’m crying with laughter!

My neighbour. Attacks Tesco vans, spray paints ‘his’ bit of the lane, has been seen in nothing but PJ bottoms walking barefoot in snow, been done for ABH on a bus driver over a fare.

[quotestevomcd – Member
Used to be a guy who hung around the train station at Dalreoch (Dumbarton) in Scotland.

Would always hold exactly the same conversation (complete with stammer):

B-b-b-b-b-b-Billy McNeil! Billy McNeil! He was big-big man!
Billy-billy-Billy McNeil! Great, big, big man!
How about you son, you’re a big man yersel! What are ye, six fit four?
Billy-Billy McNeil! Billy – Clint Eastwood! Clint Eastwood and Clark Gable!
Big-big-men!

I think I remember this guy. I may be imagining though.
Around the same time as KaKa used to hang around the high street offering Bj’s to us schoolboys.

There used to be a distinctly unattractive “lady” who lived near a barracks I spent some time at. She used to love putting on shows for the guard. I remember doing sentry on the rear gate when she turned up and proceeded to strip and brandish the biggest toy I’ve ever seen (not that I’ve seen many) in broad daylight on a roadside. My only fond memory of that was the look on the face of the young ghurka i was on stag with. Bewilderment, disbelief and sheer joy all in one. Priceless. The conversation and gesticulating he had with his mates after had me wetting myself even though I didn’t understand a word.
I was like a dare to go to her council flat, many did but none more than once. She made men of a great number of young impressionable squaddies.

I encounter a lot of nutjobs at work.
Probably a little beyond ‘eccentric’, but I met a guy at work who was ex-foreign legion.
He was seriously ‘f’d up. Nice bloke, but when stressed or under the influence of something, he would hear the voices of his commanding officers ordering him to kill and eat those around him.
Pretty scary seeing as this guy was the size of a door.
Still, out of many, he is my favourite.

skink2020 – are you ex-OLSP?

Having worked with people with mental illness, i tend not to laugh at or mock ‘oddballs’, as it’s the ostracisation, alienation nd prejudice from others which can triger/exacerbate their condition. Some of their behaviour is merely them trying to engage with others, but they may lack the ability to do so in a socially acceptable manner. Hence why they may come across as ‘weird’.

Rather than treat them as outcasts in the way most people seem to do, I try to engage with such individuals if they communicarte with me, and have a chat. I’ve discovered that far from being ‘undesirables’, many have very interesting stories to tell, and are fascinating human beings deserving of respect and dignity.

What I find more disturbing is the level of repression, insecurity and social inadequacy in people that mock those who are ‘different’, and their inability to act without the prejudice instilled in them by a society which demands strict adherence to the norm. Normality is, more often than not, very boring. Variety is the spice of life. Individualism is what drives the creative spirit.

Totaly agree but even the hardest of the psychie staff i worked with often had a laugh with the patient , as opposed to laughing or mocking them.

I meet lots of eccentric people every day, and find them just funny and intelligent, the ones who read the daily mail and vote conservative, are beyond any help ,drug or therrapy related.

Also wouldnt it be boring if everyone conformed to some so called norm,