One (or two) flew over the cuckoo's nest

It might not surprise you, given what you’ve read on this site so far, but last Saturday I spent the day with Austin Powers, 2 Doctor Evils, some thunder birds and a LOT of Sherlock Homeses (complete with deerstalkers, pipes and plus-fours). I felt a little under-dressed if I’m honest. No, I had not wandered onto the set of the latest Dr Who Christmas special, I was in fact at the rugby sevens at Twickenham – great fun if you like creative fancy dress and heavy drinking as a combination (who doesn’t?).

A grand day out that was only marginally spoilt by Tinky Winky’s unfortunate on-pitch encounter with the police. I think they actually broke his aerial, poor wee fella. I also heard that Pacman put up a good performance on the Sunday as he tried to evade the police in the empty seats of the upper levels. Up, down, across – an exhilarating chase that ended in a standing ovation for Pacman. Sheer genius.

My point? Ah yes, getting to that. Today for our consideration is… WHERE do all the nutters (creative as they might be) come from and why, nine times out of ten, do they seem inexplicably drawn to me?

Friday 29th May 2009
Anyone want a bit of my sandwich?
You see, for many years now, I have been the unfortunate victim of what I like to call “niche appeal”. This means that ordinary, polite, well-adjusted people with shiny hair and normal shoes stay well away from me, while vomit-stained, unstable (and on a few notable occasions actually clinically mad) people find me impossibly alluring.

It started at University. The tramps outside the aptly named Bedlam Theatre http://www.bedlamtheatre.co.uk/
were quite happy to leave everyone to go about their business. Everyone but me, that is. Without fail, every time they spied me, one would leap up from his stinky cardboard palace and thrust a can of special brew at me.

“Can hen?” (Scottish tramp)
“No thank you, that’s very kind, but I have a lecture to get to”
“Acht weel, take it with yous anyway. You look like ya need it”

Great. Worzel Gummidge’s less fashion conscious brother thinks I look like I could do with a drink. Comforting. I actually had to tip up at the aforementioned lecture and explain to everyone why I was clutching a battered can of Special Brew (didn’t want to be rude). But my relationship with the Bedlam tramps was to be just the start of a long and illustrious career in attracting lunatics. Worse still, the university pals I made all seemed to possess similar skills. My favourite bizarre pick-up of all time was watching my friend get cornered by a very friendly lesbian with a voice box. I’m telling you, throat cancer or no throat cancer, you can’t pay for that kind of entertainment.

I know everyone knows that feeling of sitting on the train praying that the scrofulous, flatulent, toad-like elephant man that has just entered the carriage clutching a 4-pack of lager DOES NOT make a B-line for the seat next to them. We’ve all been there. But with me it really does seem to be a recurring theme. To demonstrate just how serious this problem is, I thought I’d make you a small list of some of my favourites to date.


1. A born-again Christian who attempted to save me with the “laying on of hands” (nice try pal) in Chelsea


2. A small cockney radio personality with a gambling problem and a coke habit who, incidentally, wanted to take me to see the recent West End play ‘Equis’ (in case you don’t know the delightful details, it’s about a disturbed stable boy who blinds all the horses in his charge and then proceeds to have sex with them). Quite a gritty choice for a first date, no?


3. An African man who wrote to me for years expressing his wish to be my “house pet”, whatever that might entail.


4. And, just the other day, a smiley looking rasta-man who walked passed me and said “Mmm, nice”. Yes! I thought, still got it. Until, that is, I saw him talking to a lamppost further up the road. Oh dear.

Basically then, slightly off-centre characters are drawn to me from the various churches, bookmakers, bottle shops and rum outlets from which they are spawned. It’s obviously a vibe I give off, perhaps some kind of deranged pheromone? It says, hello nutters, approach me, I am one of you. Talk to me, stand too close to me and stare at me with your weird scary eyes, offer me bits of your sandwich if you like – no, no, it doesn’t matter that’s it been in the bin – I LOVE that.

Attracting head cases is not much of a skill I grant you. However, in these testing financial times surely every skill-set can be utilised in some way? So, my thought is this, is there some way to harness this unlikely talent of mine? As I’m, more or less, in a constant state of unemployment (or as I like to call it, ‘freelance’), maybe I could turn my ‘niche appeal’ into a career? At the very least I could be a scout for Britain’s Got Talent? Or perhaps there’s some homeless charity out there somewhere that can employ me to round up the lunatic and disaffected amongst society? Sort of like a Pied Piper for whack-jobs.

Of course, in the end, I just have to face it. The truth is, nutters like me because I like nutters. Bodes well for my search for the future Mr Bitter Lemon. He’s out there somewhere, I feel sure of it – probably picking an egg and cress sandwich out of the bin as we speak.