do phone calls really cost 40p
One thing I have not seen so much of in London is beggars.
Sure there are a few, with little signs, sitting out of everyones way being ignored by people.
But there aren’t the beggars we have in Melbourne, the ones that if you stand still for longer than 12 seconds in the CDB you will get accosted.
I have stood in the one place for 10 minutes in Melbourne and have the same person ask me for money 3 times, the third time I asked him if he needed money for a memory aid.
In London I have only been approached twice, one for the oldie but a goodie, got any change line.
I refuse to give money to anyone who is that unimaginative.
The other day I got my first Melbourne type beggar.
This young girl who could hardly stand upright came over asking for 40p to make a phone call.
I asked her why she couldn’t call reverse charges, she looked at me oddly and walked away.
My second rule is not giving people money if they can’t give me a full and detailed bullshit story.
I don’t mind being bullshitted with, as long as it’s an intricate line of bullshit.
This girl had nothing.
Not long after that I was on the tube and a guy got on and did a whole speech about being poor and needing cash and such.
But I don’t count that as being accosted as he didn’t come up to me personally, and was much easier to ignore.
Compared with Melbourne, London goes alright for the beggars, if I only get accosted once a month I can live with that, in Melbourne you get accosted twice a day in the city.
My favourite ever beggar was in Memphis, he came up and said do you have any money, I said no, and he said I’ll be honest with you, I just wanna get a beer.
So I bought him a beer, see honesty is the best policy.
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A bloke managed to get £4 out of me last week by the simple method of beating himself up – he had blood all down his face – and asking for money to get home. He started off asking for 2 quid then upped the price every sentence. By the time I thought it was suss I had my purse out and didn’t want to get beaten up and mugged by the mental.
Apparently he managed to get a quid off a friend of mine a couple of months ago and only failed with another cos he picked someone who was too pissed and skint.
Lisa, did he actually beat himself up in front of you, because if he did, I would have paid 4 quid for that.
No. In retrospect my report was slightly misleading.
He pretended he’d been beaten up by someone else. He was snivelling and everything, so I believed him. Then I started to have suspicions when the cost of transport started rising so precipitously, but thought I was just being cynical and had been in London too long – I mean, who would injure themselves in that way?
However, I mentioned it to various friends later and apparently he’s a well-known local “character”. It’s certainly a good scam, if you don’t mind physically disfiguring yourself for a few quid..
Lisa, No i knew what you meant, i’m just saying, if he beat himself up in front of me, i would pay for that. At least 4 quid.
Lisa, No i knew what you meant, i’m just saying, if he beat himself up in front of me, i would pay for that. At least 4 quid.
Sometimes I’m not sure I make sense, then I start using word like “precipitous”. Glad it did.
Anyway, I’m not sure I’d risk it. Anyone who’d be willing to beat themselves up for money would also be willing to beat me up for money. But then I’m a coward who avoids confrontation and violence, hence the four quid.
There is a rotating gang of beggars in Ealing. They all look clean, well-dressed and sufficiently fed. The only concession they seem to make is following the conventions of sitting right outside the tube (or in front of the Natwest) with a torn, grubby Starbucks cup in front of them. I have serious doubts that any of them are actually homeless. Also the rotations are suspicious… it’s almost as though they have a roster drawn up.
If they showed me proof of the roster i’d consider paying 2 quid for that.