The new demography

Thursday, January 19th, 2006 10:46 am
caddyman: (Default)
[personal profile] caddyman
This morning I have mostly been playing avoid the beggar; it is an old London pass-time which has been practiced for hundreds of years.

Of late, it has been in decline what with the gazillions of pounds pumped into tackling homelessness by various incarnations of Her Majesty’s Government1. Those remaining hardcore beggars have been of the standard variety:

    Old street gentlemen with a preference for drinking neat methylated spirit and arguing with lampposts;
    Young women with babies looking pathetic on the Tube;
    Invasive buskers;
    Abusive and very large Yardies.

I noted a few days ago how I had been accosted by a man wearing a donkey jacket and knitted woolly hat. He claimed to be of all things, a priest from Latvia, and he bummed a cigarette.

Anyway, there has clearly been an influx from the Baltics, since a similarly dressed man2 but with notably poorer command of the language (not helped by a very thick accent) stopped me and asked for money. This chap claimed to be from Lithuania. I only need to meet an Estonian and I have collected the set.

On a side note, in the game of find the waste paper bin, a little routine I indulge in every morning in the office, after the cleaners have been inventive the night before, I am win. I found it immediately by the simple expedient of nearly breaking my neck when it leapt out at me from under my desk. The cleaners aren’t trying any more.

Maybe they’re making a lucrative living pretending to be immigrants from the Baltic states.

1Trust me when I say the amount of money invested since I have been aware of the scheme could have bought a mansion for each homeless person in the country several times over.

2From now on, the standard New York dockworker/Irish Navvy look of denim jeans, donkey jacket and woolly hat will be reinvented and referred to as Hanseatic Chic in honour of this latest influx from the east.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 10:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oldnick.livejournal.com
You seem to have missed the most annoying type - young people in dayglo jackets pestering people to sign away their life savings to chariddee.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 10:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
Ah, you're making the common mistake of confusing true beggars with rodents!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 10:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oldnick.livejournal.com
They're certainly irritating b*gg*rs.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 10:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
No dispute on that particular point!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bibliogirl.livejournal.com
Our cleaner is an immigrant from the Baltic states (she's Lithuanian). What do I win?

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oldnick.livejournal.com
Someone who's keen to work and glad of the money?

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bibliogirl.livejournal.com
Indeed. The agency for whom she works is pretty much exclusively staffed from Eastern Europe...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ribble.livejournal.com
The girl from our cob shop is from Estonia. What do I win?!

The last time I went to London (which is about 6 months ago?) I did not see one beggar on the street. It was rubbish. No drunken ramblings first thing in the morning; no white lightning in brown paper bags; nothing. They have however, all moved to Nottingham to buy Tennants Super Extra in quantities of one at 9.38am when I am walking to work and swear at everything in sight when they're told they have to buy it ones. I'd go for the vodka if I was in that situation. Tesco Value Vodka. It's killer.

*Thattttt oollldddddd piiiaaannnnoooooooo* Diana Ross is on.
*hhIIIImmmmmmm kkkkuuuuuhhmmmiinnnnnn ooouuutttttt* Good impression I thougt.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
You clearly don't go to the right places.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ribble.livejournal.com
Central and East; Bexleyheath to be precise.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
Well, there's your problem then. Try hanging around mainline stations in the centre.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pauln.livejournal.com
We are apparently currently educating at a higher level approximately half of the Estonian Rugby squad.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 11:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oldnick.livejournal.com
Any good players that we could poach for Coventry? Last thing we need is them going to B*df**d.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 12:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pauln.livejournal.com
I don't know - it was merely an odd snippet that came my way.

Shall we just say that Estonia do not feature in the IRB World Rankings.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 12:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oldnick.livejournal.com
Nor do Coventry.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-01-19 02:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bluesman.livejournal.com
One of the interesting points of working in Beautiful Downtown San Bernardino (ahem) used to be watching the poor tragic derelicts staggering past along 5th St. I don't know if most of them have been moved along, but my "entertainment" has been reduced to sitting here aghast at the sight of women's bellies hanging out over their jeans (I believe I blogged about this odious phenomenon a while ago) as they sashay past, and sinister hooded youths inspecting themselves in the slightly mirrored tinted windows that separate the blighters from myself, as they slink along in search of someone to mutter at as they point a knife at their ribs.

What is the world coming to?

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