mcfc2112 said:
How about the guy that used to run the 2nd hand book/comic shop on Shudehill that had one, maybe 2 false hands (and, knowing this forum - probably a wooden leg too!)?
Paramount Books, he's still going. Has a load of change spilled all over the counter that he pushes towards you with his two plastic arms, like some kind of creepy casino teller, while 1930s jazz plays over the record player.
Loads of familiar characters on here. The mad conspiracy bus woman seems to follow me around, especially on the buses up and down Oxford Road, and she absolutely stinks. It literally makes your eyes water when she's passing out her mad sheets of paper detailing the list of crimes visited on her by the Masons, the Illuminati and Tony Blair.
I well remember the two old Jamaican dudes with their banjos, busking on Market Street. Their sidekick was a toothless old Irish boy playing the spoons on his knees, occasionally stopping to take a swig from the ever present bottle of Thunderbird under the bench. They only ever seemed to know two or three tunes — Brown Girl In The Ring and, bizarrely, the theme tune to Skippy The Bush Kangaroo.
The deaf and dumb punk dude grabbed my mate's hand at the bar in The Ritz one Monday night, trying to cadge money off him for a drink. My mate tried to pull his hand away and the loony pulled his hand up to his mouth and bit him, full force. We were roaring with laughter, he wouldn't let go.
There was a highly unconvincing blonde tranny called Shirley who lived at the top of our street in the late 70s, early 80s, who always seemed to be wandering about up and down London Road near the old fire station and what used to be a 'doll's hospital'.
