Two pound

Ok. Bit of an explanation to this one.

I was sitting in Starbucks like a fool (because everyone knows that Nero do better Chai latte) just sitting, writing my usual drivel, when suddenly this guy appears, holding in his arms what appears to be a portfolio. He's tall, taller than me if I had of been standing, more bearded, and slightly more insane looking.

My first impulse was to stand up/jab him in the eye/finish him off with the plastic fork I was eating some carrot cake with. But, no. I was curious. I wanted to see what this guy had to say. Why had he singled me out?

"Hello there." He outstretches a hand, which I accept. We shake and now he 'gets down to business'.

"You look like a fellow artist." He says. Scam artist I think.

People do that to make you agree with them. Try and bind you by association to a subject and to themselves. It's just a form of flattery really. It also asks you to take the suggester seriously, if only of the surface, because the person is being polite to you, so you should be to them. Morality transfer they call it.

"Do you mind if I show you some work?" I agree, he opens this portfolio and BANG I am looking at a picture ripped out of a paper and couloured in with tippex and black marker.

"So, what do you think?" He had crazy eyes. Not good ones. Really desperate ones, so I nod and say I like it. He shows me something else that I cannot do the justice of describing, only that it's probably, in the context I was in, the funniest picture I'd ever seen, unintentionally. It was obviously drawn in crayon and seemed to be of insane little green and pink smiling rabbits. (I assume he ran out of pink)

Then the shit starts. I don't mean 'shit' as in not true, but shit as in totally unnecessary. How he'd met a girl on the internet/turned out to be a sixty two year old woman/was totally broke after taking her to dinner/really needed some money for the bus home.

Would I like to buy some of his art?

No, not really. But I did. I bought it. The picture you've seen above, of some unknown catalog model/ninja ghost/someone who I suspect to be Miss Scarlett Johanssen. It cost me the bargain sum of £2, and after all, as the guy said, he'd used two bottles of tippex/whiteout on the damn thing.

And I wanted him to go away.



What you see above is a testament to desperation, of being hassled in coffee houses, but more importantly, trying. He spent whole minutes doing that.

I felt sorry for him. If I could have seen him on the street beforehand and gave him the pretty small amount of money, I would have. No conversation, no sales pitch, nothing in return, to save the mans dignity.

But if I ever see him again he can get lost.

Enjoy ^.^