The Vol-in-Law works near Oxford Circus, and I sometimes meet him outside the entrance to the Underground station. Sometimes, before I quit, I would lean against the railings and smoke while I was waiting. This drew the attention and the ire of a Evangelical street preacher. He told me - through a megaphone on a busy, busy London street, that I was using cigarettes as a crutch. I drew harder."Are you a winner or a sinner?" he hollered at just about everyone. I may have grown up in the South with street preachers and tract-distributers - but this guy had as much in common with London market traders calling out their wares as the hellfire and brimstone corner prognosticators of Tennessee. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to classify myself as a winner or a sinner by this guy (can't I be both?). And I rarely used that tube station.
My man the street preacher finally got himself an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) for megaphoning some lefty BBC types. (This is a civil order to stop doing something or to stay out of a certain area. If you defy the order though, it becomes a criminal matter and you can go to jail.) After the ASBO, I didn't see him at Oxford Circus. He was replaced by a woman with a weak voice and without the salesman's patter. Sometimes there was a man out there, too. But it wasn't the same.
Last night - the street preacher, Phil - handed me a religious tract as I exited Oxford Circus station. "Will you considering becoming a Christian?" he asked me.
"Don't you have an ASBO?" I wanted to ask him.
__________
Photo credit to Dave Gorman who has a Flickr set dedicated to these London street preachers.
3 comments:
I find that kind of sad. Even if ASBO's were effective (which they aren't) who wants to live in a world where all the eccentric characters are ASBO'd out of the background? Seriously, he may have been annoying, but hardly threatening or criminal. Are they heading to Speaker's Corner next?
Apparently he's not ASBO'd from street preaching - just from using the megaphone.
I can do without the megaphone, but I had kinda missed him.
I'm in Soho so I hear him at Piccadilly all the time.
He cracks me up. . .
(But that would have been hysterical if you had said it.)
The Goaaaawwwwwd nut in Hollywood wears a suit, carries a big sign and dances back and forth as he criss crosses the street, rocken out to his ipod. If you go down holywood/Vine - Highland on a weekend afternoon he his bound to be there. . .
Post a Comment