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Finally! The tramps blog
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Finally! The tramps blog You know the world is full of crap people, and sometimes we include ourselves in the crap people category. However when I go to my home towns - Dartford & Gravesend - there's something reassuring about the experience, because if you've slackened off a bit and let something go in your life, you'll see people that have taken it to a whole other level. When I go on dates I attach a lot of importance to it, so I'm well-groomed and I look as neat as I possibly can - I'm not a corporate person so I have to give myself a bit of a makeover to iron out an everyday scruffiness that goes with wearing jeans and jumper, as opposed to a suit. It rankles, therefore, when women don't seem to have made the same effort so I gravitate towards those that are putting a lot into their appearance. I'm grateful for the efforts they make. What is the bare minimum that's acceptable on a daily basis? I always thought that the cultural norm, at the very least, is that you'd spend two minutes a day brushing your teeth and 10 minutes in the shower. That's the least people do, right? This goes out the window when you go to Dartford or Gravesend - you'll see people who are so impoverished they're stretching out the use of one bottle of shampoo over the course of a year - they have a greaseball head that's been unwashed for eight or nine days at least. It's shocking when you haven't seen people look quite like that for a while, but that's how people become in long-term workless households - they're not really living, just existing. Below those with a roof over their head are the tramps, of which there is a growing community in Dartford. Many of my skater friends have got to know the tramps as they inhabit the same spaces - the tramps are friendly towards the skaters as they're a group that aren't spitting on them and telling them to move on. The most notable in town was King Kev. Kev looked like another other - haggard, in rags, long beard, carrying a large bottle of alcopop or super strength lager - but he was surprisingly articulate and socially skilled. It came as a shock when he told us he'd been inside for several years for armed robbery as he seemed so amiable.  King Kev, this pic is taken from a tribute story than appeared in my local newspaper, who described him as 'beloved' and 'legendary' My friends loved the tramps so much they created a set of Top Trump cards, and engaged with Kev on social media - back then it was MySpace. He had a profile, the local teens would message him with comments like 'Hey Kev, how are you? I tried to say hello to you in the park the other day but you were too busy throwing up over a pigeon'. Unfortunately being a is a precarious business and Kev passed on one cold night bedding down in Dartford park. So the teens continued with their smart-arse comments - 'Hey Kev, I heard that you died - how's that working out for you?' To start off with I thought his profile was real and this was a great liberator, despite being homeless he could go online for free in the library, but alas, no, it was a spoof, set up for shits and giggles  . I thought I'd have difficulty relating to someone like Kev, as a 's life is very different from the rest of us, but if you're friendly and approachable that cuts through everything - a lesson for all of us.
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