Then Came Billie. By Uncle Monty.

Then Came Billie.

Life With Big Issue Folkz.
By Uncle Monty.

Photos & Graphics By Alex Albion.
.@.

Every other word from out of Billie’s foul mouth was “fuck.”
Openly gay and lesbian, Billie even spent time with Gordon

Brown at No. 10, where she induced him to buy The Big

Issue that she has flogged on the city streets of London

as a badged Big Issue vendor for some years now.

.@.
Billie has also met Diana, Princess of Wales. She was on a

TV documentary series about homelessness, too. On top of

that, The Big Issue "big wigs" seem to think the world of

her. Billie is after all a great publicity prop for John Bird’s

money-making world of homelessness as the self-made

guru (and sometimes, "jackass") of The Big Issue.
.@.
So there I was today at the Big Issue's Covent Garden

distribution spot at where long-time distributor Sam

Woodlock seemed to be in a reclusive and bad mood

as she asked me mechanically what I wanted for

more copies of The Big Issue. She then wrote down

my badge No. 115 and my purchased number of

magz. She then further ignored me to delve back

into reading her copy of "The Sun" newspaper.

Sam had no time to speak to me beyond that.

.@.

Big Issue distributor Steve – or more correctly called

Stephen Farrell Wood (spelled with or without an hyphen

in his surname) - then served me. He’s becoming some-

thing of an unofficial resident poet, if you will, with

one of his latest pieces of poetry appearing again

in this week’s Festive Issue:

Tulse Hill SW2
By Stephen Farrell Woods

.
Sitting under a weeping willow
I do not pay for Apples
Ivy rampant adorns the walls
of my home.
I see faces in the leaves of
the trees.
Foxes parade up and down
Lanercost Rd, I
(and I suspect many more
Leave a little something under the
cover of dusk or darkness)
.
Squirrels do their squirrelly thing
in the back garden throughout
The autumn and winter months.
With 3 (or is it 4) canvasses
awaiting more, I go inside.
Inside I read, think, and with
a pondering reluctance paint.

.
Pages 48-49. Christmas 2009. No.

875. Nov. 30th-Dec. 6th, 2oo9.

.

No sooner had I almost finished with Steve and

Sam, then came Billie with her little black and white

dog. He's so intelligent and lovable he almost speak

does he. And like a Kansas tornado coming at you,

Billie is so hypo one could almost say the weather

drastically changes once she arrives on the scene.

She’s Hypo No. 1.

.@.

With her torrent of mouthy words laced with her

usual and unilateral conversation of “fuck” this

and “fuck” that,” Billie is far from bland like are

so many Big Issue vendors. She's got gusto and

determination that few of her fellow vendors can

compete with her. Billie is also becoming more of a

rarer breed thesedays of youngish female Big Issue

vendors seen selling on the callous streets of London.

Except, may I say, for the oldish and unpretty (dare

I say “ugly”) gypsies women selling The Big Issue at

London’s Kingsway, there seems to be fewer and

fewer sexy female Big Issue vendors on the

streets from what I can see.
.@.
Was He/She An Hermaphrodite Vendor?

.@.

While I was at the Big Issue’s Covent Garden

distribution spot, it was about as "unChristmas" as you

could get along with the disappointing front cover of this

week's Festive Issue with the five Nutty Boys, who are a

nutty selection for Christmas at the best of times. After

last week's sensational Bob Dylan interview and the front

cover of him that sold like hot cakes last week, the Nutty

Boys are about as bad as selection as you could get for a

so-called "Festive" issue. Next week, however, we have

George Michael making it back again, after he appeared

on the Christmas issue of two years ago, if I remember

correctly. George is usually a good seller for the Big

Issue vendors, but also especially profitable for The

Big Issue money makers who swim in big bucks and

plentiful Christmases at the expense of their poor and

under-rewarded street vendors. After George, we get

the Sir Paul McCarthy issue to round out vendor sales

at this Xmas season. Come New Year, everything then

tends to go dead for most of The Big Issue vendors. Plus,

it becomes colder and more wintery on the streets. That,

too, doesn't help and only compounds the problem of

poor sales and even poorer profit for the street vendors

all across the UK. So they need to make it during the

weeks climaxing in the celebration of the birth of Our

Lord Jesus. After that, they might as well go home,

but sadly all too many don't have that choice since

they are, of course, homeless no matter the seasons.

It's just too sad when you stop and think about it ...

.@.
After encountering hypo Billie, moody Sam, and poet

Steve, I then went back to my Big Issue pitch at Long

Acre with my extra purchase of 20 copies to sell to the

rather cold crowd that walked right on by and refused
to offer even the slightest smile or to utter a “Merry

Christmas” to me or to donate even a red cent. Of the

few that did, they were mainly those folkz who have

been customers-cum-friends of mine for almost 5

years now. It is those old customers for the most

part who make a vendor's Christmas come true.

Without them, the vendor can expect a bleak

Christmas at best and at worst a depressing

Yuletide ... And life with other Big Issue folkz

can also be grim for they themselves cannot al-

ways count on a good Christmas and, therefore,

they rarely give a damn for anybody else. In fact,

to witness modern Broken Britain is best seen from

the crude vantage point of the vendor on the street.

All that Christmas does, is to simply highlight and

exasperate all that is wrong and dreadful with multi-

cultural and multiracial England under vile New

Labour. Today's UK homeless are neither second

nor third class citizens, but rather fourth class un-

less, of course, they're anything but White English.

.@.

“Did you see, Monty, the new vendor outside at 90

(Long Acre)?,” I was suddenly asked by one of my

long-time customers as I settled into my usual pitch.

I then looked and saw a young fellow who I’d never

seen before with his green Big Issue badge dangling

on the back of his shoulder instead of on the front

of his jacket. I was none too pleased to see him.

.@.
Perhaps in his late 20’s with specs, I approached the

short Caucasian fellow with his high badge number of

5000 – yes, No. 5000 – and told him to stop badgering

the public into buying his copies of The Big Issue. I also

told him it was not a pitch at 90 and therefore it was

illegal for him to be standing there hawking his wares,

so to speak, at the huge office block of lawyers, business

people, diplomats, bankers, corporate personnel, and

noted stockbrokers, of which many I personally know

and who buy The Big Issue from me more

often than not.

.@.

He said he was told to set up at Pret’s that was on the

opposite side of the street. “No, mate, you’ve got it

wrong,” I told him politely but firmly. “That’s also an

illegal pitch at Pret’s,” I informed him and I then told

him that as a trainee vendor he was supposed to be

further down past the Covent Garden tube station.

He lingered on until two of my regular customers

confronted him with one saying that I'd been there

for years and he was unwelcomed to pitch his pitch

where I was just yards away from my own long-

standing pitch at Nero’s. I was going to go back to

Sam Woodlock to complain to her, but I realised

Sam wasn't in a good mood toward me for some

reason and so I didn't want us to have bad words

between us by complaining about the brand spank-

ing new vendor that was No. 5000. But after my

buddy John Annetts also spoke with the new bugger

No. 5000, he soon headed off else where to perhaps

learn by pain and pitfalls what life is like with

the other Big Issue folkz.

.@.

Perhaps he found greener pastures selling outside of

dead Dame Anita Roddick's famous invention called

"The Body Shop." Who knows or who cares? I sure

don't! I cannot stand these new son-of-a-bitches that

always popup near Christmastide to show their pretty

asses thinking they're entitled to something when they

are not ... A way and stray dog or cat is far more entitled

than them, so I think! Now if she's a pretty vendor,

okay! I don't mind her ... she can come at anytime!

And if you now wish, also read Anita Roddick quotes.

.@.

Then came Billie. But now she was gone or still

bugging someone with her usual "fuck" you ...

.@.

Excuse the language please, Uncle Monty.

+John of Damascus, 2oo9.

.@.

Above Caption Photo:

Billie Herself Dressed as Santa!

.

:: Story Update ::

After yesterday, I went back to the distribution

spot this morning to get more magz and to see

how Sam was. She was all fine and dandy unlike

yesterday!! I also told her about the new vendor

with badge No. 5000. She said to send anybody like

that to her, if they have a green (trainee) badge and

are in the wrong place or at some mispitch. That's

okay with me and glad Sam and I are in good

shapes like we should be. And like yesterday, I

sold out all my magazine stock again at my old

and own pitch at London's Covent Garden. Now

looking forward to the upcoming George Micheal

and Paul McCarthy issues set for sale during the

Christmas period for vendors to sell and hope-

fully make some decent money for a change. Oh,

I also didn't see sight or sound of Billie again

come this Saturday and Adventide morning ...

Kudos, Uncle Monty. Dec. 5th, 2oo9. pm.

.@.

:: P-O-S-T-S-C-R-I-P-T ::

Billy's Own Confessional Story.

By Uncle Monty.

Billy - whose name I purposely Americanised as "Billie" in

my own above story about her of 3 or 4 days ago - now

appears in the latest George Micheal edition of The Big

Issue (No. 876) that was released this Monday morning,

Dec. 7th, 2oo9, in the UK. Under the storyline of "Big

Changes," Billy proudly declares her own count of 96

criminal convictions to her British name!! Her story seems

to revel in sordid bravado and unashamed glorification of

her past life that resulted in her getting thrown out of her

home by her own mother at age 14, then stealing at every

turn to feed her drug addiction of crack and herion, and to

ultimately become an institutionalised homeless person

for years, there after, in London. Billy started to sell The

Big Issue 10 years ago and now attributes her "social

redemption," if you will, to the glory of the one and only

street publication that is TBI. Woooooow! On the next

page, Billy is then shown again with a donation plea from

The Big Issue Foundation - with its full page spread - to

get the public to make donations to it to help support

vendors like reformed Billy. Oh, boy!!

.

Aside from the two-year old regurgitated and identical

Xmas front cover of George Michael that's used and re-

printed again by The Big Issue for its present 2009

Christmas Bumper Issue, the story of Billy raises questions

of what is the real aim thesedays behind TBI? Is it to help

ex-prisoners and jailbirds first or to help those who are

purely homeless and not merely criminals? The fact that

a third of all Big Issue vendors are said to come from a

criminal background - or 1,000 out of say 3,000 vendors

- makes for depressing reading and public stigma, I think.

Also, does criminal and anti-social behaviour lead directly

to homelessness or does homelessness lead to criminal

and anti-social behaviour? In other words, which of

them comes first? You take a good guess, okay?

.

On reading Billie's or Billy's own confessional story, I was

amazed at the remarkable similarities between her's and

John Bird's own story of his past criminality, his past

Borstal incarceration, his past illicit drug use, and his

own later redemption to become a modern-day and

classic "Champagne Socialist" or a larger-than-life

capitalist that he actively portrays of himself today.

And like AJB has already done, Billy now plans to

write her own life story with the help of some ghost

writer. The exception to him is that I doubt Billy-The-

Vendor will ever become a swaggering money-grabber

like is Old Birdie. So, so much for Billie's or Billy's

confessional story of her's for now ... Excuse me,

but I might also just want to puke the next time!!

.@.

Coming in the New Year, 2010:
Dead Bird Walking. By Graham Walker.
Edited By Uncle Monty.
Photos & Graphics By Alex Albion.

Next: World Homeless Events for 2010.

Compiled By Uncle Monty.

...

Breaking New Labour's Stranglehold

on Broken Britain. By Alex Albion.

Also coming in the New Year, 2010.

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(Click on any image to Enlarge)

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