His head in a Bucket...

His sign was great it said

"Upside down and looking daft!! That don´t matter as long as I make you laugh. I may be homeless but I do this because I don´t ask for money so it´s up to you if you want to give, Thanks Andy" ;-)

It made me laugh so I gave ;-P Bringing incidentally to light my own prejudices ... Edinburgh is teeming with people begging, my favorite was the girl at the corner of Princess Street and Leith Walk, the one who was pregnant for over a year... First of all there is no way I can actually afford to give something to everyone which bugs me, I´d like to. As a teenager in Iceland (where one doesn´t get asked very often) I would, when I had the money in my pocket take them to the nearest bakery or shop and buy them a sandwhich, I never gave money!! (not to mention my period of having runaway teenagers staying at my place)*not a good idea!

I can´t imagine being in a position whereby the only way out is having to beg, although some here seem to have it fairly good as I´ve on a number of occasions seen the Princess street ones meeting up for drinks, fairly well dressed and compairing notes. And then there´s the lovely dog, the one dog they seem to pass around because it´s always with a different person each time one walks the P.S. Reminds one of seeing the Italian ones stepping into a fancy sports car after a hard days work :-(

O.k. to get to the point, I have to explain my not giving these unfortunate people anything to my kids, and the conclusion has been that if these (young, well built seemingly very capable) people are actually in any way trying to earn the money by doing anything we´ll give (when we can). And.. then there are the old guys, somehow I think of them as dears (I know I´m weird) but they never ask, just roam around, sitting in the near same spot day after day. These men I´ll admit do not have a choice, they´re stuck in the position they´re in and we ask if we may give them occasionally.

O.k. moralistic rant of the day just about over, it´s just I believe people should try to work or take care of themselves as far as they can, I´m an all out supporter for social services and a welfare society but working at the social insurance institution in Iceland it struck me how many people didn´t have much ailing them but had rather just given up, often at a very early age. It struck me also when dealing with the teenagers this mixture of hopelessness, and sad or difficult backgrounds, but most of all what struck me was how everything was always due to their background, their parents, their upbringing according to them, and never up to themselves to do something, anything! Sad.