Why am I attracted to the mad ones?
He never wore shoes or socks even in winter in Aberdeen (claiming his Australian backwoods childhood had hardened his soles like leather) and dressed like a tramp (owning 5 pairs of the same shirts and cord trousers so that people who didn't know him suspected he was smelly and dirty coz he seemingly never washed his clothes), always called me "Pabbums upon old petal" in public- affettely denying me the macho cred I so much wanted (and I still think my rough tough exterior deserved) and once conned me into a 400 mile drive to chase after a girl who was camping in Skye by telling me we were going around the corner to buy chips; he didn't stop until we missed the Kyle of Lochalsh ferry by 15 minutes and then drove back all night down the side of Loch Ness while I called him for everything.

However, he did once sleep outside the tent on a Welsh hillside all night to allow me to indulge myself with a hitchhiking Spanish girl who we picked up and he fancied too but I got to first and didn't complain once when it rained. Nor did he mind when I laughed heartedly at him when a girl he thought himself to be in love with replied to his "Susan I love you" with the immortal words: "have you tried Milk of Magnesia?".

Ian, I miss you and your eccentric ways - getting arrested for standing creepily outside a female dressing room in Top Shop for three hours without moving (you bad), learning flamenco guitar by mail order rather than attending lectures and being kicked out of uni as a result, searching the world to find a woman who would keep you without your needing to work like the rest of we wage-slaves and astonishingly finding one in Hamburg by pure chance. Lazy but likeable I guess.

The last time I heard from Ian he appeared at my door with the aforementioned older rich woman on a day when I was elsewhere. He left a short poem scratchily written using a rotering pen on thin, thin paper and a German porn mag (well you do, don't you; it's only polite when visiting) through the letterbox and no forwarding address.

He still didn't wear shoes or socks either, an astonished neighbour reported to me later.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Mon 31 Jul 2006, 0:46, Reply)