Mr Green remembered

It's the protein man's birthday today. I used to see him every weekday in the early eighties as I got off the tube at Oxford Circus on my way to Riding House Street. Perhaps rather than thinking of him as a classic crepuscular suburban eccentric, we should simply regard him as being a bit before his time. These days he'd be a nutritionist, and have a certificate bought with good American dollars saying so. He'd have a show on Channel 4, a column in several women's magazines, a range of expensive supplements in pill and powder form and a place on a committee worrying over the contents of school meals. He'd be a complete fucking nuisance rather than a drab, poignant fellow who lost his way a bit. Say what you like, one thing the anglo-Saxon economy has been good at over the past thirty years is monetising crackpots. 

Comments

[ajay]

one thing the anglo-Saxon economy has been good at over the past thirty years is monetising crackpots.

This is a bit of a theme in the Sun/NI/government nexus, certainly. Gillian McKeith, dodgy nutritional supplements in the small ads, Mayan rebirthing ceremonies, weird economic theories...

[BenSix]

Less passion from less meat, fish, egg and cheese? But I'm confused...

[CMcM]

See also North American variants, which dangle the promise of, er, everlasting life before us.

I have a sneaking suspicion Mr.Green, like the good son of a bottle-stopper maker's clerk that he was, would have considered such bombast to be a trivialisation of his message.

[Barry Freed]

I just now realized that's in the DNB. How wonderful.

[Chris Williams]

The DNB people have made a concerted effort to get well-documented losers in as well, to try and counter the domination by the great and the good. They are way cool and I'd be saying this even if I hadn't worked with (and for) them on this.

[seeds]

"Crepuscular suburban eccentric" would make a great title for a song by The Fall.