Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Spot the Loony





Spot (geddit?) the Loony



The aptly named Tom Leppard, popularly known as the ‘Leopard Man’, is one of the more eccentric residents of the Isle of Skye.

An ex soldier of twenty eight years service, Tom found it impossible to relate to people in civilian life and decided to make a statement of personal identity. I can’t imagine many statements much stronger than having yourself tattooed from head to toe in order to resemble a leopard.

Tom lives by a river in a hut constructed from tree branches and forages for food. He interrupts this Gollum like existence to canoe to the nearest village once a week and collect his army pension. He earns a supplementary income by posing for photographs taken by coach loads of bewildered Japanese and American tourists.

Tom is regarded as a strange, but largely harmless soul. His appearance does, however, have a tendency to scare the shit out of small children.

Tom bears testimony to the socialisation skills that are imbued in young recruits by the British Army. Perhaps the Marines or the Paratroop Regiment should make use of Tom in some of their recruitment material; his gung ho approach to self sufficiency should prove an inspiration to all young folks, and may dissuade them from a life of substance abuse and benefit scrounging.

One can but hope.

11 comments:

Herge Smith said...

Tom Leppard - living the dream.

Did he change his name to leppard? Or was it the name that lead to his current appearance/ occupation - like all the do's on Gardens Question Time called stuff like Flowerdew or Greenwood...

garfer said...

Dunno.
Apparently he even has spots on his todger. I hope the tattooist was getting paid by the spot.

Peevish McSnark said...

Yikes! You'd have to be really gung ho to get spots there!.

There's a man like that here in the states who looks like an iguana. He's even split his tongue in 2. Gross.

garfer said...

Nothing beats having a hobby. I think I'll stick to stamp collecting.

Sniffy said...

Does he also hire himself out for children's parties? I'd absolutely love him to be guest of honour at kiddies' Christmas parties instead of some fake Father Christmas.

Ho ho ho!

pissoff said...

He's been on the Discovery channel a couple of times. My daughter's birthday is coming up I should consider him Sniff.

garfer said...

He's not as scary as Ronald MacDonald.
No way.

surly girl said...

i absolutely don't know what to say.

garfer said...

I think Tom's leopard skin bollock pouch is really rather fetching.
I'm sure such an item would prove highly popular if sold by Millets.

Faltanus said...

i say good for Tom! i mean really, how many of us get the opportunity to live out our dreams that way?

garfer said...

No you have dreams of a similar nature Faltunus?
Please tell.