Quatloos!

For some time I've been conflicted as to who was the most hateful Sov-Cit or otherwise general crazy person we're following here.

For a long time, it was hands down Tom Crawford, hands down. He had a powerful combination of "so wrong its not even wrong" legal theories, along with being "person who I'm most enjoy holding his face under water until he goes limp". But as he's gone a little limp all by himself it has worn off a bit for me.

Besides, I've other fish to fry.

Neelu Berry and Wreka Patel are often top of my list these days. Which ever one I've read about last seems to strike me as the most annoying human being to reside on your glorious island since King John let slip the mortal coil in 1216. Both of them just make me have strange fantasies about taking them to the top of the Elizabeth Tower and see if I could toss one of them into the Thames.

Of course, when Crab Bait pops up his ugly head, I think of another Tower, THE Tower (of London) and wonder how much repair it take to make the yard inside it fully functional again. Is the block they used for Thomas Moore still usable or will we need a new one?

Finally, Chrissy Morris. His normal posts aren't really in a league with my top picks, he's at best a dark horse, UNITL I have to listen to him talking on the phone to some poor sod working the customer service line at some credit card company. He shines on the phone and on a sunny day with a good wind, he might just be the one....

Anyone else want to cast a vote?

Poll runs 5 days.

Who's the nuttiest, or who's the most annoying? Nuttiest must be Ms Berry by a long shot, who could top the combination of Swissindo, baby blood for school dinners, and now cover up by car theft?

aesmith wrote:Who's the nuttiest, or who's the most annoying? Nuttiest must be Ms Berry by a long shot, who could top the combination of Swissindo, baby blood for school dinners, and now cover up by car theft?

Seconded.

Thirded - she's England's Heather Touchy-Giraffe / Karen Hudes.

Chrisy Morris gets my vote based on being the most annoying. His combination of being uneducated in virtually everything but at the same time considering himself smart when others don't follow his flawed logic makes him so lovable.

For my money, Gregg's designation of "most hateful" belongs to Peter of England. Never before have so many been swindled out of so much by so few. I believe that his scam probably reached ruined more people than any of the others. I agree that Neelu Berry is hands-down the craziest, though.

Expert in nothing may not be the nuttiest, but I think he is pretty nasty.

Neelu does seem the most deluded of a deluded flock

Looking at the qualifying criteria;

the most hateful Sov-Cit

I have to vote Dave 'Reverse the Charges' Robinson*. He was a full-blown down the rabbit hole Footle in the naughties until he latched on to PLD and Magnum Carter when he spat out his dummy & split from the rest. He claims not to be or believe in Freeman thinking yet exudes it still. He preaches love light and peace etc etc but under this very thin veneer is a modern day Judge Jeffreys, a bloodthirsty sociopath with plans for dealing out death to an ever-growing list of enemies that would shame Pol Pot. Let loose with the responsibility to govern and I think he'd end up as a grown-up version of one of the baddies in Lord of the Flies.

He also reminds me of one Joseph Smith, another charlatan, this one from the 19th century who founded an entirely invented and patently bollocks religion which somehow took hold in America and is still going strong today. Smith met an untimely end when the ungodly had themselves a old-fashioned lynchin' (a shootin' actually) but the codswallop he was pedalling had gathered a momentum all of its own by then.

Dreary Dave has initiated his own quasi-religious group based on an equally fallacious premiss which I suspect no longer has a need of him, the parallels are striking. They include;

• A promised land in the future with redemption for the faithful
  a schism (the spat with followers of Graham Moore - and others)
  Excommunication for the heretical
  solemn oaths of belief or allegiance to take
  arcane rituals to observe (the holy three letters, trial by bankruptcy and the spurious use of archaic spell-casting latin phrases, nunc pro tunc being powerful enough to get judges to flee the court before it - apparently)
  pledges of obsequiousness to the cause and finally - and here's the hateful bit -
  eternal damnation not only in the next life but the present (i.e. a hanging) for their numerous enemies.

There is also an occasional but virulent anti-semitic theme thrown in for good measure.

Neelu is a close 2nd but if I were defending, she would be a clear candidate for McNaughton Rules exception.

So I vote other!

*Call Collect for the US readers

Elizabeth Watson has to rank up there as being nutty as a fruitcake.

For my money Neelu's bizarre belief that everybody employed by the state, no matter how lowly and mundane their position, and a good many people with no connection whatsoever to the 'powers that be' are under 'an oath to god' to uphold 'god's laws' is sufficiently original to make her the outright winner of the cup. In fact I'd go so far as to say her general loopiness should get her the second and third place cups too.

Ordinarily I'd question whether or not her obvious and obviously genuine mental illness was conferring an unfair advantage but her head-and-shoulders lead over her competitors makes this irrelevant. She's barking mad not just in a medical sense but in a colloquial sense too and without even trying it seems.

The term 'Barking Mad' as a diagnosis fell out of favour rather in the 1950s and 60s when the old Lunatic Asylums were abandoned for 'Care in the Community'.
The problem was that it was hard to justify discharging hordes of the Barking Mad onto the streets of the pleasant suburbs where the old Victorian asylums tended to be located, and some form of more acceptable labelling had to be found to placate the locals to some extent.

The easiest choice was 'personality disorder', for who of us, introspecting, cannot at least to ourselves admit we too may have less than a perfect personality? I know I have had to spend the last 50 years pretending most of the time not to have 'unspecified anti-social tendencies' and a dislke for onions that borders on the psychopathic.

Neelu is therefore not barking mad. She has a delusional system firmly entrenched, but in matters that do not conflict with that delusion, she is capable of more or less normal social and practical interactions, and, as an example, the proprietor of her local greengrocer's shop may well consider her to be a perfectly normal customer.

This is in stark contrast with those whose disorder makes them crave conflict, or indeed, crave humiliation. I name no names here. Although Haining comes to mind.
Neelu needs triggering, and so she is more tolerable than those who go off the deep end for any reason or none.

If the criteria is "nuts", then it's Neelu by a mile. Though Elizabeth Watson ought to be a choice in the poll.

If it's "hateful", my pick is Rekha Patel. I don't even think she's that much of a sovcit, just a sociopathic harpy that will take any path to get what she wants.

Siegfried Shrink wrote:Neelu is therefore not barking mad. She has a delusional system firmly entrenched, but in matters that do not conflict with that delusion, she is capable of more or less normal social and practical interactions, and, as an example, the proprietor of her local greengrocer's shop may well consider her to be a perfectly normal customer.

A decade or so ago I actually spent some time (voluntarily in theory) in a couple of psychiatric units and in a significant number of cases my fellow nuts seemed to be perfectly normal and rational people right up until something unique to them sent them completely bat-shit crazy. It's surprising just how many completely insane people can act completely sanely 95% of the time.

Is Neelu certifiably or at least sectionably insane? I assume not as she's been assessed under a 72 hour section and released back into circulation. That said, due to the gross underfunding of the MH services beds are in very short supply and the barrier you have to clear to get sectioned is higher now than it's ever been. In my professional opinion as a doctor*... She's as mad as a box of frogs.

*Internet doctor. Studied at the YouTube medical school.

I had to vote for Chrisy Morris

The reason being that all the others have generally made a mess of their lives

Where as Chrisy Morris makes a mess of other peoples lives

I voted Neelu.
She's nuttier than a bag of roasted almonds. I can't believe she's still loose in polite society.

Neelu is an actual nutter (and I'm a huge fan) but Dave Robinson is the most interesting Fremen currently running around because he has an actual "coherent" political theory he's developed. Robert White is a compelling character but he's just riding on Dave's philosophical bandwagon.

Go Dave! Smash those Dragons! Pay under duress!

Back in my advice worker days I did a lot of work in conjunction with social services/NHS combined community mental health teams. I’ve all the sympathy in the world for people who live with severe mental illness/personality disorder. They’re really horrible things that often destroy lives and no-one is immune.

I’m not voting because I think there’s a difference between eccentricity, however odd or extreme, seriously delusional behaviour that dominates the sufferer’s life with profoundly negative consequences and being a confidence trickster. Neelu I would put into the “very ill indeed” category, though I will admit to wondering if she has enough insight to sometimes turn on the delusional ranting if she thinks it might benefit her. I suspect she might have noticed that people tend to react to her rants by giving her what she wants to get rid of her or just give up trying to cope with her and go away.

I’m not saying she’s faking, I’m sure she’s very far from well. The professional in me sympathises, while the less than professional bit of me finds her curious and at times finds her videos entertaining. Which I’m not proud about, but I make few claims to perfection.

As the nastiest candidate, the con-man calling himself Peter of England. He’s a parasite preying on vulnerable people who obviously aren’t best equipped to resist his lies and probably have more than enough problems without him adding to them. He runs a con trick without a hint of remorse or guilt. When things start getting a bit sticky, his victims are start to have doubts and he attracts the wrong kind of attention such as the BBC, then he goes under cover for a while before re-emerging to scam all over again.

If anyone deserves a long chat with the constabulary with a view to prosecution it’s him.

I think the GOODF free brigade, whose nonsense first attracted my attention to FOTLism in all its forms, run him a close second, or maybe equal first. They set about profiting by making people’s problems worse not better, but I’m prepared to believe some of the lower ranks might believe some of their own propaganda.

The PLDers and Dragons I’d put in the “eccentric” category. Essentially they’re fringe political ideologies. The PLDers based around grossly misunderstood history and law mixed with pure conspiracy-theory fantasy, the Dragons a small bunch of pompous self-important nutcases with far-right tendencies of the sort we’ve seen before and will doubtless see again. Before the internet neither would have amounted to anything and gone almost unoticed. Unless they decided to let bombs off or something similar of course.

Little Richard wrote: Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Wop bop a loo bop a lop ba ba!

I'm not even gonna try and sort out the players. There's room in the box for all of them.