Idealist; one guided by ideals;

The beggars, vagabonds and vagrants on Brick Lane are Clowns. They rove up and down the bustling, bursting nexus of ‘Edge’ and ‘Cool.’ Leaping in front of passers-by, the beggars interrupt poser and tourist alike, snapping them out of their meticulously-constructed reverie, demanding if not money then acknowledgment.

The tourists and visitors to this strange and wonderful place weather the vagrants with ironic grins plastered firmly on their preened personas, trigger-fingers poised over camera shutters, a witty anecdote about Kurosawa or Kierkegaard instantly available.

But the dirty secret of Brick Lane is that every Bethnal Green resident and West-London tourist alike knows that the beggars, vagabonds and vagrants belong to the Lane much more than we do.

They are jesters, dancers and storytellers, weaving narratives of suffering and thirst … performing their assumed absurdity for us. They perform for us and we pay them, as much to stay as to go away.