Recently I made another planned visit to Belfast, I wanted to visit two contrasting areas of the city, Sandy Row and Botanic Gardens. But I was thrown completely off track. At the entrance to Botanic Gardens I encountered a man who I had all the appearances of being a homeless man, asleep on a bench. But this encounter led to a surprise and a photographic opportunity.
I took some photographs, he never moved and I decided to waken him. Slightly startled he became aware of my presence and I gave him a £2 coin, he thanked me profusely and I was amazed to find that he spoke with quite a refined accent - not what you would expect to find in this situation.
We started chatting and I learned that he was knowledgable in a number of subjects which he said he studied. As he mentioned sociology, among a number of other subjects, I decided that I would test him; I asked what he knew about Emile Durkheim, he replied instantly "he is a French Philosopher" and went on to talk about him at some length.
A woman walking her dog joined us and she asked him if he was homeless, he replied no, he did have a house, but it's in a bad state of repair and would need about £100k to fix it up. He added, "if I worked as a road sweeper these past years I could have had as much as that now!"
Then the final surprise - he said that he was referenced on the internet over 140 times and he is known as Cyril Botanic. I googled this and indeed he is there, so look him up. Apparently he does have a following, including a YouTube video, I believe his real name is Cyril Lindsay.
Cyril is clearly an intelligent man, who suffers on one spectrum or another, he is knowledge- able and I did learn an important lesson - don't make assumptions! While I was travelling into the city to do something completely different, a further lesson learned was to ready for the unexpected opportunities that present themselves to you. I travelled home satisfied with the morning’s work.
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