It’s a Good Life on the Streets

“It’s the best bloody thing I’ve ever done!” declares forty four year old Bracknell homeless man Arthur Grinff in an interview with the Daily Excess, describing how he chose to walk away from his four bedroom detached house, family and affluent middle class lifestyle to take up residence on a park bench. “One morning I decided that I’d just had enough of this fake, materialistic life we’re all forced into by society – so I walked out of my front door and didn’t look back!” In the article, entitled ‘It’s a Good Life on the Streets’, Grinff extols the benefits of his new life, emphasising the lack of stress and worry he now enjoys. “Believe me, with no job, no mortgage and no bloody family to worry about, a man can truly be free,” he claims, swigging cheap cider from a three litre plastic bottle. “I’ve nothing to tie me down or constrain me any more – I can do what I like whenever I like! You can’t imagine how liberating it is to take a dump in the open air – behind a bush, in an alleyway, anywhere I like, in fact. Damn it, when you are homeless you can even just shit your pants if you feel like it – nobody can stop you!” Currently living in a battered cardboard box underneath some railway arches, Grinff boasts that he also has a ‘city centre’ weekend pad – a bench on the high street – and a ‘place in the country’ – a sodden mattress under a hedgerow on the outskirts of town. “It’s a great life – food is plentiful, you wouldn’t believe what people throw in bins half eaten, not to mention all the past-its-sell-by-date in the skips round the backs of the supermarkets,” he told the newspaper, in between racking coughs. “And if you want to eat out, there are always the soup kitchens and Salvation Army.”

The Excess claims that Grinff is one of a growing number of ‘voluntary homeless’, people who have chosen a life on the streets, who prove former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s claim that homelessness is a ‘lifestyle choice’. “That’s what she was trying to explain when she proclaimed that the homeless should have their tents confiscated and destroyed,” Right-wing Tory MP and Braverman ally Toby Trouserpress told the Daily Excess. “That the homeless life in the UK is just too attractive for people looking to evade their responsibilities and live off of the taxpayer free of charge. We have to create a hostile environment for these so called ‘rough sleepers’ – though there’s nothing ‘rough’ about living in a tent or having proper sleeping bag like so many of them do!” According to Trouserpress, the ‘lifestyle choice’ being made by the homeless is an affront to decent society. “Who do these people think they are? They loiter around our streets, paying no tax yet availing themselves of municipal benches, parks and bins! When they inevitably get ill from their diet of alcohol and rubbish, they expect to be treated on the NHS, despite not contributing to it,” he blustered to the paper. “Not to mention their trespassing on private property – sleeping in shop doorways and thereby interfering with their businesses. It’s bloody outrageous and needs to be stopped!”

Trouserpress is convinced that homelessness is a con being perpetrated by not just those who walk out of their homes to live on the streets, but also their families. “It’s quite obvious to me that those left behind by those who make themselves voluntarily homeless are benefiting as well,” he says. “With the loss of their primary breadwinner that can start claiming all manner of benefits, even get their rent or mortgage interest paid, all at the taxpayers’ expense! The whole thing is a bloody racket! An outrage! We’re being fleeced by these bloody layabouts!” The Daily Excess tried to put the MP’s allegations to the test by contacting Mr Grinff’s estranged family, but claimed that when their reporter went to his old family home, it was occupied by a different family, who denied any knowledge of the Grinffs. “You see – they obviously sold the house, banked the profits and got the council to rehouse them!” declared Trouserpress. “Doubtless, they traded up. They’re probably now living in a bloody mansion rented for them by the council!” Rival tabloid the Daily Norks subsequently investigated further, finding that Mr Grinff’s wife and three children had been evicted from their home after being unable to keep up with the mortgage repayments, which were already six months in arrears when her husband left. After a period of being housed in in damp-ridden Bed and Breakfast accommodation, Mrs Grinff was hospitalised with TB and the children taken into care.

Nonetheless, the Tory MP feels that Braverman didn’t go far enough in her anti-homeless plans. “Destroying their tents was a good start, but we also need to tackle the ones who huddle in old blankets on the pavement, begging for change. Not only are they a bloody nuisance, but they make the streets look untidy and are unhygienic to boot – we need to employ people to piss on their blankets to discourage them from dossing in public view,” he opined in the Daily Excess article. “Frankly though, I think that we should give serious consideration to rounding them all up and sending them off to Rwanda, just like Suella wanted to do with all those bloody immigrants. I mean, we’d be doing them a favour, really – Africa has a climate far more suited to sleeping outside than this damp and cold country does.”

Trouserpress also believes that the homeless aren’t the only group that needs to be targeted because of their lifestyle choice. “Bloody old people – look what a drain on the economy that they are,” he says. “They pay next to no tax on pensions subsidised by hard-working people, while these wrinkly old bastards spend their time with their bloody feet up! Apparently, some of them spend all day in bed! They claim it is to keep warm because they can’t afford the heating bills or that they are bedridden through illness, but the truth is that they are just lazy!” The Tory MP refutes the suggestion that he is mistaken in accusing pensioners of having made a ‘lifestyle choice’. “Of course being old is a lifestyle choice! They could have chosen euthanasia instead of getting old and infirm – nobody who can’t afford to support themselves in old age has any business getting old!” he thunders. “Boris had the right bloody idea when he tried to use the pandemic to kill them all!” For his part, Arthur Grinff maintains that his decision to become homeless was the best decision he has ever made. “People try to run this lifestyle down all the time – they say it is dangerous, not to mention unhealthy,” he told an Excess reporter, as a huge fart erupted from his tattered trousers, so noxious that it cleared a group of shoppers near his bench. “But that’s all a matter of perspective. I mean, it’s true that I’ve lost most of my teeth since being homeless, but on the positive side, it’s cut down on my dentistry bills!”