Situation vacant! Eccentric required for outer London suburb of Edgware after the sad passing of previous incumbent Dr Stefan Hassan, of Canons Drive.

Dr Hassan was a familiar sight walking the streets in just a pair of briefs, carrying a radio and picking up litter. He was also credited with saving the life of one family, blissfully unaware that their house was on fire until his intervention.

One Edgware man thinks he has what it takes to fill Dr Hassan's (sizeable, but presumably fairly whiffy) shoes. Jim Brightwell, of Cloister Gardens, a long-time admirer of the doctor, has recorded rainfall in Edgware every day since 1990. He says he has married a long pole and remote-controlled camera to take lots of nude photographs without paying the models a fee'. One of his favourite subjects to date has been the statue of the Naked Lady at Henlys Corner in Finchley (he does just take pictures of statues, not actual naked ladies, we're told).

Mr Brightwell said: "I'm eccentric as well they are really very interesting people and not dangerous at all."

Dr Hassan was the latest in a distinguished line of Edgware eccentrics, including a man with a wheelbarrow who, during the late 90s, slept in shop doorways so much that one Station Road shop erected a barrier to keep him out.

And which heartless shop was that? A charity store for the homeless.