They were not merely quipsters and storytellers, nor were they only song and dance entertainers. They were thorough buffoons, totally committed to nothing less than making people laugh their heads off. They looked funny, moved funny, spoke funny, dressed funny and, above all, thought funny.
"Stanley Owen Green", known as the "Protein Man", was a human billboard who became a well-known figure in central London in the latter half of the 20th century.
Green patrolled Oxford Street in the West End of London/West End for 25 years, from 1968 until 1993. His placard advocating "Less Lust, By Less Protein: Meat Fish Bird; Egg Cheese; Peas Beans; Nuts. And Sitting" recommended "protein wisdom", a low-protein diet for "better, kinder, happier people". For a few pence passers-by could purchase his 14-page pamphlet, Eight Passion Proteins with Care, which sold 87,000 copies over 20 years. Its front cover observed, "This booklet would benefit more, if it were read occasionally."
Green's "campaign to suppress desire", as one commentator put it, was not always popular, but he became one of London's much-loved eccentrics and took great delight in his local fame. The Sunday Times interviewed him in 1985, and his "less passion, less protein" slogan was used by the fashion house Red or Dead.
When he died at the age of 78, the Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Times published his obituary, the Museum of London added his pamphlets, placards and letters to their collection, and in 2006 his biography was added to the Dictionary of National Biography/Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
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