Who can tell us who this man is?
He IS my new hero!
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
This is Angle Grinder Man. His mission is to free illegally-parked cars by grinding through the wheel clamps. He roams the streets dressed as above, seeking motorists in need of assistance. I’m not sure if he charges a fee.
This is true.
Google found the home page for Angle Grinder Man
It must be true. He couldn’t make that kind of stuff up.
Re: Re: Calling all Brits
i love that women!______“is this anything” has never been so awesome!..
never heard of him but he looks like a dude 
Car Owners’ Hero Dresses for the Job---- By SARAH LYALL
The New York Times via Factiva
LONDON, Oct. 2 – As is so often the case, the trickiest part came when he had
to explain himself to his family.
‘‘I got kind of a lukewarm response,’’ said the masked Englishman who calls
himself Angle-Grinder Man and who has been trawling London for four months
dressed in a homemade superhero outfit, complete with gold lame underpants
and cape, removing the security boots from people’s illegally parked cars.
‘‘Any parent who gets a phone call from his son saying, ‘Oh, you might see me
in the newspaper; I’m a superhero wheel clamp vigilante’ – it might take
them a little while to formulate their views,’’ he said in an interview.
As a one-man vigilante force, Angle-Grinder Man, who takes his name from the
boot-destroying circular saw he wields, has made only a modest impact: by
his own estimates, he has freed about 20 cars so far (he does it only part
time). But his campaign against the city’s effort to immobilize cars for
parking violations and other infractions has touched a nerve in a city of
strict parking regulations, zealous traffic police officers, ubiquitous
speed cameras and car owners increasingly aggrieved at what they believe
is mean-spirited law enforcement.
Although he hardly melts into the background, particularly when he switches on
his noisy machine, Angle-Grinder Man has so far managed to elude the
authorities by a mixture of luck, cunning and quick work: once he gets
going, he can liberate a car in less than a minute. He does not accept
money and says his main motivation is ‘‘anger at how politicians in this
country treat people in general, but particularly in regard to motoring
regulations.’’
Needless to say, the police are not amused. ‘‘Both Angle-Grinder Man and the
owner of the vehicle could be charged with criminal damage if the driver
admitted they consented to the act,’’ a Scotland Yard spokesman told The
Evening Standard.
Interviewed in the London office of The New York Times, Angle-Grinder Man was
coy about his civilian identity. He said he had been threatened and
harassed, mostly by private outfits that charge for removing the clamping
devices. He is currently unemployed, but living on the savings he has
accumulated from jobs that have reportedly included office clerk and
entertainer at children’s parties.
Long-haired and lanky, he is becoming well known in some parts of south
London. About a month ago, 25-year-old Petite Tendai arrived home to find
a boot on her illegally parked car. (’'There were no signs saying ‘no
parking,’ ‘’ she declared.) She had barely begun to rail at the injustice
of it all when Angle-Grinder Man suddenly appeared.
''Basically, he jumped out of his car in his outfit and said, ‘If anyone can,
Angle-Grinder Man can,’ ‘’ Ms. Tendai said in a telephone interview.
‘‘Then he just started sawing it off. It was wicked.’’ He was gone almost
as quickly as he came. ‘‘It was just a ‘good luck,’ and what-not, and then
he was off,’’ she said.
Angle-Grinder Man was spurred to activism when his car was booted and he was
told that it would cost $:95 (a little over $150) to free it. ‘‘I was
fuming inside,’’ he said. He rented a circular saw for about $:30 and did
the job himself. He taped a photograph of the sawed-up clamp to his
windshield, along with a note saying, ‘‘Please don’t clamp me because I’ve
got an extremely sensitive nature.’’
The sign proved a hit, although he had to remove it, he said, ‘‘when a guy on
a motorbike in traffic nearly fell off his bike, he was laughing so
hard.’’ But Angle-Grinder Man knew he was on to something. ‘‘There was so
much injustice out there,’’ he said.
It took him some time to hone his look, and he rejected a number of color
schemes before settling on blue and gold. ‘‘There’s no school you can go
to to learn how to be a superhero,’’ he said. Perhaps most crucially, he
found the perfect roll of gold lame fabric at a flea market (’‘I had to
hold it up and ask the girl how much did she think I would need to make a
cape,’’ he said).
For the boots, he spray-painted a pair of cowboy boots gold. The underpants
are a pair of bikini briefs covered with the flea-market lame. The gloves
came from a piercing-and-fetish shop. Angle-Grinder Man designed the logo
himself, proudly gluing the letters ‘‘AGM’’ onto the costume. ‘‘I wanted
to have a balance between the political side and the comedy side,’’ he
said.
His Web site and his hot line for distressed car owners have drawn hoax
messages, threats and dozens of fan notes, including one from a man who
noted approvingly, ‘‘It’s time we had a gay superhero.’’
For the record, ‘‘I’m a heterosexual superhero,’’ Angle-Grinder Man said,
‘‘although I have no problem being a gay icon.’’
After the interview was over, Angle-Grinder Man strode into the street in full
regalia, wheeling the suitcase full of civilian clothes he planned to wear
on the train home later. Watching his gold cape glitter and swirl
heroically in the afternoon light, Judith Smith, a sales clerk who said
she had been following Angle-Grinder Man’s exploits on his Web site,
pronounced herself a big fan.
‘‘I think he’s extraordinarily attractive,’’ Ms. Smith said. ‘‘Especially the
golden knickers.’’
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ