On my way to the bank to get sold on a revolving credit line (see Financial Services) I noticed a familiar figure: a foreign looking individual with a Columbo-style hairdo and similar raincoat. From the latter protruded two hairy legs and a hand with the palm opened up.

In Frankfurt, it is amazing how many people wander around with alcohol in their hands in public, even many seemingly normal professional women (no, not “working girls”) have no problem in being seen with it. Still, one can easily divide the beggars into several groups:

• the obvious drunks;
• the garbage bin scavengers;
• the desperate ones, usually a combination of these first two categories, whereby they try and hide their alcoholic beverages while actively approaching travelers for a contribution;
• the maimed ones, displaying their horribly disfigured bodies ( mostly limbs)

When visiting Wiesbaden for the Kranzplatz festival, there was a man with one knee bending in the wrong direction. No picture taken, you can imagine how that looked like. After seeing `Slumdog Millionaire` I am fairly apprehensive of giving them anything since that would finance his handlers and finance the mutilation of the next generation of beggars. Not wanting to become an accomplice to his misery, I let him pass by, although with pain in my heart.

When coming back on my home turf, I had significantly less problems not giving money to the next beggar: a young woman sitting in the U-Bahn station behind a cup filled with small change in front of her. She did not bother to look any of the passerby’s into the eyes, she was too busy playing with her I-phone.