http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/international/europe/07LOND.html
Car Owners' Hero Dresses for the Job By SARAH LYALL
Published: October 7, 2003
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 lamé 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 lamé 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 lamé. 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."
