Manchester Museum Hires Live-In Hermit

Mr. Kermit Tiswas, a career hermit with an MA in Advanced Seclusion, has begun 40 days of isolation inside a Gothic tower at Manchester Museum.

The 95-year old - who likes to be known as Kermit the Hermit - previously lived in a Wythenshawe Park tree, from which he was evicted by council bailiffs earlier this year for shitting on passers-by – now plans to contemplate things "lost" and the impact the imminent extinction of the human race might have on the 2012 Olympics during his confinement.

Kermit has chosen 40 objects to present to the public during his stay via a blogsite, including a human skull found in a Moss Side bus shelter, a brick from the Great Wall of Scunthorpe and a slice of Spam on which an image of the Virgin Mary sometimes appears if you stare at it for several hours.

The city's museum has 4.5 million pieces of dusty old shit, some purported to be of value and several years old, while most came from car boot sales and Pound Stretcher outlets, which Kermit will live among and study until August – or when he runs out of over-ready pizzas – whichever comes first.

His other chosen objects to contemplate on and study include a stuffed St Helena giant earwig and a life-size inflatable copy of a British working man – a species seriously threatened with impending extinction.

Mr. Tiswas, who has been a Solitarist since his parents dumped him in a Peak District cave as a child, told a reporter from the Hide & Seek Gazette that career hermitology can get lonely at times but that’s simply one of the hazards of being a recluse - it goes with the job.

Kermit was previously employed as a lighthouse keeper and a cormorant whisperer, and enjoys singing to cheer himself up when he falls into one of his frequent ‘black dog’ suicidal depression moods.

Mr Tiswas was chosen from 300 applicants for the role of their resident hermit and to help pay the council tax on the museum’s Gothic tower.

Director of Manchester Museum Fellatia van der Gobble informed reporters that not all of the candidates were suitable – as some were manic depressives – with one actually committing suicide during the job interview.

She explained "We were mainly looking for artists who had served long prison sentences on Devil’s Island or Alcatraz – or worked in performance art and had an interest in sensory deprivation, masochism, isolation, meditation - and other crap like that."

“We did receive an application and CV from Ronnie Biggs but he was considered a total Philistine art-wise and past his use-by date – plus he’d probably have nicked some of our more expensive exhibits - like the pre-Columbian tupperware collection.”

Mr Tiswas has previously spent 10 days and nights without food in a cardboard box on a Chelsea landfill site fighting off rats and seagulls for a live charity exhibition in London - for which Pox News described him as the “ultimate live exhibit headbanger.”