Let the Mad Run Free

Our best effort at a photo of the pink lady.

Take a walk through this honied city, meander down its crooked alleyways and passages, languish in the smoky crepuscule of its ancient hostelries, and you will begin to know its heart.

I saw the Pink Lady a couple of weeks ago. She was stood on the High Street shouting at passers-by, body pitched forward, finger pointing in admonition. Slaver sprayed from her turgid, fish-like lips as she turned on a cyclist: "You're going to fucking die." He sped by too rapt in thoughts of getting home to realise he was the damned one. I could hear her ranting still as I passed over Magdalen Bridge. But she was right: he is going to die - we all are.

A few days later I saw the Envelope Man carrying his plastic shopping bag full of dog-eared letters. He wasn't on the bus or walking down Cornmarket Street where I usually spot him - he was in W.H.Smith's, enquiring about filing systems. The assistant was being very polite and taking his potential custom quite seriously, even though he must have known that a man with long greasy hair, a tangled beard, filthy anorak and Jesus sandals who has lugged this same bundle of mail around town for the past ten years, to my knowledge, is unlike to have undergone a road-to-Damascus experience and decided to invest in a set of lavender box files. I left clutching a birthday card for my brother.

Then yesterday I saw Beaver Man. Beaver Man could be homeless, an alcoholic or just a bit of a hippy. He does not argue with street furniture or rifle through litter bins; he doesn't wear a wedding dress when visiting the cinema or run through the city streets half naked with a crazed and hungry look in his eye. No, his distinguishing feature is his hair: although he is white, he has the most amazing and shocking dreadlocks. They hang down to his shoulders all around his head, that is, except at the rear, where a vile-looking wad shaped like the tail of a beaver hangs to the middle of his back. That's Beaver Man.