At about 2:00 am on Saturday morning, a naked man strolled across the canal bridge in Aristotle Lane. He was middle-aged and on the large side. My reporter tells me that he appeared to show no concern either at the apparent incongruity of this or at the cold.
It is quite a busy place at night, Aristotle Lane. There are the young vandals who come and add a bit more graffiti every night. Down the end of the lane, near the railway line, are the drug dealers whose satisfied customers wander down to the southern end of Waterside for their relaxed smoke or sniff or whatever it is. Our nocturnal naturist was carrying neither spray can nor cash and was presumably not on his way to join either of Aristotle Lane’s regular visiting teams. It may be, of course, that his uninhibited state was due to an earlier visit to the dealers and that he was off to get a paint job from the graffiti artists.
Like the dealers and the vandals, he was quite safe from interruption by the police. Oxford’s finest have better things to do than worry about drugs, vandalism or sex perverts or any of the other things which local policing used to prevent. If anyone knows what it is which occupies their time, perhaps you would share it with us.
