From Jester To King IX

24^th December 2019

The unthinking oick made its reappearance on the streets of Hampstead today whilst offices commenced shutdown for Xmas.

Richard Bloom reports:

The unthinking oick reappeared today on the streets of Hampstead and the paths of the Heath and in substantial quantity. The oick was found on High Street, Heath Street, Gayton Road and the main arteries of the Heath. Moderate accumulations by the Parliament Hill café and the children’s play area.

The oick is characterised by the following:

Height, breadth, being Australian, being French, wide shoulders, strong shoulders, being Pamerican (posh-American), ginger beard (kempt), strong gait, firm stance (stentorian), feet askance and chest projected outwards when commencing to walk or actually walking, standard-issue Moss-green wellies, dark grey wellingtons, a touch of the Barbour, good old Timberlands, sand or anthracite Caterpillars (no visible logo), height again, looking beyond not even ahead, presence, sense of the pragmatic and determined coming from somewhere just behind the pupils, having a Labrador, having Pitbull mix, having West Highland White terrier with bauble/elf coat on, having Border Collie, having wife/partner/gf whose strong legs are well set into her dark-coloured Timberlands, having wife marginally shorter than they, turning to look briefly at w/p/gf to express momentary thought/urge/realisation, ruddy-coloured (beneath well-kempt beard), taking up entire width of pavement as if reasserting dominion, not moving at all when person approaches from opposing direction, not remotely thinking about looking at person (not a slur, no thought attached to it), having gaggle of friends, having young family, having both, having a grandmother, having hope, having certainty, having contentment, being free from illness, being well-rested, deserving to be well-rested, having push-chairs, having spectacles, showing signs of having spiritually renounced any former association to America after twelve year residence, general obliviousness, obliviousness to pesky Roma begging cartel, a whiff of the couldn’t careless, exuding a sense of being unremittingly busy over the holiday period and until the return to work, a slight breathlessness even at their full-on full-frontal pace of life (perhaps only evident to the really observant), showing somehow that he won’t be here on these streets for long, a chimera, so you might want to enjoy him.