THE man’s appearance was strange, even for Oxford where the unexpected should never be unexpected – if you get my drift.

He was about 50, medium height, losing his hair (who am I to comment?) and wearing a satisfied smile. What set him apart from the George Street crowd was that he carried four flimsy plastic buckets – red, yellow, green and light blue – and a coffee-making machine.

This might have passed unnoticed had the buckets been stacked together with the coffee maker sticking from the top. But each was separate, two hanging on his left arm, two on his right, all more or less horizontal, ensuring he dominated the footpath.

Meanwhile, the electric appliance defied gravity, wedged between his left biceps and forearm.

What was the New Theatre publicity crew up to, I thought? Was this a protest by overworked domestic staff in a city hotel? Surely it was too early in the academic year for a university prank.

The only way to the truth was to ask the man.

“The buckets were a bargain – 50p each – and I’m taking the coffee machine to a charity shop because I’ve stopped drinking coffee. All it needs is a new glass jug,” he explained, ignoring a series of tut-tuts from shoppers forced to walk into the road.

Why not stack the buckets together, I suggested? That would take up less room and he could carry the coffee-maker in the other hand.

“The buckets might jam and anyway they would be too heavy for one arm,” he replied, his expression and tone clearly doubting my sanity.

A FEW weeks ago, ever-smiling Ratana, of Red Opia, the Oriental artefact shop in the Covered Market was filling an idle moment by crocheting for herself a cute, colourful hat, complete with matching flower.

When I called the other day, the crochet hook was still busy; a hat was again the subject to hand and half a dozen completed ones lay on the counter.

Was she making different hats for different days? Not a bit of it. She was fulfilling orders placed by shoppers who, like me, had seen her working on her own hat and wanted something similar.

That’s what I call enterprising.

HE WAS clearly American; it’s something about the way they screw their faces behind sunglasses, especially when somewhere the sun has little influence – such as the bowels of the Westgate multi-storey.

“Pardon me, sir. We seem to be lost,” he said with exquisite Southern charm before introducing his wife, who brimmed with Atlanta elegance. “Could you point us to Harry Potter College?”

I could have sneered haughtily before saying: “Do you mean Christ Church?”

But I didn’t. I forgave this New World faux pas. However, will Cardinal Wolsey, should they meet in the Land of the Hereafter?