This is just advance warning, if you happen to find yourself approaching the area with any sort of intent on having, as the saying goes, a nice day. One could argue that Oxford Street and Hyde Park are inhabited by similar tribes (if they aren't part of the diaspora of the Tribe of the Stupid Walkers). However, those areas tend to be largely filled with tourists and people that just aren't very nice in general, and thus don't count as part of the tribe. Oh, I'm not discounting that a few intrepid tribe members may not have been sent out into the great wide world to practise their skills, but unlike the King's Road, the bulk of the population is simply either clueless or right bastards. When it comes to walking.
The tribe members tend to make it quite impossible along the same side of the road as themselves, making it oftentimes necessary to cross to the other side, stop and hail a cab to at least make it past themselves, or just stop altogether until they all head inside for the evening or stop for coffee themselves.
At least three kinds of tribe member have been observed NB. Bullet points, a feature to which sanemagazine staffers were thought once to be allegric, follow:
These ones appear to have mastered the ability to seem drunk whilst not having been near alcohol for days. Or perhaps they have. In either case, you'd think that by their title, doddering, that they'd maintain a somewhat aimless tacking, without rhyme or reason or anything other sort of sense. However, a good lot of them seem to be considerably more devious, like Scylla and Charybdis, if Scylla and Charybdis had been in the boat, and erm... Ulysses had been on both shores, I guess. Or had been behind them, trying to get past Scylla and Charybdis who appeared to be busy peering at something in the shoppe window of the Gap, and just when he thought it was safe to pass, they veered violently to the left, and he, limbs akimbo, just avoids hitting them and barely avoids hitting the rubbish bin/lightpole in the previous avoidance movement, attempts to dash past by changing course and diving for a shoppe doorway and then diving quickly out again, failing to be just quick enough, hitting Scylla's arm, and getting a dirty look for his troubles. In this version, however, Ulysses never returns home, and instead finds it's just easier to stop into Waterstone's and never again risk walking on the King's Road. Much more devious.
Especially when walking near bus shelters and busy shoppe doorways.
This is the large burly type that usually consists of several tribe members, all of whom resemble schoolchildren playing that game "Crack the Whip" or whichever game it is where they all link hands and try to fling one of their number somewhere far. The cluster types that resemble the schoolchildern with a higher degree of authenticity (in that they actually are flinging themselves around) are considerably more annoying. In less authentic cluster types, they simply join in a group ranging from two to three hundred (in the infamous incident in which three hundred forty six member of the Tribe of the Stupid Walkers, arms linked and fourteen of the group standing on the shoulders of the others disallowed all traffic in the city of London from Hyde Park Corner to Wimbeldon Park successfully for four hours, and even stopped a few of the flights with lower approaches to Heathrow from landing) and block all traffic, both before and behind, from passing. There is an incredible urge, when faced with this type, to inflict bodily harm on others.
This perhaps has more to do with the fact that Alain is the long-standing nemesis of one of sanemagazine's senior writers (and the author of Time: a novel) than any explicitly annoying habit he may have related to the art of propulsion à pied.
Now, granted, I've never actually seen this type before, but there are tales of great ferocious tribe members wielding axes (hence their type name) that parade the King's Road, striking down whomever crosses their path. With their axes. This could potentially be the most annoying of all the tribe members.
Cheese sandwiches are rumoured to pacify this type, but I sincerely doubt that rumour.
While these people do their training on the King's Road, they do happen to be everywhere (even in New York, where you'd expect that lot to be beaten soundly for walking to slowly and erratically, there is a certain flavour of the tribe walking around midtown just above the Empire State Building).
disclaimer:
We take not a whole lot of responsibility for chewing gum left behind.
Burble at the moon.
Yer Weekly Horoscopes. like sleepwalking, but different.