Whatever happened to "excuse me?"

So I've finished my Christmas shopping - yay, hooray for me *victory dance*. Actually it's not the 'I've finished my Christmas shopping' aspect of it that I'm utterly elated by; it's more to do with the fact that I now don't have to go out and fight my way through the hordes of complete halfwits that 99 percent of the population appear to turn into when someone rattles some sleigh bells and waves a bit of tinsel in their faces.

Ooo, tinsel - pretty!

Seriously, it's like a zombie plague but with people taking leave of their senses rather than decaying and having their arms drop off. The cold dead-stares and unpredictable lurching is common to both parties, however.

My non-festive rant begins with a late afternoon trip to Kingston on Saturday. Around this time of year I try to avoid shopping at peak times, but even rocking up to the 'ton at just after four proved to be an epic mistake: there were people EVERYWHERE. But they weren't shopping in a normal, predictable fashion. The traditional 'oh-I'll-pick-this-item-up-and-admire-it-but-oh-no-it's-not-quite-what-I-was-looking-for-I'll-pop-it back-on-the-rack' style of shopping had disappeared to be replaced by people veering around in a random fashion, picking things up, shrieking at whatever they'd picked up, then returning it to the rack in such a way that I initially thought they were trying to fend off an attacking tiger.

And don't get me started on my favourite shop, Borders, which has been reduced to a trampy, shambolic market writhing around in it's death throes thanks to the chain going bust. I really wish I'd not gone in there and seen it in such a sorry state.

Anyway, having only partially succeeded in getting what I wanted to get, I decided that a trip to Westfield was in order on Monday evening.

Because of the sheer bloody size of the place, Westfield rarely looks full. But regardless of the size of the walkways, I still appear to be a magnet for stupid people - y'know, people who just wander aimlessly around like they're slightly out of sync with the regular flow of time. Or like the posh teenage girls who walk three abreast straight towards you like an ignorant perfumed tsunami. Maybe they're a little shell-shocked from getting a glimpse of the tramps on Shepherds Bush Green as the cab mummy had hailed for them swung by on the last leg of their journey from the leafy residential roads of Kensington? I can picture them now holding their hands to the sides of their heads like little manicured blinkers, quietly chanting "don't look, don't look, don't look."

Sadly I can't blame the blinkers on their inability to give a little leeway as they flounce towards me, because if they were using blinkers I'd be THE ONLY BLOODY THING THEY COULD SEE.

Then there's people with children, especially those with buggies. For a while now I've been quietly formulating a theory that 99 percent of people who have children jettison their common sense along with the baby and the afterbirth. I mean, really, repeatedly ramming your buggy against the side of my leg in Starbucks as you try to get past isn't normal behaviour, is it? What happened to saying excuse me? Are you actually trying to say "look! I've got a baby! That means I have a working uterus, and ensnared an actual man to impregnate me with his baby gravy. My life is complete! Now move out of the way, I have to inform somebody else of this, and perhaps get a skinny cappuccino along the way."

Actually, no one's interested in your doughy little f**k-trophy so piss off.

On a side note, I've decided that I'm no longer going to pander to people's whims and be polite when I'm shown new babies. If a baby genuinely is a cutie, I shall say so; otherwise, please expect a reaction ranging from "ugh!" to "it looks like the fellow that lives in the tummy of the other man in Total Recall" to "I'm sure the eyes will level out at some point, but until then I shall call him Sloth*."

The full-force of my Westfield rage was ultimately directed at a more mature age group, however. On my way out of the centre via the posh Village bit (that's "villaaaaaaaage" not "village" I'll have you know) I headed toward an escalator that would take me down to Waitrose where I intended to feed my latest addiction by stocking up on the otherworldly awesomeness that is their potato rosti. Unfortunately, completely and utterly blocking access to the escalator were two old dudes and a matching old woman with a massive, excessively-coiffured burgundy head. I circled around them to squeeze on to the escalator from the other side, but just as I was about to slip by they decided that they actually wanted to go down too, and barged past me. After hesitating for what seemed like an eternity about which of the revolutionary moving steps they dared jump onto, the aged trio managed to get on the escalator, and I swiftly followed them.

Halfway down one of the old dudes starts waving like a complete loon at a second old woman who was stumbling out of the Louis Viutton store and was inexplicably wearing oversized sunglasses that made her look a bit like Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She took a moment to register that someone was calling to her, before eventually walking over to greet her comrades in Prada at the bottom of the escalator.

And that's when they committed their cardinal sin.

They. Got. Off. The. Escalator. And. Didn't. Move. Out. Of. The. Way.

I was actually a few steps back from them, so I could clearly see what they were (or rather what they weren't) going to do. As my metallic step of destiny inched ever closer to them my mind raced with witty put-downs to highlight their ignorance - put-downs so cutting, so precise and calculated that they would never - NEVER I TELL YOU! - commit such a crime against humanity again. The mere sight of the bottom of an escalator would send a chill down their collective spines.

My moment was upon me – I stepped off, barged comically and somewhat unintentionally into one of the old guys, and with a Spock-style raised eyebrow loudly proclaimed: "Excuse me!"

And that, I think you'll agree, told them.

*Whadya mean it's a girl?