Aren't they RUDE! When I was a youngster, old people had twinkle in their eye, a stock of wise sayings and, oft as not, a boiled sweet ready to dish out to any smiling young ragamuffin who happened to flash them a shy smile.

These days I'm regularly appalled by the behaviour of the geriatric delinquents that have come to fizzle out here. When driving on Victoria Grove there's always one sour and stony faced old groucher who refuses to say thank you when you've pulled over to let a stream of cars through.

On the A35 there's frequently a bloated old apopletic who drives like a tortoise on the single carriageway and then charges like a rhino with piles as you try to overtake them on the double.

Worst of all is the utterly unreasonable old hags who feel that they have right to scold people on the slimmest pretext. I parked my pikey van up Conyegar Close near the entrance to the wood the other day, so my daughter could collect pine cones to make christmas decorations and I could collect fallen branches for firewood. No sooner had I parked, than up pops this vitriolic harridan screeching, " You can't park there!" I glance around. No yellow lines, no residents parking, not obstructing anything... "Er why not? "Because you're blocking a turning space." "But I'm not." "Because your windows will get smashed." "What?!" "Yes. The kids will come down the hill and smash your windows." "Why?" "Because that's what they do." "When?" "You can't park there. I'll call the police." "Why?" Of course what she really meant is "I have an irrational prejudice against vehicles that look a bit pikey, I'm angry with the world and I want to offload a tiny portion of the misery of my life in a futile outburst." Had she said this and offered my daughter a boiled sweet I would have happily moved. As it was I decided to park up on her lawn, rob her garden shed, steal her morning milk, pee in her fuel tank and make my daughter fight her grandson. That'll teach her to be prejudiced against pikey's!