I’m quite nice. I’m pretty good at counting to ten and dealing with rage. I’ve even been criticized for sometimes being too tolerant of the kind of people that my friends despise. But I’m only human, and there are some things I just can’t abide...

People lacking in spatial awareness make me lose my fucking mind. If I’m standing on a busy tube and the girl in front of me is a centimetre or two too close, so that every time we sway, her butters fluffy hair tickles my face, I’m a goner. I want to bite her head and make a scary noise. If a gormless tourist is standing on the wrong side of the escalator I’m trying to walk up, it makes me feel crazy. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know the rules of the London Underground. I want to kick their legs. Even if they’re balancing large suitcases. And children. Sometimes I want to kick the children too. I know they’re small and their brains aren’t fully developed yet, but they surely know to step aside when a bigger person is steaming towards them. They just get cocky because they know you can’t touch them. I bet if a freight train was heading straight for them they’d manage to get out of the way. Smug little fuckers.

The London Underground system is swarming with Human Space Invaders, and so are the streets. But I’ve got to save some venom for the rank nocturnal breed… That dude with white bits in the corners of his mouth and the spicy crevice smell that talks way, way too close to your face in the bleak hours of a shit party. He’s not incoherent enough to justify just laughing and walk away (he’d probably follow you) – he makes just enough sense to oblige you to honour him with a response. This man has the capacity to ruin my whole Sunday. Just looking at him makes me want to smash my own head on the wall.

I feel a bit bad, because Human Space Invaders are usually well-meaning, jolly types, and I’m sure all this hatred could be more productively directed at some proper baddies… But I can’t help the way I feel. I’d choose a little hoodrat throwing chips and calling my mum a cunt, over a clumsy well-meaning family who tread on my feet and get in my way, every time. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way… Run a search for ‘slow walkers’ on Facebook and you’ll find twelfty million groups called ‘I Want To Punch Slow Walkers In The Back Of The Head’. Ha ha ha! Yeah!