Manners and young women.

I was minding my own business and totally sober in the middle of the day walking along the pavement from Bedford Place to Above Bar when I was insulted.

I was on the pavement and a car emerged and stopped from a private parking situation on the east side of London Road. I acknowledged the courtesy, although it was my right of way as a pedestrian on a pavement, by raising my hand. The gesture I suspect was misunderstood because the driver of the car who was a woman of about thirty summers, fat and not very good looking wound down her window and shouted at me 'You f---ing stupid old bastard'.

My legitimacy is not debatable although my lack of intelligence is open to question. But what upset me was the reference to me being old. I am only 73 for God's sake.