Features

Yesterday, I thought I'd turn Richard Hammond into a sort of mushy pulp and hose him through an offender's letter box, as an example. Or maybe, I could just follow one of them home - not hard, bikes are pretty damn slow on the twisty roads up here - and indulge in my passion for Seventies prog rock in a powerful boom box, at four in the morning outside the culprit's house.

It's weird this, because normally, I do believe that it's vital to live and let live. If someone wants to be a Pakistani, and live in Bradford, then that's fine by me. Why should I care if he supports the Pakistani team when they play England at cricket?

It's the same story with bird watchers. I think it's pretty idiotic to sit in a bush, listening to your hair grow, in the hope you'll see a bird that you know is there anyway. And I have similar views on those who like to be tied up and whipped.

Generally speaking, I don't even mind when someone else's passion is a mild irritant for other people. Microlighting, for instance. In anything above a light breeze, these airborne lawnmowers hang in the sky, making no headway at all for about six hours at a time, ruining the peace for everyone within 50 miles. But their pleasure, I suspect, far outweighs the pain the drone causes other people.

I don't even get cross when people use their mobile phones on the train. Usually because I'm miles away, in a car. But even when I am on a train and they're sitting next to me, it's really not the end of the world.

One side of someone else's conversation can often be quite entertaining. Once I even got a share tip that worked out. And it's better than listening to the clatter of steel on steel.