The Mad World In Which We Live

I never cease to be astonished by the stupidity of the population at large. I saw a report on Boxing Day morning of people queuing outside Selfridge's in Oxford Street, fervently awaiting the opening of the store so that they could sprint in to snap up some post-Christmas bargain or other. They resembled a rabble of lunatics, hell-bent on being the first to grab that must-have Gucci handbag or that to-die-for Hermes scarf. In the ensuing melée, several people were injured as glass cabinets were smashed and clothes rails were hurled about the store like javelins.

What is the point? It's not as if it's the 'End Of The World' or anything like that. Is it so important to acquire yet another addition to one's wardrobe or one's collection of chic accessories, that a sleepless night on the pavements of London is required? These people presumably already have sufficient possessions to fill a Louis Vuitton trunk, so why risk life and limb just to get your hands on more? The look of grim determination on their faces would not be misplaced if these people were fighting against the rigours of the Blitz for example, or struggling to find precious water in the squalor of the African mud-lands – but no, it's the revolting desire to attain yet another Moschino dress that drives on these fixated and desperate people.

I witnessed a little of this myself this afternoon in Nottingham's Top Shop store. Not quite at the same level of chic and extravagance as the Selfridge's sale perhaps, but the self-seeking disregard by the unguessable masses for other shoppers was nevertheless just as plain to see. Rummaging through the rails and racks of clothes, people were dislodging items from their hangers and simply allowing them to drop to the floor, to be trampled on and scuffed by the surging crowds. What happened to good manners and decorum? What heights of selfishness must these marauders have reached to so casually disregard the interests of anyone else? What do they think happens to these garments, strewn with such slapdash abandon? Nobody thinks of the weary shop assistants who must presumably have to restore order from this chaos; nobody cares that these same items must presumably be purchased later by another unsuspecting shopper. I suppose that's it – nobody cares. Nobody cares at all.

Later, of course, the tumbling crowds will have transferred their ravaging excesses from the shops of our arcades to the fleshpots of the city streets. Uncouth youths will be furtively pissing behind parking payment machines; girls with over-straightened peroxide hair and wearing the regulatory halter-neck top and white stilettos (with no coat, of course) will stand smoking as they queue for entrance to some ghastly sticky-floored bar. Later, as the globular vomit rolls luxuriantly down the frosted pavements, these two apparently mismatched tribes of young people will pair off together and lurch triumphantly into the Food Factory to abuse the hapless servants and to replenish the lost contents of their stomachs, before tottering and stumbling into a taxi (if they're lucky) or tottering and stumbling into the gutter (if we are).

Oh, how I love city life!