A small thing happened on the train this morning which made me think.  A woman was sitting in one of the window seats of a four-seat section - ie., two facing pairs.  She had her feet stretched out across the gap between the seats, and made no attempt to move them as other people occupied the other seats. Two of us had to cramp our legs up in order to sit. She seemed oblivious.
This is nothing very unusual, of course, and didn't particularly annoy me.  However my first action was to post a sarcastic Facebook status about it.

It occurred to me afterwards that I've become increasingly intolerant of others with the advancing years.  My self-image has always been of a rather timid, mild-mannered, polite sort of a chap (this may already be delusional, of course).  Lately, though, there have been a number of occasions when this style of personality has really not been borne out in my actual behaviour.

If, when walking behind someone along a busy street, and they simply stop, perhaps to send a text message, or because they've seen some bright and shiny thing, such that I have to take sudden evasive action, I quite often find myself saying, politely, but firmly (and out loud), "Don't just stop in the middle of the pavement."   I've been known to say to gossiping people, who've chosen the narrowest place to have their conversation, "You're stopping everyone getting past" - again, in a rather admonishing tone.  This very morning, after my encounter with the leg-stretching woman on the train, I walked through the Broadgate Link, following a young lady trailing a wheeled suitcase (that's another issue all its own).  She was walking fairly slowly, dawdling, even.  She seemed to be mesmerized by all the shops lining the route - she was meandering from one side of the (wide) path to the other, gazing into each shop in turn - at precisely the right speed, and with precisely the right angle applied to her suitcase, that she was managing to occupy the whole width.  I found myself saying, rather harshly, I suspect, "Could you at least try to walk in a straight line?" - before striding briskly past her.

These outburst shame me.  Partly because they're so at variance with the person I, in my vanity, like to think I am, and perhaps partly because, due to that self-image, I've tended to avoid being confrontational at all costs (time was, when getting genuinely angry would just make me burst into tears, somewhat ruining the effect), so when it occurs it's a bit of a surprise.

The writing, I fear, is on the wall.  In my dotage, I shall likely become a joyless old cuss.  The sort of aged curmudgeon who, a couple of generations ago, would have been found in a bath chair, knees encased in a tartan rug, swearing belligerently and deftly waving a stick at all who come near.