I WAS browsing in a Brighton bookshop last week when a harridan roared in.

That's right, harridan not hurricane. Harridan is not a word you get much call for in the 1990s but it's such an improvement on nasty old b....

Anyway, this harridan, or NOB, elbowed other browsers aside as she stamped towards a young assistant sitting behind a desk. Not one "excuse me", "I beg your pardon", "please", "sorry" or "thank you" was heard.

Instead she bellowed: "I've come for my books. I came in yesterday, forgot my credit cards so they've been put aside for me. Hurry up, my husband's parked outside." The assistant looked alarmed and murmured a request for the titles of the books.

"Medieval, they're medieval of course .. myths and legends," said the harridan in an exasperated tone. "They were put on that shelf over there."

That shelf over there was empty, I could see that from the safety of the crime fiction and horror omnibus

section.

"The shelf's empty," said the assistant, pointlessly rather than provocatively. "Are you sure it was that shelf?"

The harridan went ballistic and brought into question the girl's suitability to serve in a bookshop.

"Stupid girl! You've sold them, you've sold MY books to someone else - and I need them," she shrieked.

"Perhaps you could come back later when my colleague returns, she might know where they are," the assistant suggested with a hopeful little smile.

This merely enraged the harridan further and she proceeded to waste a further five minutes of everybody's time (a small queue of customers had built up by now) informing the poor girl how she could most definitely not return at any other time, that her time was very important. Rudeness, I'm afraid, is rapidly becoming something of a growth industry. Everyone seems to be at it - and the worst offenders, judging by my observations from the front line, are the elderly and the downright old.

Yes, I know a lot of adolescents appear to be uncouth morons with a vocabulary limited to four-letter words but you do expect age to have a mellowing effect on the roughest granny and grandad. Not an its-bitsy bit of it. Keep an eye open and you'll see and hear outbursts of elder anger taking place in most surprising locations.

Last week, apart from the bookshop incident, I watched an elderly chap in one of those genteel, olde worlde

Sussex cream tea establishments, berating the waitress for presenting him with a slice of ginger cake when he'd asked for a fruit scone. You'd have thought she'd asked him for a urine sample.

Another became apoplectic when my little queue at the Sainsbury's checkout refused to let him jump our ranks merely because he had one item in his basket, a litre bottle of whisky.

I was actually discussing the topic with The Mother at the weekend and she said she couldn't agree more. Rudeness ruled and manners no longer seemed to matter although she didn't agree that her generation provided the chief culprits. Then she went outside to do a spot of gardening, while I poured myself a coffee and read the papers.

"Vanora!" I heard her call a few minutes later. "I could do with some help out here. Do you think you could get off your fat backside and lend a hand?"

I rest my case.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.