Fight!

Went to Bristol today for work, and on the way back was almost involved in a real fight! A colleague gave me a lift, and as we were coming back there was a minor altercation with another driver who was trying to jump the queue to get off the slip road onto the motorway.

My colleague, rather unwisely as it turned out, made a "What the fuck are you doing?" gesture at the other driver.

Other driver, instead of (a) ignoring us and going about his lawful business, or (b) returning said gesture with one of his own and speeding away, went for option (c): Glaring like a madman and then pulling alongside our car and shouting violent abuse.

This was rather wasted because we couldn't hear him. My colleague, who was finding it all very funny, did an exaggerated "Sorry, I can't hear you mate" mime, pointing at his ear and shaking his head.

The other driver started waving his arms about, furious. It was unreal, he was a respectable looking middle aged guy, in a decent car, indicating to us that we were to pull onto the hard shoulder so we could have a fight. What the fuck?

My colleague nodded, and as the other driver pulled onto the side of the road, we drove past, my colleague waving cheerfully. The other guy then accelerated back onto the motorway and chased us for bloody miles. We pulled off the motorway and headed down into Bath, the lunatic still chasing us, still shouting and furious.

My colleague had gone from finding it funny to finding it a bit worrying. He watched the other guy in the mirror, and said "He's waiting for us to stop at the lights so he can come over here." Nice.

This is how people get killed! I remembered various "And then it turned out he had a biiiiig knife/was on the run from the police in 5 countries/was an escaped dangerous psychopath" stories I had read in the papers.

Luckily, we didn't have to stop at the lights, and made our way onto the dual carriageway, this guy still dodging through the traffic to keep behind us. He followed us for several more miles, and then my colleague lifted his arm and slipped his watch off, handing it to me. "Put that in the glove compartment" he said, which I did, not realising what he was doing.

"Um...why are you taking your watch off?" I asked. He looked at the car behind us and said "I don't want to damage it."

It was all rather surreal and scary.

Anyhoo, either the nutter behind us happened to live down the next side turning, or he'd seen my colleague prepare for battle and realised he could be in a lot of trouble, because he suddenly turned off and we lost him.

It was most unexpected.

Other news: The lemon curd is nice. And, because it is made from real lemons, it is good for me. Apart from all the sugar and butter. And eggs. But the lemons balance that out.

Mmmmmm vitamins.