I found myself wedged in a shop doorway this afternoon due to the coincidence of me leaving at the same time as two prams were entering. No one looking either until the moment until we all ran aground. Awkward. It took several seconds of modern dance like wriggling before we popped free, not quite corks out of wine bottle, though there was the thin seeping of withheld breath from all sides.

'People... why don't they look... how hard is it...?', more or less summed it up for me, and no doubt the two mothers were raising the same point; the two babies, something altogether different, a right angle turn in moods compared to ours. No screaming, no agitation, no crying. No, none of the emotions you might expect. Except one: boredom. Ennui, indifference, however you want to call it, these two tiny children were showing it. Moliere said something along the lines of unbroken happiness is a bore; perhaps it is, but what happens if you're stuck with unbroken boredom as these two peevish toddlers seemed to be.

How do they get so weary so young? I think I have an answer - we spend too much time gaping at them, cooing, pulling faces, trying to seem interested when we're not, but feel compelled to because we don't want to hurt parental feelings From a tiny kid's point of view what a living hell this must be. Every day wheeled out to be assailed by gaping mouthed adults talking gibberish. If babies could talk, let rip for once: "... that perfume...Jesus, it's bad....know something lipstick goes on the lips, not front teeth..."You've just finished a cigarette that's why I'm screwing my face up...your breath stinks! If I have to look up into one more pair of red veined, dark circled eyes, I'm going to throw up...."

Boredom's natural home is the workplace, not the pram