NOW for some space invaders.

Not of the ET ilk, nor the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) arcade game.

It’s about real people who get up too close for comfort.

How often have you been walking along the pavement on the left-hand side when someone approaches to your right?

Just before they reach you, they swerve into your path, looking at you as if to say: "Why did you do that?"

I hate myself when, for some unknown reason, I meekly mumble: "Sorry" and step aside to avoid a collision.

Have you ever left your car in an otherwise empty car park, returning later to discover someone parked smack bang beside you?

Unable to open the driver’s door due to the proximity of the other vehicle, you struggle in via the passenger door, taking care as you uncomfortably inch over the gear stick.

Why choose the bay next to you when there are scores of other empty spaces?

Here’s one us chaps will understand.

In the inner sanctum of the gent’s toilets in a pub, when you are using one of several urinals, why does the next man in decide to relieve himself in the one right next to you despite all the others being free?

You’ll experience something similar in the gym.

You’re alone in the changing room, so you choose one of a dozen pegs to hang your clothes on after changing into your kit.

When you return after your workout, you can bet your £300 Nike trainers another member has occupied the peg next to yours - despite there being 10 other empty ones?

Then there’s the person, invariably with halitosis, who puts their face in yours, their nose a centimetre from you as they spout their political leanings.

As they walk off, you’re left to wipe away the saliva they’ve spurted over your face.

During the summer of 2023, I was on a train reading a newspaper when someone I didn’t know sat behind me.

"They’ve got to go," he growled at a negative headline about the then Conservative Government as he leant over the back of my seat.

"Don’t know why you read newspapers anyway - never any good news," he chuckled.

I resisted the temptation to roll up the paper and whack him over the head.