Six ... seven ... eight ... nine ... ten ... eleven. That's all I have to endure during the ascent in the left from my fifth-floor office to the staff restaurant at the top of the building. And yet it's a journey that, every day, seems to lead further and further away from my office, and closer and closer to Broadmoor.

I'm sorry, but there is something about getting the lift every lunchtime which makes me understand why people go on killing sprees. I know it's childish, it's an overreaction and it's frankly something you should come to expect, working in a building that houses the working days of hundreds of people. But, really, do people have to be such sods about it?

They shove in, expecting you to just magically create space for them, even though you're uncomfortably in the middle of your own impression of a canned sardine. They pour into the lift, even though you're frantically waving your arms to get out. And if you're really unlucky, they start talking in braying airhead voices about some apparently fashionable piece of apparel. *sigh...*

What? Take the stairs? I'm sorry, I can't talk to you when you're hysterical.

This afternoon was fairly murderous, as attempted ascents go. There are six lifts on our side of the building. I pressed the 'up' button and waited patiently. A lift arrived, but when the doors were open, it was full of sardines in workwear, and there was no way I could have wedged myself in. I stepped back and let the doors close. Pressing the button again, I waited for the next lift. The girl waiting behind me sprang to life when the 'bing' of the next lift to arrive chimed. We made our way over as the doors opened. And even though I'd been there much longer than her, which she couldn't have failed to notice, she jumped into the minute square inch of floor space, leaving me stranded in the lobby. The doors closed on her victorious look. Charming.

Two lifts later (seriously), I finally managed to get on one. It was pretty busy, but not rammed ('rammed' meaning it's a challenge to fully inflate one's lungs). Two floors up, the doors opened, and two tall, willowy, blonde creatures fluttered in, enthusiastically discussing some apparently 'gorgeous' piece of apparel. Mais naturellement . Were this The Devil Wears Prada, they would be the Clackers*.

In my case, come time to get on the lift, it's more like The Curmudgeon Wears Dorothy Perkins.

* The Clackers, the magazine's many female editorial staffers, so called (dismissively) for the sound made by the stiletto heels they all wear