ARE joggers taking over the world? The other day, I was walking through Worcester’s Cherry Orchard nature reserve when I was startled by a lycra-clad person who barked: “Behind you.”

I smartly stepped out of the way.

No words of thanks, naturally.

Joggers – and increasingly, the disturbing new breed of cycling storm troopers – seem to believe that they can occupy as much space as they like.

Your meagre allocation actually belongs to them, just in case you didn’t know. In fact, they’re everywhere. When I visited Turkey last year, the temperature often went over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yet they were still out there… the ubiquitous, masochistic jogger.

Unfortunately, these tiresome people can also be observed in other guises. For when not sweating their way along the pavement, they are the 4x4 driver in the grip of a fighter pilot fantasy or the barking mad woman who rushes out of her house at midnight threatening to call the police because someone has had the temerity to park near her house.

There seems to be an entire generation of people let loose on the streets these days who have absolutely no concern for their fellow citizens.

Spawned in the Thatcher era and weaned during the Blair years, these are the aliens from inner space, waiting for their opportunity to conquer the planet.

I suppose it’s like sunbathing.

The more you do, the greater the need becomes. In fact, it appeals to the addictive personality. If this was the 1960s, these same people would be into drugs.

Back then, drug-taking enjoyed certain kudos and the same applies to jogging and other similarly pointless pursuits. Only in the case of running around in circles, style is everything… how you run, what to wear when doing it and maybe the correct face to pull in the process.

It all sends a powerful message to your lycra-free neighbours… it’s basically spraying on the edge of your clearing of social acceptability.

I don’t know what’s more lethal – drugs, sunbathing or jogging.