With Christmas but a few days distant, I was driving through the city, humming Jingle Bells, when a person cycled out from the footpath and wheeled across a pedestrian crossing. He had ignored the "Don't Walk" sign and pedalled straight into the traffic flow, forcing me to swerve to avoid him. I blew the horn and he responded with the standard indecent gestures while mouthing what I assume were some unimaginative and anatomically challenging suggestions as to what I should do with or to myself.

I responded with my own indecent gestures, less athletic than his but expressive in their own moronic way, and stopped at the next red light surrounded by peak-hour traffic. A few moments later I happened to glance in the rearview mirror to see the same cyclist pedalling towards me.

"Aaah!" I thought. "We are about to enjoy a meaningful and mutually enriching cultural moment," and I lowered the passenger window to allow a full and frank exchange of obscenities, for there is nothing quite like a temper-fuelled verbal joust with a kamikaze bike rider or an intellectually challenged driver to begin the day. It may be bad for your stress levels but it wakes you up and is, I would guess, the equivalent of five cups of coffee consumed in quick succession.

I had, however, misread the cyclist's intentions. Rather than engage me in a cosy little chat peppered with monosyllabic words beginning with "f", he kept on pedalling and, as he drew level with me, put out his foot and kicked the passenger side mirror off the door - and kept right on pedalling.

I should have seen it coming. I'd committed the classic urban sin - I'd dropped my guard.

Boxed in by traffic, I couldn't give chase. So I sat in the car, unable to move, and turned red and then purple with suppressed rage. It must have all been very entertaining for my fellow motorists who watched as I pounded on the steering wheel and shook my fists in the air in impotent fury. If it was a test from above to see how I was faring in the "peace on Earth" department, I had failed miserably.

"If only I'd realised his intentions," I thought, "I could have leaned across and pushed open the passenger door just as he drew level with me."

I drove around for several days with the mirror dangling inside the car like a one-eyed monster. When it rained I could only half-close the window, the mirror then being elevated to the point where it stared at me at eye height, which so distracted me that I almost ran into a cement truck.