"Let's discuss strategy!" I say to my Canadian Girlfriend while we drink coffee and eat muffins. We are out shopping in the big shopping centre that may or may not be near my house. This requires some form of tactics. Everything needs to be planned out meticulously. "I suggest we get out of here and turn left."

"Yeah, that would make sense." she replies. "That way by the time we get to that drinks stand, we'll be thirsty. There are toilets after about an hour because I know how weak your bladder is. And then 2/3 of the way through we'll hit the other Starbucks."

"Yeah that'll be perfect because we'll be there by about 5 and I can forget to call my sister from there."

"And what exactly are you shopping for?"

"Well there's a headband I like in Topshop - and you?"

"Those headphones from the Apple store."

Hmmm, that should take us about 7 hours. I stand up and do some preparatory quad stretches and lunges.

Several hours later....

I tempt fate.

"We've not seen the normal quota of mutants we usually see, have we?". And just at that moment a grown teenager walks by with his face painted like a tiger, followed by a girl with wings. (Note: These were not Red Bull wings nor were they the panty kind - they were the little fairy kind and stuck on to her back with double sided sticky tape)

Freak spotting is one of my favourite past-times and apart from the shop assistant with the blouse that had the big poofy shoulders these are the first nut-jobs we have seen. Maybe the cold has stopped people wearing the usual sort of did-they-look-at-themselves-in-the-mirror-this-morning? clothes.

Or it could be that I have become immune to some of the more crazy things that people do - wearing a football shirt to make a fashion statement and tucking jeans into knee high boots.

"What do you think of this?" My Canadian Girlfriend holds up the 157th identical wrap dress in Debenhams. "This'd be perfect if any more of your friends were getting married. Can you not set Matt up with anyone? It'd have to be a shotgun one, unless we could find someone who would go in for a TV-style renewing of their vows, eh?"

"What about this one?" she saks as she lifts out number 158.