The new normal

From​ 2016's seemingly inexhaustible back catalogue of weirdness, here's one local news story that I inexplicably missed at the time:

A young woman has told how she had food shoved into her mouth by a mystery ‘feeder’ on the train home to Milton Keynes.

The stranger grabbed Victoria Adam’s scarf and started pushing his takeaway meal into her mouth.

The strange passenger then upset other people on the London Midlands train from Euston, causing a brawl to break out.

Parliamentary research assistant Victoria, 22, said the man sat down next to her after boarding the train just before 6pm on Saturday.

“I decided to put my headphones on as he was getting a bit annoying.

“He was getting annoyed that I didn’t want to interact so I decided to pretend to go to sleep.

“A few minutes later he started shoving food in my mouth and then began pulling at my scarf.”

Passengers huddled together in the next carriage after a brawl broke out with Victoria’s ‘feeder’. 

Milton Keynes Citizen, October 2016

Given the way 2016's creeptastic political celebrities have been busy recalibrating normal standards of public behaviour to way below what what was previously considered rock bottom, I wouldn't be surprised if shoving your carton of fries into an unwilling stranger's gob has become everybody's default way of saying "Hi" by October 2017.

God help us.