‘I wish I’d been around in the 1980s,” sighs the teenager on the number 35 bus. “Or the 1970s,” adds her friend.

Do you really? I think this while staring at the pair of bright yellow 1980s hot pants which sparked the conversation. These flop uneasily on the seat opposite. I learn with interest the hot pants are a recent purchase, newly arrived courtesy of eBay. And that the 80s are very much in vogue. Well, do stop talking for a moment. Let me strap the two of you into my Macbeth time machine. We’ll travel to the 80s and back by the time this traffic jam clears the Kennington roundabout. Let’s see how you get on.

Firstly young man, I can’t envisage you walking through the Westgate Shopping Centre in 1986 with your jeans slid halfway down your backside and your underpants sticking out. My mum would have been on the phone to Social Services in seconds.

Or let’s make that minutes, as there will be a queue for the payphones. Just make sure you have a very large 10p piece. Secondly, on the subject of phones, we need to work out how your girlfriend is going to listen to music. Because the cable British Telecom have supplied isn’t quite long enough to connect her phone to the one Smiths album she’ll share with every other teenager in the village. And I can’t bear these bus journeys without the tinny sounds of the latest indie hits to tap my foot to.

Thirdly, if there’s one thing that will make it very difficult for you to be around in the 1980s it’s this: your incessant use of the word “sick”.

When I hear a person is sick I automatically imagine them wrapped up in bandages, laid on a stretcher on the 6th floor of the JR Hospital. My immediate response is to go out and buy them a bottle of Lucozade. But these days of course “sick” means “cool” or “good”. I can’t quite work out which because the aforementioned hot pants are dazzling me – and affecting my brain.

Take for instance your brilliantly entertaining sentence “I bought my nephew some dungarees for Christmas and he is going to be sick in them.” The poor nipper! I have Lucozade! Send him to bed. And if that doesn’t work have him put down (it’s slang, by the way).

I haven’t forgotten my promise about the traffic jam. I see Redbridge Park and Ride glimmer in the distance.

We must leave the 80s behind. Soon we’ll be less fearful that the Russians will drop a bomb, or that Sting will release a new single.

Your company this morning made me feel sick. But I want you to forget the 80s. Because you have youth, love and family to look forward to this Christmas. Embrace the future – and be as sick as you like. Just not on my hot pants.