I think everyone has moments every now and then, where they do something monumentally stupid in a very public place. We know it happens, so we shouldn't feel embarrassed, we should be happy to laugh at our own momentary foolishness, whilst everyone else was glad that this time, it wasn't them.

As I have done most days for a few months now, I left work this evening and wandered down the road to London Bridge station, entering the station through the stairs next to Natwest. I smiled briefly as I found that the Northern Line was running ok (hence I wasn't going to have to give up and take a random slew of buses). I strode across the station towards the barriers, swiped my Oyster card (having finally got used to the new arrangement of my wallet) and headed for the escalator.

Instinctively, I walked to the down escalator on the right, and was a good three steps down before I realised the escalator was actually going up, I wasn't really going anywhere and there was a confused looking commuter heading towards me.

How I didn't notice they'd switched the escalators I'll never know, probably lost in some idle thought or other. Once I'd twigged, I made a quick about face and headed to the other escalator, laughing possibly quite loudly to myself.

So I say to all you out there, next time you do something horrendously dumb in public and you want to disappear into a hole in the ground, don't bow your head, don't walk away. Laugh. Laugh like a hyena descending on its prey. Laugh at the absurdity of it all. Laugh that you won't make that mistake again. Laugh until the people around you think you're quite, quite mad.

Foolishness makes our lives more interesting. If nobody ever did anything silly, many comedians would be out of a job, there would only be one political party in each country and drinking to excess would ultimately be pointless.