In a previous life I saw such numptiness. Trogging up the East coast in a civvi Wetdream we would often have some fun in the Whitby area. Ordinarily it would be a couple of Hawks out of Leeming who were playing with each other. London mil would tell us about the Hawks and often ask the Hawks to shift a bit so that we could have a warm-and-fluffy feeling en-route Scotland. There were times the Hawks would shift, other times they would exercise their rights to stay where they were.
Now I've matured a bit, but back then I would berate my ex-RAF compatriots for pi$$ing me around - yep, you have just as much right to be here but I'm trying to go A-B and you just need a play area and it doesn't really matter where it is - do you really have to be in the same bit of sky?
I'm sure the sky is getting smaller and we all have extra pressures that are brought about by financial cuts, training targets etc. However, we shouldn't allow such things to dilute the basic airmanship skills. I now teach people to fly and one of my biggest challenges is instilling an awareness of the environment and the prescence and needs of other aircraft. For sure, aviation has always been lacking in this area but we really need to nurture the concept of mutual understanding.