Sorry, you are obviously living in Hamburg and the Harz ;-)

PatrickLondon--

Mark Twain once complained that he could never finish a German book he was reading because the last 5 pages were missing, and that was where all the verbs were!

Chevy,

rely on what the native speakers Ingo logos and to some extent harzer (who I believe is actually Australian, if I recall correctly, but still has a great knowledge of Germany) suggested.

Everything on this subject was said by logos, harzer and Ingo.

Once more, I'll summarize acceptable and grammatically correct forms that are common and won't cause astonishment:

Entschuldigung
Entschuldigen Sie (bitte)
Verzeihung
Verzeihen Sie (bitte)
'Tschuldigung
Sorry
Pardon

Grammatically correct, but a bit much:
Verzeihen Sie mir (bitte)
Vergeben Sie mir (bitte)

"Entschuldigen Sie mich bitte" would be the phrase to use when standing up from a table in order to go to the bathroom in a formal setting.

"Entschuldigung Sie mich, bitte" as Spygirl suggested she had heard repeatedly, is grammatically incorrect and must have been used by non-German speakers. Her other explanations on grammar are pretty good though.

Have a great weekend everybody!
hsv

To Logos 999:

Unfortunately I do not live in the Harz; it just happens to be the part of Germany I lived in when I first went there back in 1960.

To hsv:

Thanks for your support.

To Rex:

Forget it Rex.

To Patrick:

'Bitte schön' is not used to catch someone's attention. For this you can say 'Hallo!' (e.g. you notice they have dropped their glove OR you want to inconvenience them by pushing past: 'Hallo, darf ich mal vorbei?'), or 'Sie da!' (if you are planning to be critical of their behaviour).

It is used to give someone the right of way when approaching a doorway; or, as you point out, to mean 'don't mention it'.

Harzer

Forget what?

I'd say some of us need supplementary part-time jobs.

Spygirl: "There's plenty of ways to fracture a language"

"There's"?? A language like English, eh?