Personal Space and mobiles

After having spent a day last week, and the first two days of this week in London I have some thoughts on life in our fair capital city. The primary thought, and it's by no means original, relates to the whole personal space on the tube thing. How anyone can stand having to commute everyday on that bloody thing is completely beyond me. Firstly you can't even get into the station because they say the platform is too crowded, then you stand there and watch 3 trains go past -you can see them, just can't quite get to them.. or get in. No-one's getting off so it's a bit like trying to squeeze my ample form into a size ten pair of jeans - there just ain't no more room honey. Then when you finally do get on it's nose to armpits all the way.
Coming back was much more civilised, but the best part was sitting in a carriage where a mum was reading "Thomas the Tank Engine" out loud to her son. All the businessmen with their financial times were trying to pretend they were interested in the market share of French Connection, but when mum had to stop mid-story to get off, you could see everyone was really frustrated to not find out if Edward was ever going to get out of the mud he'd been stuck in.

On my way back to cheltenham I had the unfortunate experience of sitting next to a David Brent clone with his mobile stuck to his ear. I started to count the number of times he said the name of the guy he was on the phone to - it's a real bugbear of mine, I find it so patronising - and the number of times he went "y'know" - another pet hate I have. The best bit was when he phoned a customer who had clearly been unhappy with his "service" and started to try and slime his way back into their good books- within about 3 minutes we went into a tunnel and he lost the connection. I was pissing myself - how not to impress an already disgruntled customer!

Overall, screw the whopping salary and cool urban lifestyle, give me a twenty minute drive to work, in the company of Terry Wogan/Jonny Walker, my own personal space and ability to sing my socks off to my hearts content... I'm happy!