The Barnum Effect

For years I commuted to-and-fro via the London Underground, squeezing into jam packed carriages, holding a book betwixt myself and the horrid hoards. Too short to steady myself by holding onto the hanging straps, and too mild-mannered to muscle my way to a seat, I generally hogged a position in the doorway, where I could lean against the door and sway with the movement of the tube. At each station stop, I would step backwards off the train and side-step out of the way of those needing to disembark, allowing everyone else to board before once again taking my doorway spot. There's an art to deciding where on the platform to wait: away from the entrances to the platform, yet close to one of the destination platform's exits, whilst being mindful of which parts of the train would already be crowded on arrival. There's a joy to deciphering the London Underground map, being able to plot the most efficient route with a single glance. With the map you can work out the various po...

I've never been as aware of the changes wrought on the weather, light and landscape by the planet's stately dance around the sun as I am now on my weekly peregrination. This morning mist shrouds the predawn landscape. Grey silhouettes of trees punctuate the gloom. As the sky brightens pastel shades infiltrate the grey. Early autumn is melancholy, cool and shrouded, but later the season will flare into colour as the trees flush toxins into their leaves before cutting the nutrient supply allowing them to fall. The yellows, oranges, reds and browns of dying leaves herald the festivals we celebrate to keep the bleakness of winter at bay: All Hallows Eve, Guy Fawkes Night, Christmas and New Year. Last week I succumbed to a cold. It was inevitable given I spend seven hours a week cooped up in a carriage full of people breathing stale air. As usual I'm left with a cough which is gradually reducing my chest, back and abdominal muscles to a mass of aches. A constant tickle agi...

The 6.05am train to London Kings Cross gradually shuffles into movement pulling us southward. The Met Office issued Severe Weather warnings yesterday, concerned that monsoon-like downpours and gales would strike England through the night. I checked the news and the live departures website for my train when I woke this morning, but so far nothing has occurred to affect my commute. Given the 'severe' warnings I wonder whether Cambridgeshire will be one big lake by the time we reach it. The sky is darkening, low clouds skirt the tree tops, odd rain drops splatter trails across the window as we pull into Retford. Colours blanch from the countryside, trees becoming silhouettes disappearing into the murky grey. Visibility drops to 200 yards, mist swallowing all beyond. Now leaving Newark the clouds thin to reveal wisps of blue sky, while ironically the rain becomes heavier, streaking horizontally across the window as the train accelerates. Arriving into Peterborough, the rain has sto...

I haven't felt inspired to write this week, but suddenly the urge is here. I took the bus from work to Kings Cross, and received an object lesson in how the world would have impinged on the olfactory senses before the advent of soap and deodorant. I guess it must have been the fellow sat behind me, though constrained by societal norms I could not turn to confirm my supposition. A man with walking sticks boarded, and the lady next to me relinquished her seat. A young man who'd been fidgeting so vigorously I'd assumed he was high on something took the seat. I looked over to the man with the sticks and he was smiling. I'm not sure if it was with incredulity, or he genuinely didn't want the seat. A stop later an elderly bloke got on, and mister fidget immediately stood and offered him the seat. The fidgeter practically bounced off the walls and ceiling for the rest of the trip. It was a real relief to get off. I stole a quick look the odious gentleman behind me as I de...

Waiting on the platform for the train, Commuters cluck and coo amongst themselves, A squeal of brakes as the train arrives, Startles the pigeons from their hidden perches, Breaking the ventriloquist spell.

I saw the perfect personalised number plate while driving yesterday : D1 NYL I'm stuck on the Leeds-London train this morning. Ripening heads of wheat bow for the benediction of the sun outside the carriage window. I should be seeing Islington blur by as we steam into Kings Cross, but delays beset our journey, and we are still deep in the countryside. The train jerks into life, picking up speed. The intercom announces that we're 30 minutes behind schedule. Public transport stutters and a thousand people are late for work. I'm mesmerised by the railway tracks paralleling our own as we barrel towards the capital. Seemingly stationary, the rails flicker and gleam with reflected light. Periodically they swoop away, allowing a platform to intrude between us, before snaking back to cosy up as though we'd never been parted. Oh fickle rails.

Once again I'm ensconced on the stealth sofa in St Pancras, awaiting my allotted departure. There is a faint huff of chilled air occasionally which I hoover up. On the bus trip here I took a pew next to a chap with crutches in the 'give up your seat for people with disabilities' row. Two stops later a man with a walking stick boards and I stand and offer my seat which he gratefully accepts. I grab a spot standing next to the luggage rack where I put my rucksack. A little later the man with the walking stick lets me know he's getting off at the next stop, which is really good of him, although I decline the offer of my seat back as I tell him I'm ok standing as long as I don't have to hold the bag. A simple exchange of courtesies between folks who need a bit of extra consideration, which we rarely get from the masses. It put me in a happy mood, whereas I normally feel sorely tried by public transport - simultaneously vulnerable, angry, and defensive. Yesterd...

My plans to scoot straight from work to get back to my digs nice and early have been scuppered by signalling problems and security alerts. I'm just leaving London Bridge 45 minutes after leaving the office on a train that is running 40 minutes late. Amazingly the train is virtually empty when every other train departed with a full complement of sardines. My plan tonight was to replace a light on the common area landing which has been defunct for the 3 months I've been staying there. I need to take a screwdriver to the light fitting to get the bulb out so I can see what I need to buy from the B&Q down the road. Given the delays I'm not sure that I'll have time to get to the store before it closes tonight, so I might end up trying the mad dash again tomorrow.

I've found a sneaky 'free' comfy seat in St Pancras. I'd tell you where it is but then I'd have to kill you. This station has the scandalously low total of 28 'free' seats that aren't attached to a retail outlet. What an enormous delight then to have discovered two fake leather sofas which don't come with the obligation to buy anything. They seem to be covered by a perception filter which renders them all but invisible to the foot sore and weary travellers pacing the station.

Awake once more at 3.30am, my morning preparations for London a whirl of choreographed activity, until I ground to a halt looking at the unravelled hem of my work trousers as I prepared to iron them. Needle and thread wove themselves into my morning dance and I was ready on time when the music of my phone announced the taxi's arrival. Wild roses with modest pink blooms, feral lupins thrusting purple spears skywards. As the train picks up speed the flowers blur to a streak of colour. London bound again. Lines of emerging green form patterns in fields of rich brown soil as we wend south. Rolling hills are fuzzed with a spring o'clock shadow of growing wheat, a beard that will grow until the harvest shave. The bright shades of spring youth have darkened to the solid dependable greens of approaching summer maturity. Growth spurts lengthen boughs as roots expand through the earth, tapping nutrients, creating strong anchors for the anticipated storms of autumn. Bees tend their bloss...

I didn't have such a good night's sleep last night. I was in bed by 8:45pm, with my alarm set for 4am, but i awoke at 2:30am from bizarre dreams, and got up at 3am deciding that sleep would not return. On the plus side this did mean I had plenty of time to do my ironing and packing for London, I even had time to dig out my old travelling thermos mug and make a coffee for my journey. I've been struggling to stay awake on the train despite the caffeine. Remembering a little forehead massage we used to do as kids, I just did a brief fingertip massage of the eyebrow area and now I feel ridiculously refreshed and rather chirpy. It is quite a contrast from the dour emotions I've been experiencing about my return to work after my week off. I must add that to my list of coping strategies. On Saturday morning I had to visit the Minor Injuries Unit in Otley. A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to my neighbour and dropped a glass I was holding which duly shattered. I managed to g...

A misty dream world landscape is transmitted via electromagnetic radiation through the train's widescreen television screen windows, with brightness and contrast turned right down. The sky is shrouded in grey. On the horizon a power station with seven fat cooling towers and one tall chimney pumps effluent to the heavens, plumes barely tangible against the background cloud. Moisture condenses from the air to directly coat each surface. Every shade of the green growing world is muted. Fields, bushes, hedgerows and trees cosy up to one another, fuzzily indistinct. People and buildings appear reduced to model railway scales, as though rendered with incredible detail by some unseen and obsessive model maker. Lights start to appear in the tiny houses as twilight envelops this miniature world, hinting at the small lives within, and the sky morphs to reveal soft peach sunset shades.

I feel restless, frustrated, and cooped up. Forced to periods of stillness, time skittering by, wasted. I want to grind my teeth, shout, scream and stretch. I yearn to bite, kick and punch the inanimate objects around me. My body aches, creaks and twinges. I feel an overwhelming desire to escape. But what from? And to where? My mind races with a torrent of fragmentary thoughts. I itch to be on with a million different projects. The world is so slow, I wade through treacle. Tension creases my forehead and pounds at my temples. My stomach roils on the verge of indigestion. My bowels clench threatening to humiliate me. A bad taste lingers, mouth sour with too much saliva. The jaw jangles at the junction with neck and ears. Sounds are muffled, distant, ear canals clogged. I am fettered, cleaved to a track. I have no independence to veer left or right. My choices are no choices at all. Fate drags me relentlessly forward to my preordained terminus.

I hate this business of waiting for trains at Kings Cross. I always end up with 30-45 minutes to kill - a necessary margin in case traffic problem delay the bus. Kings Cross is being renovated which means it is more of a hell hole than it ever was. Normally I wander over to St Pancras since the renovation is complete there, and it has a bunch of cafes and shops, as well as an M&S Simply Food. The trend these days, I notice, is to only provide a handful of public seats in stations. There is copious seating attached to retail outlets, forcing folks to fork out for a drink or snack just for the luxury of having somewhere to sit. Once again commercial interests prevail over the welfare of the travelling public. Public transport is such a series of trials and tribulations. No wonder the government struggles to encourage people out of their cars. I had thought that train fares were regulated, but I recently discovered that only off-peak fares are covered by regulation. The train companie...

The train gets busy at Peterborough as per usual. A business type in a pinstripe suit sits next to me, and starts to read "Complete Triathlon!" My iPod comes out when he starts chewing gum noisily. His jaws work away, mouth open. "Schmack, schmack, schemack." Yeuck. Is this some new endurance training regimen? ♪♫♪ "She always had this twisted side to her." ♫♪♫ As soon as the music fills my ears, I become aware that someone is wearing a sickly sweet coconut scent. Perhaps the chewing noises would be preferable?

It was touch and go this morning as to whether I would be well enough to make the trip to London. I was awake at 3:40am with painful cramps. I got up when my alarm sounded, took some painkillers and embarked on my usual preparations: showering, ironing, coffee, packing. At 5am I was curled in a ball on my bed seriously doubting I'd manage the two and a half hour train journey let alone the day ahead. I bit my lip, girded my loins, and I'm here on the train now. Coping. Just. My own advice to myself and others: "Don't struggle on if you're not well. Take the time off. Get well." The only thing stopping me taking my own advice? The cost of train tickets to London. Missing my train would have cost me the £41 fare, as my tickets aren't flexible. Purchasing another ticket to travel tomorrow would have cost me anywhere in the region of £80-110. I can only get reasonably discounted fares if I'm booking at least a month in the future. There is another small ma...

I woke from such an intriguing dream yesterday, which I tried desperately to cling on to thinking it would make the basis for a decent book. The train journey from Leeds flew as I attempted to turn it into words. When halfway to London I reached to take the first sip of the coffee I'd bought back at Leeds the lid exploded off because the cardboard had gone soggy. Let that be a lesson to you children: ignore coffee at your peril This morning I stopped at Star-schmucks. Yeah, yeah, I know. I was mobbed by a really persistent pigeon after my frankly lousy muffin. Giving up my attempts to shoo it off the table I sacrificed half the muffin to it, hoping it would take it a long time to gobble it down. Stoopid. All its chums turned up and they polished it off before I'd even managed a slurp of my latte. To add insult to injury the monstrous pigeon came right back to hassle for more. At that point, the Harris Hawks arrived. The handlers launched one my way to scare off the flying rat. ...

I'm on the train to London, sunshine and blue skies on the right, but to the left rain laden clouds threaten. The train cleaves down the middle. It would be a powerful metaphor for my path through life. The train travels through diverse landscapes: suburbia, city centres, industriana, villages, farmland. It is always the villages nestled in the countryside that inspire a longing. Life would be good living there I imagine. The picture perfect setting would engender a similarly tranquil mental landscape where I could be at peace. It is a common enough urge I suppose - to move away and leave troubles behind. Of course the one thing we take with us where ever we go is ourselves, and it is naïve to suppose that we can leave all our baggage behind. I guess I have the full matching six piece set of Louis Vuitton luggage by now. For all my journeys I've never yet had any go missing in transit. Some of the contents have shrunk in the wash, and of course there is always the odd sock that...

What a rush it was this morning to be ready in time to catch the 6:05am train to London. Next week I'll have to set my alarm earlier. We're at Newark now and the train is gradually getting busier. The clickety clack of the business types on their laptops is positively deafening, but at least it is too early for them to be engaged in their other dastardly commute activity - conference calls. The amazing warm morning light sets the spring greens of the English countryside glowing. Fields of rape are afire in the sunlight, intersected by electricity pylons, chain gangs marching across the rolling landscape, dwarfing trees and houses. The moon rides high, a translucent jellyfish swimming through the blue sky, with contrail tentacles, dragging earthly oceans along in sympathy. Mankind's endeavours, all straight lines and right angles, push aside and corral nature to do battle with entropy. The overhead lines that feed the train dip and swoop between their supports. My eyes are ...

This morning's experiment is to discover if the 6.43am train is civilized. While we wait on the platform I once again marvel at the extreme lack of parking skills displayed by the commuters pulling to the station car park. My hope of finding the platform and train to be pleasantly deserted turns out to be wildly unrealistic, yet I manage to nab the last seat in the carriage so I'm happy enough.