Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

It takes me an hour to get up to Islington in the mornings, but the story is not told simply by the duration of the journey.

I aim to get to the office for 9am, so I leave at 8. A short walk to the bus stop on Evelyn Street, and with a bit of luck there won’t be 40 people waiting for the next bus up to Canada water. If there are, then maybe I’ll cram myself on the next bus, and have an uncomfortable journey up to Canada Water tube. If there are no people waiting then that means a bus has just gone and so I’ll wait for 10 mins for the next one. During which time 40 other people show up and I have an uncomfortable journey up to Canada Water tube.

10 mins later I’m at the Jubilee line & go down to the platform to pick it up westbound for 2 stops to London Bridge. This train takes all the people living out east into Westminster & the city, so it’s packed, but I cram myself in there. I need to get out in 2 stops so none of your ‘move down the carriage please’ crap. I’m staying by the doors with all the others. Just take a second to imagine this if you’ve never experienced it yourself. It’s 8:30 in the morning & you’re faced with this. Add to it the noise of the trains and the constant fucking PA system announcements – the smells of wet clothes in the winter or sweat in the summer. You’re here EVERY weekday.

London bridge transit to the Northern line is a long one – takes 5 mins to walk down to the platform, and from there I can get on any of the branches, but that’s shallow comfort because the platform is invariably packed. The whole length of the platform is covered 3 or 4 deep – there are literally hundreds of people. Then a train turns up. It’s already rammed with people. Lots of people get out and there’s a shit-fight on the platform while the people waiting to get on are desperate to be one of only half the people waiting who will get on.

Bank, Moorgate, Old Street, Angel – 10 mins of hell that no ipod can properly detach you from. If you’re really lucky you’ll have the space to lift a book up in front of you to a level where you can read, but that’s not always the case. Then the exit from the depths of Angel tube. When people use the word rat race, this is what they are talking about.

Finished? Not quite. Lastly there’s a 10 minute walk to the office – across some of the busiest junctions in London - heavy traffic; pedestrian, cars, buses, white vans – everyone’s got a place they need to be and it’s not where they are. Except for the large resident homeless population.

Now imagine this. Although you’ve just brushed shoulders with 100 different people and come within 25 feet of a thousand more. You haven’t spoken a single word to another human being for the whole journey.

So how do Londoners cope with this daily hideousness?

There’s a standing joke about Londoners – how surly they are, how miserable they seem, how no one smiles or talks to each other. You think that’s how things should be? Fuck it - that’s just how human beings behave when faced with this set of circumstances.

The only way to survive this crap is to let yourself slip into a sub-homicidal state when you leave the refuge of your house. Every other fucker out there is specifically trying to get in your way. Wankers! Look in their eyes & you see that they are looking at you thinking ‘is this wanker going to get in my way? How can I get there before him?’. The rage is instantly transferred. If the transport system is running smoothly then the other passengers are your enemies. If the tubes or busses are screwed up, then it’s the transport system you hate. The constant announcements in the tube stations.

‘We regret that due to signalling problems there is no Northern Line service running in either direction today.’ Closely followed by: ‘A good service is currently running on the Jubilee Line’. Great!! Well fucking done – what do you want? a round of fucking applause?