That’s it. Two women had a fight on the train the other day – what on earth is that all about? I’ve seen two dicey arguments now, although thankfully no-one has been stabbed yet. The oppressive trip into work of a morning brings out the worst in people, whether it’s a cross word here or a barely noticeable shove in the ribs here, or whether it leads on to full-blown arguments about whether people are moving down the carriage or not. There’s no solidarity or community there, just a million different people heading in the same direction. I’m not pretending that everywhere else I have lived was peace and love and skipping, but you were allowed to talk to other people on the bus to school in Coventry, and in Bangor you even nodded and wished a passer-by a good morning without fear of being sectioned.

Where do people get stuff in a city like London? I find it busy – if you were anywhere else you could pop into town for a few bits and pieces, or there would be a bus to your local 24-hour supermarket. There are some little shops and an incomprehensibly laid-out Sainsbury’s in Forest Hill, but apart from that you’ve absolutely no idea where anything is. I have a 20-minute bus ride to church on a Sunday morning, I now have a theory that the different areas of London are divided by fried chicken shops – it’s the surefire way to mark your progress through the city. Even if I popped into town I still wouldn’t have a clue where all the shops are – I know that if I go to Oxford Street I could get some overpriced souvenirs, or ripped off in a well-known high street chain there for the kudos, but whither a nice little Debenhams, or a smart row of pound shops? We’re not in Bangor anymore, Toto.

Also, London is really sweaty – which leads me onto my second question of the post: how on earth do people get dressed in London? Take my trip to work in the morning – 2/3 hundred metres to the railway station, an overland trip and then an underground hop. It’s quite nippy today, slight chance of rain – so you’d wrap up slightly, wear something a bit warmer, but then there’s the problem that there will be six thousand people crammed into your train carriage and the underground is like a Swedish sauna full of homeless people. Constant dilemmas…

I had a terribly pleasant evening yesterday, I met with some of my fellow interns and we had a lovely barbeque together somewhere in Wimbledon. The pleasant evening was bookended by trips on the train and the underground with the waifs, strays and weirdos of London – I don’t know whether they come out of hiding of a night-time particularly or whether they’re just hidden by the suits in the daytime. I’m getting over my stab fear, but still – it was after dark. Dark is for sleeping, watching films or developing pictures, not that I can do that. The switch to digital was a blessed relief for both me and my wallet. Which reminds me that I really must get out of the house and take some pictures of this wretched city.

We had a good talk between us about future plans , marriage and all that sort of thing – perfect pre-life crisis stuff amongst young Christians, you know. It seems that everyone else is already giving thought to career matters and suchlike, it seems a trifle early, but why not indulge oneself? All the graduate schemes will be opening imminently, it means I’m going to start putting some real thought into what I might fancy doing next year. Answers on a postcard, please. Or in the comments section at least – the post is quite slow round here for some reason. What I really need is Postman Pat in his new role as agent at Special Delivery Services for that kind of thing.

I’ve got a terrible cold at the moment, it’s been getting quite distressing. If only phlegm was worth something I could have made a nice little stack of cash selling it off. I was sat in the office on Wednesday thinking the front of my head might explode all over my filing, and that wouldn’t be good at all. Every time I get a tissue it reminds me of Noel Edmonds gunging people on a Saturday night.

I’ve been travelling about the place a lot over the past three weeks, which I think is where I picked it up - colds are bad, though. I reached a high point around Thursday afternoon where blowing my nose produced a sound exactly like the raptors on Jurassic Park, it was truly something to behold. To cap it all off I’ve now got a cold sore the size of Malta on my top lip.

I tell you all this mostly to disgust you, but I suppose these things are normally a sign that one should cut back somewhat - perhaps it’s time to have a little relax.

There’s a man up the street who works for the local council, every time I go to get the train at eight o’clock in the morning he’s always there, sweeping the leaves. He’s clearly a hard worker, but this puzzles me - what urgent need is there for the local authority to pay someone to haul themselves out of their bed at the crack of dawn to sweep leaves? I suppose that commuters are a delicate lot, and God forbid anyone slips and dirties their suit. It’s a tough world out there, it really is.

Further up the street are some workmen labouring (but not enough to work up a sweat) just past signs that warned the road was closing for three months at the beginning of June. Just this past week the road has been a hive of activity, what was a south London crater is turning into a reformed bit of tarmac. I find it odd that these chaps are suddenly working that much harder now their three months are up, given the area was dormant for the last couple of weeks when I first arrived - you would think that these sorts of chaps have some schedule to keep to, a tight timeline of events to be fulfilled. Now me - I leave things until the last minute, I’m not brilliantly well-organised unless I try very hard, these things do tend to be a bit of a rush. On the other hand, I don’t build roads.

There we have it - a microcosm of society in a hundred metres.

Dear Facebook,

As I’m sure you’re no doubt aware, I left you in the middle of last week in a fit of pique, an inelegant protest at your shockingly bad update. New Facebook? Are you all too young to have heard what happened to Coke? It was in the Eighties…never mind. The very simplicity that attracted so many to you has been wilfully abandoned for a new interface filled with more white space than this paper which has been left intentionally blank. I’m confused when I use it - perhaps this is a new ploy, introduced by the R&D department, whereby people are more seduceable by insidious advertises in their state of abject puzzlement. Or maybe it’s designed to keep over-22s out of the picture by introducing technology that only the kids can possibly get down with.

Of course, leaving isn’t leaving with you lot, it’s just logging out for an extended period, because you save everything just the way it was in order to make the inevitable comeback that much easier. I would resist, if only you hadn’t rendered the entirety of society incapable of any other means of communication.

I shall have to come back, but please be fully aware that it is under duress and your ‘New Facebook’ remains utter crap. You should still change it back.

Yours unwillingly,

Sam

I visited my MP’s constituency yesterday, it was great fun. When I got back to London I had to negotiate the Underground and then fight my way through London Bridge railway station. I live in Forest Hill, which isn’t particularly foresty but it does have trees - I can see several from my bedroom window, which I certainly wasn’t expecting when I moved to the Big Smog. I would have been happy with a seedy alleyway that wasn’t full of nappies, I don’t have big expectations. When I got to London Bridge it appeared there hadn’t been a Forest Hill train in approximately three weeks, which meant that seven thousand people were stood by the timetable board waiting for the platform number to appear for a train that was imminently departing. It was particularly gruesome - I think I saw some old women get trampled in the melee, people were running along the platform and diving into the train to make room. Even normally it’s not a proper commute unless you’ve left a nose mark on the window and have newsprint from some obnoxious pillock’s Telegraph running down the other side of your face.

This was particularly bad - the trains always remind me of a really old kids’ programme I used to watch on channel 4 on a Sunday morning that had little red chaps going round with oxygen bubbles on their backs, they were blood cells. It was all about how the body works, but it was always pretty busy near the heart. The other thing that came to mind was a stark simile of convulsion - like John Prescott eating packets of biscuits, we’re forcibly imbibed and then ejected from our vessel. I’m surprised there aren’t any more incidences of people getting severely injured on the way into work. I feel for all those people in the City, I really do, but if 5000 jobs going means I get a seat on the train then I think we have to maturely consider the fact that the economy has to reset itself and there is natural collateral as part of that.

Sigh - quarter past seven, means I have to get my packed lunch sorted. I love it really, but that kicks in around 10am.

It’s probably slightly prejudiced of me, the way I expect to be stabbed everywhere I go in London. You get these free papers like ‘The Londonpaper’, or ‘London Lite’ thrust in your face every time you walk near a tube station, something to distract you from the daily grind. Reading through (I think they’re some sort of A-level project) you get a bleak picture of stabbings in the supermarket, muggings gone wrong or cyclists under trucks - in jaunty language and no more than 200 words. It’s not like they have papers to sell, so they must be telling me the truth in a fair and balanced way.

I was thinking, though, about the change from a really small place (Bangor) to a really big place (London) - there was one murder in six years whilst I lived in Bangor, with its heady population of around 20,000 (including students, making it the fourth smallest city in the country without…). If you translate that to London someone can expect to be killed every five days, which is considerably lower than the official figures, it seems - 127 people murdered in 2006/7, making it about once every three days…interesting. Perhaps I shall be asking for a stab vest for Christmas.

I have my first free day in two weeks, an intense two weeks of induction and training and meeting the squillions upon millions of people I will be working with this year. I’ve forgotten precisely every name, I think it’s some sort of condition - possibly inherited from my father, who didn’t know my mum’s surname when they got married. I have learned from this things and will write down all important details as soon as I get engaged.

Anyway - free day. I did have high-minded plans for this blessed occasion, but as three o’clock rolls around I’m still sat in my pyjamas and trying to fix my mp3 player, which appears to have developed a hormonal cycle, and as you will no doubt read in upcoming blogs is crucial to the sanity of anyone who commutes. If I can’t close my eyes and pretend I’m Andy Williams at quarter to eight in the morning whilst being violated by several bleary-looking business types I’d probably hurl myself off the train. I was going to nip into town and perhaps visit a museum, or something, which I suppose is still viable. It’s very exciting, being having such cultural delights at your disposal - in Bangor an afternoon’s exposure to cutting edge modern art and perusing what the world has to offer meant a trip to Tesco.

But wow - a new blog! Isn’t this exciting. Technically it isn’t really new, I’ve just changed the name and deleted lots of stuff, but you’ll allow me the indulgence. I chose No Added Succour a) because it sounds fancy and b) because it describes how I feel about London. It’s a curiously soulless place, devoid of emotion in the same way that an aging Hollywood film star can’t move her face. I think London has had too much botox and I intend to find out why.

But seriously, so much to do and so little time. I’ve got to find myself in a year, whilst I find myself in a city rammed with 8 million people. I’ll be leading somewhat of a double life as there are many things I can’t share on here, but the fundamentals stay the same. Here goes nothing…