‘What a wheeze’, I thought to myself. ‘This will make rather a good little blog post, provincial happy chappy goes out on the hunt for publicity-hungry starlets and miscellaneous nonentities and isn’t going home until he strikes it lucky’. That was quite a long thought, and it got me on the tube all the way to Kensington, where I walked to Knightsbridge with no such luck. I did get to see some nice diplomatic places with flags hanging limply out the front in a mocking salute to Blighty. I enjoyed looking at the cars outside all of the embassies, Rolls-Royce Phantoms galore, but it seems the Ambassador from Togo drives an old Rover, which surely can’t be doing anything for relations with either their country or ours.

I ended up on the Victoria line headed for Oxford Circus, thinking I might spot someone on Oxford Street out doing a spot of shopping in their sunglasses, pop-socks and carrying lots of those cardboard bags that you only get from fancy shops who only deal with plastic of the Amex variety. (Getting papped for Heat magazine carrying an M&S carrier bag: Priceless. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.) This is where the whole day went sour, for as I was getting off the tube train at said station my reverie was disturbed by screaming, and lots of men running down the platform coming out of the carriage next to mine. The screaming was coming from an Asian girl, crying and clutching a bag to herself. A striking blonde girl was in tears near the wall, a hole had appeared in an otherwise throng of people, confusion reigned. I can only admit to my feebleness and say that I didn’t do anything except watch as this screaming woman asked for someone to pull the alarm. I have said previously that I would be the first to die in a disaster film, most likely in a comical way. I doubt I shall be laughing myself.

I have no idea what happened earlier, but it was upsetting. As I left the station in a daze I heard several announcements for the police to go down to the platform, but there’s nothing on the internet to suggest to me what might have happened that would have had people in the carriage in tears. I can only imagine that there are hundreds and thousands of these little episodes going on every day in this city, things that can have a profound effect on someone’s day, that can affect their lives even. These are things that don’t get reported, don’t get heard of - the police come, the tube train is released and within a few hours the schedule is back to normal, by the next morning the mess has been mopped up and there’s nothing more to tell. If it’s really big it gets a plaque and a couple of days on News 24.

As I bumbled about the rest of my day there was a older woman on the kerb near Hamley’s with a bad noseblood, a man who tripped over his ridiculously over-sized bag at the bottom of the escalator at Euston station, three occasions where I stood Peter-like, involved but detached, an invisible cock crowing in the background. It shook me - not out of fear, but into a more involved relationship with my surroundings. What a load of crap, looking for famous people - London breeds a depersonalisation, a distance, a coldness. Perhaps this is why the bold and the beautiful like to come here and buy cardboard bags full of tat, because no-one is interested in them until the pictures come out next week.

I get back on the train back to London Bridge feeling like I’ve been nipped by this place - like a unfamiliar dog that gives you that quick warning that it doesn’t like you scratching its ears. Living here is different from looking at its picture or watching on the television. It’s hotter, smellier, more emotional, more dangerous, more demanding of you.

Duly noted, I’ll watch my step.

Isn’t it funny how you get miss little things like that? I miss the sea and the hills, I miss going to church on a Sunday and I miss sipping a honey latte in the new Debenhams, a late but precious addition to my life in North Wales. There are many things I don’t miss, of course, let’s not get rose-tinted here - and there are many things to like about London, including the most amazing building in the world which I also happen to work in. There are many things I don’t like about London, of course, let’s not…you know.

Gosh, I’m exhausted. They’ve been working me like a dog, and I’ve got my day of seminars, groupwork and whatnot tomorrow, starting just off Milbank at half eight. The pace of life and the working day here are ridiculous, I don’t think the economy would much worse off if we were allowed to start the day at ten. That’s probably half the reason the whole thing has gone tits up now, who works that well at eight-eh-yem anyway? Certainly not those naughty bankers who’ve been playing FTSE while Rome burns.

I’ve got myself into a pattern, though, I am of course a good Christian boy and placed great importance on getting myself to a church somewhere, and to a certain extent I’ll go anywhere to church, but finding a library - now that’s a commitment. I’ve been searching all over London for a library that has copies of Autocar magazine, and on the 4th go I strike it lucky, albeit an hour away from the house, on Kensington High Street. It’s a classy joint, lovely ambience - it’s not the House of Commons, but it’s relaxed. Reading Autocar at the library saves me a few quid a week - these are the clever money-saving tips you need when you’re living in the Most Ridiculously Expensive Place In Britain on five hundred quid a month.

Also, I think they do books.

You’ll recall if you’re a Longtime Reader, Firsttime Caller that I did what was termed ‘the Great Poll of 2006‘, it’s kind of funny to look back. Clearly I didn’t listen to any of my readers, just 6% (er, that’s 2. I think I voted for the masters in Automotive Journalism) of respondents suggested I run for president of the Students’ Union and then apply for the internship I’m on now. Here was my thinking in 2006:

“I’d love to be a car journalist and write for Autocar magazine or some such, but is it a worthy job? Another thing that has been at the back of my mind for years is running in the Students’ Union elections to become President for a year. Like all of these things this isn’t a given, I’m not sure I could win an election at Bangor. What I am sure of is that I’d be a great president, if simply because of my zest and enthusiasm for the job (in all modesty, folks!”

And now I find myself back in the same position as nearly three years ago…I’d still love to be a writer, I think I was a good president and I got on the internship I was talking about. It seems I’ve exhausted my options…

Anyway - this is the latest update from the Forest Hill Control Room, all lines reporting a good service and ready for bed. Have a good one.

Anyway - older chap gets offered a seat. ‘What a nice gesture’, you might think. Someone willing to give up their seat that someone else might attempt to pass across London in a modicum of comfort, you don’t get that a lot here. Normally people have to ask you for a seat, much like the woman in crutches on the bus last Sunday. Hey, I was comfortable and there was an bloke snoozing next to me. But yes - a really nice gesture. The Avuncular Older Man pasted a look on his visage that closely approximated a neat blend of confusion and disgust, before the internal measuring scales tipped onto the side of resting his knees. I took that look to be a look of realisation that this man was now one of those hooked, hunched, walking stick figures on the sticker that exhorts people to give up this seat in aid of someone more doddery than yourself.

This man clearly didn’t look in the mirror of a morning and see an unfortunate old person on a sticker. Depression ensues.

It’s getting chilly out, which isn’t necessarily the way I like it, but it does mean I get to wear my coats and scarves, which I do like. You have to balance these things. What I find astonishing is the constancy of sweltering temperature on the tube lines whatever the rest of the world might be doing. Incidentally, have you ever thought about the air down there? It’s smells musty like it’s been there since they built the thing, how many people must that last gulp have gone through? Doesn’t bear thinking about, really. I remember hearing years ago that if you have a glass of water in London, it’s been through seven people before you. This mildly disgusting and I don’t know how true it is - there must come a point on the planet when every single droplet has been through someone, somewhere - now that’s community.

But yes, it’s getting chilly out. I work from nine until close, which means that shortly I won’t be seeing my house in daylight of a weekday until sometime in 2009. This is the sort of thought that fills me with dread. I don’t much like being cold, that feeling of emptiness in your extremities, a certain discomfort. I like cosiness, being cooled by a light breeze, the feel of the sun on your face. I wouldn’t mind if the country got a couple of degrees warmer, really - I’ve never really been to Norfolk, never had a chance to form a bond, I doubt I’d miss it when it was gone. (Now there’s a good line to hamper a career in politics. Writing it is, then.) This chilliness makes it hard to get dressed in the morning - not through reduced motor control, although that is occasionally an issue in my slightly drafty bedroom, but because I either dress warm for the little trip to the train and suffer thereon, or I get hypothermia before I’ve even made the next train from platform 1 for London Bridge.

Life’s tough, and winter is dog eat dog…(although has anyone ever seen a dog eat another dog? What a stupid expression.)

I went to see a piano concert the other day after work - Thursday, I believe, but they all start to blur into one. It was perfectly pleasant, I went along with some of my fellow leaderistas to a free recital performed somewhere on Southbank. I’m no musical-type, so it would be remiss of me to comment on anything of that sort, but it did all make me wonder why piano players do what they do. There’s something theatrical about the way they hunch over, tinkling the ivories with hands clawed, then they’re bolt upright, swaying left and right, sniffing the air in a restrained Stevie Wonder fashion. One moment it’s fluid, foot tapping, the next minute it’s jerky, brooding, clomping at the keys. It’s useful, it gives the novice a good idea of what’s supposed to be going on.

The one thing I can’t understand is why they wear such badly-fitting jackets.

It always astounds me the ability of local newsreaders in particular to move from the profoundly distressing to the distinctly frothy in one fell segue, and I don’t think it’s their fault, but more an indictment on the state of our own humanity, that any of us (and any of us are capable) can even follow that segue, that we can watch the news unaffected, or exhort a seventeen-year-old to jump to his death.

I think this post is a nice book-end to my previous post - I’m a month in to a nonsensical year which I will tell you all about come the end of next July, but it’s going to be up and down all the way. I’m hoping to blog about more than my daily commute, as well. Speaking of such, you’ll all be relieved to know that my cold is gone - there were a tense few days where my tissues were filled with an iridescent orange goo, but there’s nothing on the NHS direct website linking it to head cancer or a profound stroke, so phew. Back to green, since you ask. Have a nice weekend.

I think I would sacrifice a greater career for my own sanity and well-being - I would rather be happy than successful, whatever potential I had within me. I see these politicians wandering round looking prematurely aged, why kill yourself for people who won’t remember your name in 5 years? Some people have a special calling to change things for the better, to take their country by the scruff of the neck and change it a little for the better - I’m a member of the Liberal Democrats, that’s not gonna happen to me. This, this ladies and chaps, is the essence of pre-life crisis, this is what I’m talking about - the fundamentals, the building blocks of the next forty years. What could I see myself doing, that will get me up and out of a bed with a smile? I feel a tinge of guilt at the thought of doing something I enjoy, like it’s not quite allowed. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy what I’m doing now, but that’s because it’s what I’m doing now.

Whose advert is it that finishes with the tagline ‘because life’s complicated enough’? Are they going bankrupt at the moment?

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…