I’m writing from the train once again. It’s 7:37am at the time of writing. I was up just before 6 - a luxury afforded by half term, and the children not requiring clothing, lunches, or breakfast ahead of the school run.

The guy sat opposite just blew his nose, then used the same tissue to clean the screen and keyboard of his laptop. Please excuse me while I laugh into my socks. The (lack of) personal hygeine exhibited by some people astonishes me.

An older lady just sat down opposite me, with a truly enormous handbag. I have a theory on this that I just baked up. I don’t think women ever throw anything away in their handbags - they slowly accumulate stuff over their life, and require bigger and bigger bags to contain it. By the time they reach 60 or 70, they need one of those tartan boxes on trolley wheels. It all makes sense now.

What else can I turn my intellect towards this morning ?  How about the dream I had last night, where my other half decided she didn’t like me any more and moved a replacement for me into the house (while I was still there). In an effort to win her back, I suggested we move to New Zealand - and she agreed immediately. I have the weirdest dreams.

On a more real note, the kids got up with me at 6 this morning and were downstairs watching cartoons as I packed my bags to leave for London. I sat down and had a quiet word with them…

“I heard that you two (pointing at little miss 4, and little miss 3) were naughty yesterday”

Little miss 7 pipes up with “Yes. They didn’t do as they were told all day!” (the look of incredulity on her face is a picture)

Little miss 3 - the chief perpetrator of procrastination at tidy-up-time started the discussion smiling at me  just for being Dad, and just for talking to her. After my opening salvo, she is frowning at me in the manner a young Voldemort might.

“Are you both going to try harder to be good for Mum today?”

Little miss 4 doesn’t say a word, and starts sucking her thumb - turning her head to continue watching the cartoon. That sank in then.

Back in the world of train-dom, we are just rolling into Slough, and the train is strangely empty today. Yesterday was packed to the rafters - today empty. Go figure.

We are days away from the start of NaNoWriMo, and I have not given any thought at all to the story I am going to write. Am I worried? Yes and No.

I’m more worried about the chances I might have to write a meaningful amount while commuting - it’s pot luck whether I get enough elbow room on the train to type. Yesterday was a good example - I got leaned all over on the 2 hour journey into London, and the 2 hour journey home… which was amazing as I took up far less room than the width of my seat.

Oh - and if they guy is reading this that sat next to me on the way to London yesterday - you’re an ignorant asshole. I loved how you found out you couldn’t unfurl your newspaper by elbowing the passengers on either side of your (one of which was me). I also loved the fact that you spied a spare seat that you obviously didn’t fit in, but wedged yourself into anyway. I bet you take spare seats while pregnant women stand too, don’t you.

Today marks the first day the new EEE PC has journeyed with me into London, and therefore resumption of the “Morning Post” that I sent so regularly last year to close friends, and “The Enormous Waste of Webspace”. I’m not quite sure how regular it will be this year - that very much depends on how many fat and/or ignorant (delete as appropriate) people I get sat next to me on the train.

Space is an abstract concept on the train. I make sure I stay within the bounds of my seat - with my bag typically stowed directly above me, and coat folded across or under me to avoid encroaching on other’s personal space. If only I wasn’t the only person that seemed to abide by these simple social graces. Thankfully this morning a businessman has chosen to sit opposite me - which prevents the usual evil hag from homing in on me; ready to apply her makeup with a shovel and kick me while doing so.

While on the subject of thoughtless people, I may as well do some more venting.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a girl - just once - didn’t presume I’m going to give way to her on the way off the train and offer to let me step out first? Is this a presumption held by everybody in the world except me - that “they” go first, and I can just go f*ck myself?

I’ve written about this kind of thing before. While walking through the big stations in London, I have often taken notice of the people around me - to see how quickly each of us progress through the crowds towards the station exit. On particularly busy days I would anticipate that I travel half as quickly as everybody else. While making way for others and generally being considerate, I make one step forward for two made by everybody else. Sometimes it frustrates me. I wonder what would happen if I behaved in the same manner as others - it would be carnage.

As I had perhaps anticipated, somebody has now sat down next to me, and having elbow room removed from one side has severely restricted my ability to type. This will have ramifications for NaNoWriMo. I remember this from my days commuting with the Macbook - as you draw closer to London, personal space is chipped away at until any thought of using a laptop is completely unfeasible (unless of course you are one of the ignorati who find no problem in briskly walking through busy railway stations).

Worth pointing out that an hour into the journey, the EEE PC is reporting 90% power left - estimating 5 hours 22 minutes from  it. Impressive stuff - especially as I have been monkeying with it inbetween typing (Textpad is my editor du jour, if you are interested at all).

We are slowly drawing closer to London - industry now rumbles past the train windows, and the world is turning from trees to concrete, iron, and wires.

Time to think about folding this machine away and turning my focus to surviving the underground.

[Insert working day that I cannot really write about without breaking all sorts of rules - which would probably result in me being marched in with the HR manager next  week. Amazingly, it turns out several of the professional clients of my employer read what I write on the interwebs...]

So! Fastforward 10 hours, and I’m sat on the train once more, rolling out of London, with an ignorant idiot sat opposite me who seems intent on spreading his knees as far apart as he possibly can. Seriously. Has he never heard of “personal space” ?  He has a blackberry pearl. At what point do I get the iPhone out and p0wn him ?

This weekend is going to be hard work. Wendy is going away with her Mum, leaving me to look after the children single  handed. This would normally be fine, except the eldest has a swimming lesson on Sunday. Therefore we will ALL go to the swimming lesson, and I will have to take a bag full of placating devices while we wait for the lesson to finish. Afterwards I would love to take the girls to Pizza Hut, but even that is complex - the eldest is Ceoliac, meaning she cannot eat gluten - strike out any food containing wheat (normal pizza, normal bread, any normal pastry, and many other things). With a little luck Pizza Hut will let me take a pizza bread with me… which of course will have to come to the swimming pool with us.

Anyway - the weekend will be fine. I will survive. I’ll be online A LOT in the evenings (GMT), so feel free to message me and keep me entertained.

The train has slowed. No doubt we have fallen behind a stopping train for some bizarre reason - which invariably means we will now remain behind the slow train for the entire rest of our journey. There’s a crazy/stupid/idiotic reason for this by the way - in the UK, train operator performance is measured by the number of late trains - not how late they were. Therefore if a train becomes late, it becomes the scapegoat for every other train, and comes last at every turn during it’s journey. Kind of like “You’re late - f*ck you”.

The driver is on the public address system - explaining what’s happening. A train is late leaving the station ahead of us. While sat here waiting, it’s probably worth mentioning what happened this morning. The underground trains ground to a halt for half an hour on the circle line. When a train finally arrived it too stood still.  Ten minutes later, the public address system informed the several thousand travellers now crowding the platform that they were waiting for a driver for the train. Go figure.

It’s pretty dark outside now.

If you’re wondering why I have written so damn much today, there is method to my madness. I am taking part in NaNoWriMo next month, and want to find out how much I can write during a typical journey home. This morning I only hit about 500 words. The daily average I’ll need to cover during november will be 1600ish. Hopefully on normal weekdays (non commuting days), I’ll be able to get an hour in between 6 and 7am. Quite what my writing will be like at 6am is anybody’s guess. Probably horrible beyond words.

Okay. This is over 1000 words now. 1600 doesn’t look like too bad a target at all - especially given the speed I can write rubbish. Those who know me will be quite confident in my ability to spout absolute garbage with no difficulty whatsoever.

What else is there to mention today? Perhaps the fact that this blog - “The Enormous Waste of Webspace” had the most hits in it’s entire history yesterday… all because I posted wallpaper for download. Not stellar figures compared to the old PluggedOut open source project days, but still respectable for a blog about nothing in particular. We’re talking in the 800 visitors during the day range. Usually it hovers between 50 and 100 people.

Given that I typically write such random posts about the most inane subjects, I do sometimes wonder who the regular readers are - what they do, where they are from. Perhaps I should start some kind of “I was here” thing in the margin for people to click.

Wow. The biggest wave of tiredness just swept over me. Suddenly my eyes are struggling - feel like somebody just jumped on my eyelids. Probably the end of the caffeine high I began to subscribe at 9 this morning, and has been drip fed ever since. I just looked out of the train window to see the sunset. Having trouble focussing, or even looking at the moment.

Must stay away! I don’t want another embarassing “dribble on tie” episode.

The sunset is spectacular. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

While stood on the underground train this morning travelling east beneath London, we arrived at one of the stations and a young guy with a beard and headphones scampered past me to claim the last empty seat in the carriage.

As he turned into the seat, a large older gentleman (perhaps early 50s) appeared behind him who obviously thought he was going to get the seat. It turned out after a few moments that the big old guy had a bad leg, and couldn’t stand easily. A lady behind him offered her seat, he thanked her, and sat down. The old guy the proceeded to sit and stare at the younger guy across from him. Really glare at him. While sitting down he made a point of leaning towards him in the most threatening way a big old guy with a gammy leg probably could.

Several things occurred to me.

• Neither of them said anything
• The younger guy had no idea the older guy was there - his back was to him when he got on the train - so the older guy had no business being angry at all.
• Why didn’t the younger guy at least ask if he wanted the seat?
• Why did the old guy have to behave in such an overstated manner?

I considered speaking out - telling the big guy that he had no reason to be angry because the other guy didn’t even know he was there - and on first appearance, you couldn’t see he had a bad leg. It strikes me that the world would be a much happier place if only people would communicate more. Of course I would probably have been told to f*ck off, but still…

A few minutes later, two old gentlemen both went for the same spare seat. One of them got there first, looked the other in the face, inches from him, neither of them said a word, and the loser proceeded to snap his paper open in the middle of the carriage in an annoyed manner…

What on earth is going wrong with the world?

Just had a typical journey on the London Underground. Thought I would share.

• I jump on circle line train at Paddington - the train takes forever to leave, while the driver apologises about a technical problem. It gets 1 station further down the line (Edgeware Road) and stops, never to start again.
• We all get off, and wait at Edgeware Road for the next eastbound train. A guy walks around me, steps directly in front of me, and then proceeds to check his watch every ten seconds.
• Train pulls in, filled to the brim with people. The guy in front of me physically forces himself and the people in front of him onto the train. He cannot actually stay within the train without hanging on to the roof and other people.
• I wait for next train - which has mercifully few people in it. This doesn’t stop me being the last onto the carriage even though I was first in line.
• Part empty train does not stop passenger standing behind me from pushing his backpack into me (he is completely oblivious - he’s facing the other way.
• At various stations people get off, meaning I can stand fairly centrally in the carriage - usually a good tactic to avoid being barged about. Mr backpack man somehow follows me (walking backwards) and continues to push into me.
• We finally arrive at Liverpool Street, and I find myself near the doors. This does not stop me from being the last person to leave the carriage. Attempting to leave sooner would have involved walking into other people - just as I am avoiding them doing to me.
• Walking between the train and the barriers, an old woman walks diagonally across my path. I come to a complete half to avoid kicking her. Twice.
• Walking between Liverpool Street and the office, a man crosses the road in the corner of my eye, and runs to push in front of me to go through the doorway of a building I am passing.

This morning was fairly typical - doesn’t say a lot for “people” in general, does it.

I nearly spoke out on the Underground beneath London today.

After being pushed this way and that over the previous twenty minutes I found myself stood in the middle of the carriage. I always stand in order to let women take the seats, which invariably means you step back and forth while letting people on and off the train. Underground train passengers seem to have a habit of crowding the doors - so the best place to stand is in the center of the carriage - as far from the doors as possible.

I digress.

An empty seat happens to be available to my side. A pretty girl gets on and spots it. Although she is pretty, you only have to watch her body language for a moment to realise that she is aloof, and loves herself to pieces. She sits down, and proceeds to pull a magazine from the middle of her newspaper - leaving the rest of the newspaper to fall onto the floor, and across my feet.

I couldn’t believe it.

When we reached Liverpool Street (the next stop, and where I depart), I bent down, picked the newspaper up off of her and my feet, folded it up, and placed it on the shelf opposite. I then shook my head and walked off the train.

Everybody saw me do it. I wonder how many of them wished they had?

Have you ever heard the expression “burning the candle at both ends” ? It accurately describes my life at the moment.

Continually tired, but having so much fun working that I don’t mind one bit.

Somehow I managed to scrape myself out of bed at 5:30am again this morning, and was met shortly before leaving the house at 7am by a little girl skipping through the kitchen.

“What are you doing up? Come on - back to your bedroom!”

“Awwwww” (cue pouting, tears, and slump on bedroom floor)

“I have to go to work in a minute, and Mum isn’t even awake yet!”

No response.

“Here you go - I’ll open your curtains and blinds so you can play in your room.”

No response.

“See you later…”

By now she was face down on the carpet, face in hands, with her bum in the air. Her individual method of protest. The youngest tends to look at you with big teary eyes and a huge wibbly bottom lip. The eldest crosses her arms and looks down at the floor.

“Have fun swimming today with Mum…”

She looks up with a smile, I say my goodbyes, and wander back downstairs to leave the house. I wander through the early morning streets to the train station lugging my bag and a laptop, slump down on the train, buy a ticket, and listen to Macbreak Weekly as the train rolls towards London.

At cookham the hag from hell gets on and given an entire carriage to sit anywhere, sits opposite me. I am going to have to find somewhere else to sit - either that or give her a slip of paper with the URL of my blog post about her.

I accidentally drop my bag on her feet and she doesn’t move. Perhaps they are false feet after a spectacular Spitfire crash or something?

A pretty blonde lady has sat down next to me - perhaps that’s why the hag is being so insular today - intimidated by the pretty young thing sat across from her.

Who knows.

The journey passes easily enough and we are in London after a few more pages of “On the Road”. Again, women look at the book and then look me up and down while on the underground. Strange.

The annoying old bag did it again. She got on the train at Cookham, sat opposite me, and kicked my feet deliberately. I moved, and she said something about needing room. I looked down, and while I was pushed back with my bag now wedged between my shins, she had all the room in the world. She also took up the entire seat next to her with the most gaudy gold handbag in the known universe.

I thought about sitting elsewhere – of standing up and mouthing “for f*cks sake”,or some other such comment on her behaviour. I didn’t. She spent the journey until Slough applying makeup with a trowel.

Her just deserts came when a businessman got on and sat next to her – his legs spread as wide as possible, and a broadsheet newspaper spread over the both of them. She said nothing. I began wondering if there exists some order in society that I have somehow found the bottom of? She felt fine imposing herself on me, and he felt fine imposing himself on her.

Whatever – I lost myself in my book once more, and wondered if it was better to be reading, or to be writing. Which enriches more – experiencing the record of other’s thoughts, or recording your own?

Leaving the train at Paddington, I walked towards the station alongside a pretty blonde girl. She was pushed aside by a severe older blonde woman in a “little black dress”. It struck me that sometimes London is pretty – and sometimes ugly. Today is somewhere inbetween.

I sat opposite a young couple on the train this morning. She leaned against the window as one might if sat next to somebody invading your personal space. He leaned all over her, and just wouldn’t leave her alone!. If not rubbing her knee, he was dragging his fingers up and down her arm. She obviously wasn’t comfortable with it, but looked down at her lap with a coy smile.

I wondered if he was aware of the impression he was making on fellow passengers?

While walking into the station this morning from the train, a pretty girl walked a few people ahead of me. The few brief glimpses of her I saw inbetween the stumbling throng told me (without being too graphic) that she had a nice figure, and her suit trousers fitted very well. Stop supressing snorts of laughter.

I’m not sure how rare this is, but she was not my main interest. As soon as I saw her, I wondered if something might happen - and it did. A male commuter fell into step a few yards behind her, and intently stared at her ass all the way back into the station. Well - I saw all the way back, but being my usual good natured self, I fell 50 yards behind them as others pushed in front of me at every juncture.

A similar thing happened on the underground this morning. A smart businesswoman was sat down with a very short skirt on - and doing her best to cross her legs and protect her modesty. A businessman stood over her, repeatedly glancing down the side of his newspaper to check out her legs. I’m guessing he was too ignorant to care that not only did she know he was doing it, but so did others (or at least, me…).

I often wonder about the nature of manners, confidence, and assertiveness. I stand 6′3″ tall. I am not skinny either - and yet when passing through a crowd I will invariably be the only person making way for others. Those of much smaller stature somehow expect me to stand aside - before I have done so. I am the one who will avert my eyes when presented with something I should perhaps not be seeing - and am aware that others do not.

Perhaps I was born into the wrong era? Who knows.

I arrived at Paddington at 8:15 this morning. I walked into the office at 9:45. The intervening hour and a half were spent underneath London, riding the hilariously chaotic underground trains.

I could have walked faster.