Complaints of a Commuter

“You need to sort yourself out young man. You need some direction. You’re wasting your time.” It’s 01.47am; we’re on the last train home from Kings Cross to Peterborough, getting advice from a woman who keeps hiccupping between words. She’s about 45, drunk, peroxide blonde and a pathological liar. Not your average careers counsellor. It’s just another day commuting.

But I have got direction, I think to myself. (Not daring to argue with the half-cut divorcee in full Boots No. 7 war paint.) It just so happens that my direction is eighty miles south on clapped-out public transport every morning.

The time wasting though – she may have a point. Fifteen hours a week in a carriage decorated a putrid cream, hoping the bloke who sits down next to me doesn’t smell. The greatest journeys start with the smallest steps. What kind of journeys start with removing a half-eaten apple and some ketchup sachets from a frayed, dusty seat? Commuting journeys.

Yet the daily slog to the Big Smoke is as popular as ever. In our technologically advanced age, surely the necessity for everyone to work in the capital is obsolete. However, the population of London more than doubles between nine and five every day. Of course, tourists hoping for a glimpse of the Queen, or even better, a Big Brother reject shopping in Primark, swell this number.

Mainly though, it’s the suited men and women from distant lands such as our own fair Peterborough that fill London. On heroic quests to employment, we bravely overcome terrorism, expensive prices and even relentless London Lite distributors to do the work that makes the country work. Surely a more suitable steed than a rickety train is needed for such a noble quest. Leather seats, massages and free beer; this is the journey fit for such gallant knights

Instead, we’ve got a Vanessa Feltz look-alike still giving us a lecture. The next stop approaches. I pray she’ll get off. She doesn’t, instead loudly detailing her imminent move to India and how she’s down with the kids because she went to a James Morrison gig.

Finally, she departs, tottering onto the platform like an ungainly penguin. The rest of us are now free to dwell in our own mundane little traveller timewarps. The man to the left has an annoying laugh. The girl behind keeps saying “Innit,” to her friend. There’s always something to complain about on the commute.

Arriving back home safely, the train can be put out of sight and mind and the evening can usually be savoured. But rest assured, it will be back in the morning. It probably won’t be on time, mind, but it will be back.

Just how do us commuters do it every day? Well, it’s a struggle believe me. Although perhaps I’m not in any position to comment – I’ve only been doing it for four days…..