The Commute II: Getting to Practice and Beyond...

I finish work at 4pm for one bloody good reason: That I can skim around rush our and brush shoulders with it but not actually be affected by it in any significant way.

I am fortunate that currently my journey takes me from the north east to the south west and so I am usually guaranteed a seat either side so, once headphones are rammed in and book is placed a mere few centimetres away from my tired eyes, I manage to cope with the experience of having various people pressed against any limbs that are unfortunate enough to not be in the shelter and safety of the seat area (rarely a pleasure, often extremely irritating and sometimes simply a terrifying experience, body dependent).

But our practice was at 6pm last night, meaning I had to work until 5pm (so I had the knowledge that I had just completed an hour of unnecessary overtime on my shoulders before I'd even gone tubewards). I struggled out of the office, where I had to battle with the toilets before I headed out into the rain. That was an experience in its own.

I struggled through the doors, laptop on one shoulder, guitar on the other.

I now know what its like to have two unruly children in the cubicle with you. At least my two 'children', whilst I'm sure not being wonderfully impressed that they were rammed in there with me, were silent, rather like mardy teenagers than screaming toddlers.

So the three of us managed to get through that ordeal and and we struggled towards the tube, each slipping off my shoulder, tugging on their owner, dragging my limbs in opposing directions, hanging on like tired children. Just to make things that little bit more complicated, I thought now was the perfect time to return my friend's call so I had to contend with barriers and tube doors while negotiating the wedging of a mobile between my ear and my shoulder.

Once on the tube I managed to reduce my heart rate and stabilise my unruly sweat glands with a 30 minute tube journey, arms rested at shoulder height on my laptop bag with book suspended in the sky, head craned upwards, my guitar swaying in an unruly fashion, desperate to poke, nudge and scar anyone that came within reach.

Then it came. The Change.

I am one of the lucky few commuters who don't have to negotiate a tube change on their journey to and from work. But to get to practice, not only do I have to change, I have to change at Kings Cross. But oh no it doesn't end there. I have to change at Kings Cross to get on The Northern Line.

The Northern Line is one of my least favourite of the tube lines (I'd throw the District Line and its unsettling wooden floors, oversized carriages and regular unexplained delays alongside it). It is officially Commuter Hell. I have had more bad experiences on the Northern Line than any other underground line, probably with all my other bad experiences put together. And I've never even used it for a work commute. That gives you an idea of just how much we don't get on.

I battled my way off my tube, by this time wallowing in satisfaction everytime my guitar managed to jab into someone, or make an attempt at poking their eye out; by now we were in union and I was determined to make every other pitiful soul who dared stand or sit near me have just as bad a commute and be just as miserable as me.

So we descended even further, and as the escalator approached the bottom I saw a swarm of people gathered at the bottom; grey, terrified, lifeless souls inching their way towards the escalator. And I was about to be spat into them.

I am not good in crowds. At all. I never have been.

This is possibly because I am so short that, when situated within a crowd, all I can see is someone's back. And it scares the crap out of me.

I remember one terrifying time at a gig, jammed in the moshpit, chin and windpipe pressed up against the back of a very large, very unsavoury character, and having to be extracted from the crowd by my friend, who calmed me down and took me to the safe haven of the back where, if I was very clever, I could look through the curly mass of pubic hair that someone was cultivating on their head in front of me (why is there always Pubic Hair Man in front of me at these gigs? Why why why?). In between the wisps of coarse curls, if I was clever and timed it right, I could occasionally see flickering of who I believed may have been people on the stage in the distance.

I used my guitar's pointed headstock as a rather unmenacing weapon and charged towards my tube, in the process causing a few more bruises to hapless commuters, to accompany my foul temperament.

Finally, I emerged, battered, dazed and thoroughly pissed off. Into the pouring rain.

Its a good job I'd packed a marmite and cucumber sandwich. I got to practice and found normality and a safe haven between those two slices of bread and their watery innards.

Not the most rock way to start a band practice. I think my bandmates despair.