Sounds of the City

After my rather damning report (apart from my closing paragraph that I was hoping might redeem me from my spiteful tongue) about London yesterday, it stuck its fingers well and truly in the air to me this morning.

I woke up late. 7 minutes late to be precise, but when you allow yourself approximately 15 minutes to get ready on a morning (basic hygiene rules adhered to as a minimum, hair brushed and earrings located if I'm feeling particularly spritely), this obviously is quite a large chunk of time.

I have a rather large, terrifying, palm-sweating-high-blood-pressure-inducing presentation to give this afternoon. I have tried to reduce my stress levels by treating it as an informal presentation, trying to pretend to myself that this is merely a 'discussion', a 'chat'. I might have been successful in convincing myself of this fact had it not been to pitch for a substantial sum of money, and actually quite an exciting project for me (to fulfil my typical 10% of my job per year that I actually enjoy all in a few months if successful).

In preparation for this I have even worn clean clothes that I haven't pulled out of the wash bin in a moment of desparation as is the normal routine on a morning in the world of WebStress. Due to this meeting, there was no chance of shaving any time off by skipping my basic hygiene routines (I am a webdesigner after all, I could wear my pyjamas to work and noone would notice).

Then the worst thing happened. Not content with consuming my sight, touch, and smell, London captured my last remaining outpost.

Today I had to listen to the city.

Half way along Gillespie road (incidentally the longest road in the world) my music stopped. I checked my MP3 player to see if I could encourage it with that age old trick, 'The Battery Roll'. Niente. Not a sausage. The energiser bunny it was not.

So I arrived late to the tube, Mr Ticket Man said I was a 'silly girl' for not finding it, I made an excuse that I'd got in late (why the hell I was making an excuse to Mr Ticket Man is beyond me). The long descent to the tubes felt like a prison sentence, a physical manifestation of my day beginning to go downhill.

Due to my 7 minute delay and having to endure blonde comments from Mr Ticket Man, the tube was by that point rammed and I had to read my newspaper under someone's armpit until Kings Cross where I managed to get a seat. I was not in a good mood. The man sat opposite stared at me disgustedly, obviously because I had sat down or taken up slightly more room than was allocated to me through The Unspoken Rules of the Tube (which noone else adheres to, I've noticed).

My tunelessness made me realise that I'd been walking around with a soundtrack to my world, blissfully unaware of the irritating noises that surround me day to day on my journey. People rustle. They breathe loudly. They shift and fidget. And worst of all, there was a bloke standing next to me today who had a tune playing on his phone again and again and again. 15 minutes of my journey were spent with this 30 second tune repeating at regular intervals. Starey Disgusted Man and I joined forces, giving this bloke our best evil glares. But to no avail, he had headphones in and, like I usually am, was happy and content in his own musical bubble. That made it even worse. Because that's how I should have been.

The 7 painful minutes from my ascent from the tube to my office are usually when I select my favourite, most uplifting tunes. My tunes that say 'this is going to be a good day'. My tunes that say 'its only a job, its only a few hours, you'll get through it'. My tunes that make me happy.

My tuneless walk to work was beyond bleak. Climbing the stairs to my office, to my desk, I was alone.

I have not cheered up. XFM did its best, until the office became busy and I had to fade it down until it was so quiet that I just succumbed to the world of work and turned it off.

So today I have realised I have another addition to my Toast need. Take my MP3 player away (all £20 of Matsunichi glory. No I've never heard of them either) and you face The Wrath of the WebStress.