I commute everyday to work - I am an official Imperial class London commuter. To get to Harrow from Beckenham, I get a mainline train from Beckenham Junction to Victoria, then a Victoria line tube one stop to Green Park, followed by the Jubilee line to Finchley Road, and then the Met line to Harrow-on-the-Hill.
Christ, even writing it makes me angry and exhausted.
I've been doing this so long now that I just put my head down and travel on autopilot, it's not unknown for me to carry on reading my book walking between platforms. This does cause the occasional stamped foot or elbowed face but, well, they'll get over it.
The worst part of the journey is not so much the number of trains and changes, but the number of people. I'm jammed in like a vaccuum sealed pack of hot dogs and don't actually sit down until I get on the Met at Finchley Road, about an hour after I get on at Beckenham.
A full train, especially the tube, usually means people moaning and complaining that they can't get on and one thing guaranteed to get commuters shaking their heads and tutting it's not getting on but being able to see through the windows that there's space inside between the seats.
This leads to a phenomenon I've classified as Annoyance Dependent Emphasis Shift, or ADES. This is, I believe, part of the small print in Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle* and goes something like this:
THE LEVEL OF IRRITATION IS PROPORTIONAL TO THE POSITION OF EMPHASIS
The standard test sentence for commuting, and it's very specific, is: "Can you move down please?"
So, for example, the first time it's uttered it will be "Can you move DOWN please?". This may perhaps be accompanied by a face at the glass, with a hand shielding the glare to really make it clear the non-movers have been rumbled.
This usually results in some embarrased shuffling within the carriage but little attempt at moving. Hence the move onto: "Can you MOVE down please". Knock on the window.
Then, perhaps unexpectedly, we shoot straight to "CAN you move DOWN please?" Even in their anger, their Englishness is still preventing them from singling out specific people.
Annoyance and anger then turn to exasperation and our final plea of "Can you move down PLEASE?" hits in. We've all been there son, we've all been then son.
*Probably written on the back, in pencil
