Ultimate Tube Survival Guide

With commitment to Zone 3 comes commitment to the tube. A good half hour every day to read a chunk of novel or listen to music (for some reason Philip Roth was followed by a Blackalicious phase) is fabulous for my mental health, but when I have to start fanning myself like a Les-Dawson style geisha and I start getting paranoid about not beads but rivulets of sweat made public I can feel my enthusiasm waning.

I was, however, meditating and bearing it; I can highly recommend an alternate nostril breathing exercise I picked up during a fortnight's flirtation with Buddhism that has proved invaluable when travelling to Morden via Charing Cross. But after Ken Livingstone's death knoll for tube travellers I'm not feeling quite so sanguine.

Whilst the tube must witness illness and old age deaths over a year - you know, your heart attacks, your aged winos, your heroin overdoses - the fact that Ken is saying that we may not be able to fix either the congestion and/or the air conditioning points to either some monumental responsibility shirking or more climate change than I've comprehended.

Before anyone suggests it, please remember I have never learnt to ride a bike, and have tried to learn within the past few years and it ended in a few tears, a few bruises and a lot of humiliation. The only option I can see is to forget family and happiness and go balls out for one of those fat media jobs that comes with a chauffeur-driven limo.