When the weather's like this, the tube is not the place to be...

OMGWTHITWAA (Oh my God what the hell is this weather all about)

It’s impossible to dress for this weather. The forecasts say it will be a heatwave this week and we get one morning of hot sunshine and an afternoon of relentless rain. How on earth does this translate into suitable work attire?

At the unearthly hours of the morning that I get up, how am I supposed to predict what temperature it is or isn’t likely to ,when the weathermen can't even get it right, and therefore pick the appropriate clothes? One thing I DO know is that I will mostly get it wrong.

It’s too hot for a trouser suit and too chilly for bare legs yet, for a woman, wearing black tights while the sun shines brightly is both uncomfortable and frowned upon by other female commuters who pity you for taking the weather gamble and ending up on ‘lose’.

When you mix this dilemma with the London Underground, it becomes several times worse. On goes the overcoat first thing in the morning, but by the time you’ve got on the tube, you are literally cooking meaning you turn up at work at the beginning of the day looking like you’ve already been there for hours, need a shower and that you havent brushed your hair for days.

For men it is so simple – suit it is. The only choice is a short or a long sleeved shirt. And has anyone noticed that mens’ hair doesn’t seem to frizz up in this lethal combination of heat and rain?

When it does rain I also have to make the call on whether to walk to work across London Bridge and involve myself in the game I like to call ‘umbrella wars’ or to duck down into the London Underground and play the equally as dreaded 'see how quickly I can turn into a mess'.

The first option – umbrella wars – involves ducking across London Bridge past the scores of commuters walking at mixed paces towards the City. This is a bit of a battle on most days but when you factor in the expanded width of each person due to their umbrellas, it really is survival of the fittest as to who can get across the bridge without a poked eye or getting involved in a mass pile up.

The second option – the mess – is, I think, worse. Yes you might get to work quicker (I say 'might' as rain seems to have a knock-on effect on the tube, despite it being underground…) and you might be dry longer (apart from the perspiration) but you are guaranteed it will be more unpleasant. It most certainly will be more packed with people who normally walk, slippery from everyone’s wet shoes, hot from all the condensation, still full of jostling umbrellas and, added to which, everyone will be more angry than usual because of the disgusting weather, leading to tempers mounting and undoubted confrontations between people who should, and normally would, know better.

I know which option I’d choose.

Experiment One: complete. Fidget girl is, indeed, an irritant.

Having recovered from last weekend's journeys on overground trains and the London Underground, and a bout of flu which of course kept me from travelling anywhere - in accordance with my own etiquette rules of staying well away from public transport when sick - I was finally able to put my experiment into action.

Today I became ‘fidget girl’ – you know the one, the woman who sits behind you with an oversized bag and spends the entire journey searching for something deeper and deeper into the bag but never produces anything of note? Well this morning, I was she.

I took my largest tote bag into work in preparation and crammed it with all sorts of things from makeup and a hairbrush to a few books, notepads, spare top and other junk besides the essentials that I usually just carried in a small handbag.

I chose my seat carefully when embarking at London Bridge – seeking a seat with someone on both sides for maximum effect.

I wedged in between them with large tote bag on lap and, as soon as the tube started moving I started delving and rummaging. 

To tell you the truth, I felt a bit stupid pretending to look meaninglessly for random items so I focused on finding a pen first, and then when that got boring, I tried to find my keys. While doing so I definitely managed to bump the girl next to me a few times and the man on the other side. I said sorry to each the first time then decided that wasn’t really in character so continued and tried to act oblivious.

The girl on my left was clearly getting the hump and huffed and puffed a few times before looking at me with her head slightly tilted in that obvious kind of ‘are you finished’ kind of way (similar to what I imagine I look like when the situations are reversed). The man on my right shuffled as far away as possible in his seat from my offending elbows and then moved seats as soon as another came empty on his right side.  I continued the act with the next person to take the seat and he showed many of the same signs. 

So, experiment one complete. Fidget girl has proven that Londoners other than I find her very annoying. Hurrah.

Next stop: mobile phone irritant. Mwa ha ha ha.

Bank Holiday weekend on the tube – do people leave all etiquette at home?

So, in a similar vein to my recent post, Friday night on the train… here is Bank Holiday weekend on the tube and yes, people do seem to behave even worse than in the week.

While I love football, I slightly hate some of the fans. Drunken, dribbly, shouty and absolutely no understanding of personal space. On a rammed tube carriage, personal space is limited at best.  But if I had to endure one more large, stinky, drunken man leaning across me to yell at his friend on my other side I think I would have abandoned all self control and spontaneously burst into flames, and all of this was before midday.  Thank goodness I didn’t get the tube after the matches had finished.

On a weekend you also have to accept that not a single person will wait for others to get off the tube before getting on – my number one tube etiquette rule. It just doesn’t happen on a Saturday and there are not enough seasoned commuters to make a stand so it’s best to just avoid the busier sections of the train if you value your own sanity.

One of the weirdest experiences I had on the tube this weekend, and one I’m pretty sure beats a lot of my other etiquette complaints was the sensation of being licked for three whole, long stops.  That’s right. Thankfully it wasn’t a human guilty of such a blatant ignorance of personal space but it was still moderately disturbing.  I was wedged in somewhere on the Central Line from Bank to Oxford Circus station when I felt my bare leg being energetically licked. I couldn’t actually tell who the culprit was as there was no spare space to see past other people’s backs, shopping bags and armpits, though I was pretty sure it was some sort of dog hidden somewhere nearby. I couldn’t even bend down to push the offending creature off.

As the journey went on, this licking became akin to a terrible case of the tickles and, as I was unable to move away from the source through sheer lack of space, it became more and more like some form of torture – think having little drops of water dripped continuously on one’s forehead without being able to move or brush it away. 

I don’t know about you but I’m pretty conscious of the amount of germs on the tube at any given point let alone when these germs are quite obviously being concentrated on an area of my leg.  I’m also pretty sure that letting your dog transfer the contents of his mouth on to another human being is fairly bad tube etiquette.

Thankfully at Oxford Circus the crowds poured off the tube carriage and it was indeed a very small dog that had taken such a liking to my leg. 20 minutes and three bacterial wipes (handy in the handbag for germ-infested tube journeys) later, I had almost recovered only to discover that the friend I was meeting found the whole thing hilarious rather than disturbing.

I won’t be travelling on the London Underground at the weekend again in a hurry. Weekdays are quite enough with or without animals (football hooligans or of the tiny four-legged kind) to contend with.

Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, available at Waterstones, Foyles, Amazon and now on Kindle.

Follow on twitter @LauraKing14

http://www.gibsonpublishing.co.uk/