How it's happened I'm not entirely sure, but somehow in the time that has passed since I reached Broke Summit about six weeks ago and the moment of writing, I have entered commuterville.

The symptoms of a successful voyage to the very summit of brokenness are similar to any mountain expedition, largely involving lightheadedness, shortness of breath and a need to sit around in tents hugging each other for warmth.

It's a horrible place to be, particularly as I never signed up for it in the first place.

I'm just an accidental commuter.

I just happen to get the city branch of the Northern Line to London Bridge, at precisely the same time in the morning as every besuited, overcoated, briefcase-wielding proper grown-up in London.

I'm not one of them, and by George do they know it.

While they go over their board meeting notes on their Blackberry and wonder if the housekeeper ironed a straight crease into their socks, I eat a Kinder Happy Hippo and spend a last few precious pre-work minutes with my nose ring.

Sometimes, amid the rustling pages of the FT, I swear I can hear a voice hissing: "Go back to bed, feckless student, you don't belong here… you know more about chocolate spread than spread sheets, and you can't read big newspapers without folding them like an old jumper.

"We don't appreciate your kind.

"This hour of the morning belongs only to serious people who don't eat packet noodles and understand what cufflinks are for."

But, however thick and hostile the carriage air (hostility and BO are easily confused in the summer months), those 30 minutes we spend together in a haze of Starbucks Mochamacchifrappacanocinos (them), and Morrison's own-brand Red Bull swigged straight from the fridge (me), are special and significant.

Because, for those 30 minutes, we are equals.

Yes, at the end of the journey we'll get off the tube, and I will take out my nose ring and they will come to my restaurant to be hideously rude to me.

Natural balance will be restored.

But for now, we are all reduced to the same basic level of humanity.

That investment banker opposite me might be responsible for billion-pound portfolios or possibly the maintenance of Donald Trump's hair, but right now he has toothpaste smeared round the corner of his mouth.
He is no better than me.

This equality is very important for the main event of the daily commuter party – seat warfare.

Bankers and buskers alike, we are all rightful soldiers.

At any single point in the journey, there will be no fewer than 34 small-scale seat battles occurring on the train.

An experienced seat-warrior will be constantly vigilant, aware from the moment they shoe-horn themselves in through the doors which seats might soon be vacated, and where the optimum standpoint is to advance and conquer when the moment comes.

They know the signs – fidgeting, assembling baggage, doing up coat – and before you can say "Boris" there are 12 hungry-eyed contenders gathered round, moving in for the kill.

While personally I prefer a pacifist's approach (eat a big breakfast! Hey, you MIGHT be pregnant, how will they prove otherwise?), some weaponry does inevitably become involved.

Sword of choice is, of course, the classic big man umbrella.

Nobody with a bent fold-up from Boots ever won a seat – for maximum jabbing potential, it needs a metal tip, the kind that can puncture brogues, and lungs if need be.

The briefcase-bash is also a popular manoeuvre, while I like to believe the popularity of the bowler hat in the first half of the 20th century was down to its excellent seat-stealing credentials.

You wouldn't even need to be in the seat-claiming catchment area, you could just throw it down from the end of the carriage and shout "MINE!" as it lands gracefully on the blue fuzzy cushion.

The most distressing sight I've ever witnessed during a bout of seat warfare was last Tuesday (July 8), when from the other end of a sardine-crowded carriage, a seat was left empty in front of no fewer than 30 sweaty standers.

But NOBODY SAT IN IT.

The pain! The agony of watching, from too great distance to sprint over and claim it myself, that seat sail empty through five stations.

"TAKE it, someone!" I screamed inside my head.

"Please! Forget British reserve!

"For the greater good of all commuters, out of respect for the noble concept that is sitting, TAKE THE SEAT!" But no-one did.

And then I knew I really, definitely, don't belong on that tube.


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