Find The Gap

It's a funny thing, walking through a crowded railway station at rush hour. If you've not done it before, or you're on the outside looking in it almost seems impossible to comprehend picking your way through the surging mass in front of you.

People stop with no warning, change course unpredictably, have those stupid little suitcases that we all know I love soooooooo much and we mustn't forget that annoying moment where both people heading towards each other dodge and you end up crashing into each other. For the first week or so I was doing my London commute I think I said sorry at least fifty times a day and arrived at work and home each way feeling like I'd just played a real live game of dodgems or a mass scale game of chicken and lost...

Finally, I worked it out. It's all about finding the gap. When someone looks at the rush hour in Waterloo they see the mass throng of people, I now see the spaces between them and almost forget the people themselves are there. It turns into a dance of sorts. You duck and dive, weave and dodge, you learn pretty fast to judge people's speed and work out whether you can get somewhere before they do.

Maybe it should be treated like driving, have training and a test at the end before you're allowed loose on the general population. You could have a theory test with questions like -

1. You're moving towards the stairs to the underground and your mobile rings. Do you (a) stop dead at the top of the stairs, (b) answer the phone on the move and then talk louder and louder about unexpectedly losing signal as you descend underground... or (c) get the hell out of everyone else's way and have your conversation?
2. For some reason your ticket is rejected by one of the ticket barriers. Do you (a) stand there repeatedly putting your ticket through while it repeatedly refuses you access, (b) start hollering for someone to let you through whilst remaining where you're standing blocking the barrier or (c) get out the way, find the barrier guard and ask them to let you through?
3. The signs as you come through the underground exits read "Keep Left". Do you (a) keep left, (b)ignore the signs and walk down the right hand side thereby getting in everyone's way or (c) walk wherever you feel like it but making sure it's really slowly so as to annoy and hold up as many people as possible?

In terms of the practical exam, it could involve measuring your speed as you make your way through a crowd to ensure it's over a certain number. Or test whether you can reach platform one at Waterloo in time to catch the train that's leaving in three minutes.

And finally, when you've passed all these tests you will be a certfied Crowd Weaver and be allowed to commute alone. There, one problem of the commuter fixed, now if I could only come up with a way to take care of the bloody tourists and holidaymakers....