A day of two halves

In order to put pen to paper (or rather stylus to Palm), my inspirations are fairly transparent - it's either going to be something that has annoyed me or vexed me to the point of frustration, or it's going to be something that fills me with a degree of joy. Nothing particularly innovative or original there I agree, but this isn't intended to be prize-winning journalism.

Today started off very well - it was a nice, clear and crisp Spring morning, still cold enough for gloves, but bright enough to wake the serotonin from hibernation. I strolled to work filled with a renewed sense of purpose, my chest puffed up in valiant confidence (thinking about it, that may have been to make myself fractionally taller to prevent my slightly overlong trousers from dragging on the floor). My usual route to work sees me turning left from Southampton Row into High Holborn. At this time of year, and at that particular time in the morning, the sun - rising steadily above the architectural spleandour of the old Marconi headquarters - is at the height that momentarily blinds you, gently warming you even on a fresh morning such as today.

Walking down High Holborn in the rising sun is a great start to any day as far as I'm concerned, but for me the highlight of my morning walk is the view you get of the City's tallest buildings - Tower 42 on Old Broad Street and the Swiss Re 'gherkin' on St Mary Axe - from the junction with Chancery Lane. That view never fails to stir something within me. It reminds me, perversely, of how much I love New York - it feels like those brief glimpses of the Financial District you are greeted with when schlepping around Midtown, the way the dramatic horizon can disappear behind buildings as fast as you've noticed it. High Holborn veers softly right onto the concrete-lined Viaduct, causing the office blocks, with that rising sun playing off the shiny surfaces and dispersing the morning haze, to slowly disappear from view. It's a beautiful sight that I never tire of seeing day in, day out.

By the time of my journey home, my familiar funk had returned, and such romantic notions were long behind me. The weather, which this morning looked so promising, took a turn for the worse at lunchtime bringing rain and high winds to the City. In such conditions, my mind wanders to less optimistic matters, and one's grievances with the world come to the fore. (I'm not sure whether this was prompted by the rapid change in the weather or the fact that, over fifty miles away, my mini greenhouse was spectacularly blown over, wiping out an entire afternoon's foray into seedling transplanting.) These are today's gripes:

Umbrellas

Be very clear on this - using an umbrella during windy weather will not make you dry. It will give you a stiff arm from futilely attempting to keep your brolly aloft by gripping as hard as you can, naïvely believing that you, a mere mortal, can hold back Mother Nature simply by pointing your brolly into the wind and holding it really, really tight. Idiots. You spend so long wrestling with your umbrella, which if we're honest has the same basic component construction as a ship's sail and in windy weather wants to behave exactly like one, that you fail to notice that you're getting soaking bloody wet. Oh, and golf umbrellas? Don't get me started. Golf umbrellas are for fat people or - now here's an idea - playing golf in the rain. They're not for clogging up our pavements. They are the SUVs of waterproofs.

School holiday train travellers

'Hurrah! School holidays have arrived. Trains will run with about half as many passengers as normal with all the commuters who've taken time off to holiday with their kids. Praise be! I'm such a lucky commuter!'

I genuinely have this conversation with myself at the start of any school holiday. What I never do is think of those three words that fill the average commuter with abject fear - Family Saver Tickets.

During the holidays, it must seem like such a good idea to take your partner and both kids down to London for the day. I wish my parents had. But during evening rush hour? Really? Doesn't that seem a bit mad? Surely you must think to yourself 'Oh, those trains will be packed! Let's leave before / after the peak period.'

But no, that conversation doesn't happen, and they take up four seats on the train, rendering your average holiday commuter train significantly busier than usual.

Evening Standard boards

On the day my greenhouse re-enacted the scene in The Wizard Of Oz where the house is picked up in the storm, the final Evening Standard billboards ran with 'Milton Keynes Hotel Collapse Drama'.

Crikey, that sounds nasty doesn't it? Although of significant interest to me, what with being a Milton Keynes resident and all, I didn't buy the Standard. Firstly because I don't see the point when you can normally read it over someone's shoulder for free but also because - as always - the billboard totally exaggerated what had in fact happened.

If we break the sentence down, I suspect that one is left with an impression rather along the lines of the following:

'A hotel in Milton Keynes has collapsed, causing considerable distress and disruption.'

However, that wasn't what happened Mr Evening Standard now, was it?

Yes, something happened in Milton Keynes. Yes, it had something to do with a hotel. Yes, something collapsed. And I daresay it was pretty dramatic. But it wasn't a hotel that collapsed, but more accurately a fifteen-storey corner of scaffold surrounding a new hotel, burying three construction workers, one of whom later died. They closed off the surrounding roads, but generally no-one was too inconvenienced. Which doesn't quite have the same newspaper-shifting edge, I suspect. Terrible thing that accuracy concept.

Besides, does anyone actually ever buy the Standard on the basis of the ridiculous sensationalist headlines anyway? Are they that stupid? Or are people basically paying 40p for a sudoku puzzle wrapped in the news you can read tomorrow in the Metro for free?