As London's Northern Line continues to carry nothing except a few thousand mice for the 3rd day running, not only are the citizens of Morden and Edgware cast even further adrift from each other (not that either of them particularly mind), but untold fury is being unleashed on the streets around suburban tube stations. Some people never read, watch, or listen to the news, do they. They turn up at a tube station, 2 days into a major stoppage, and start swearing like Bernard Manning – except funnier – because they're being forced onto a London Bus. Y'see, if they'd watched the news at some point in the previous 48 hours, they could have had their tantrum at home and saved themselves a bit of embarrassment. They would also have been a bit more clued up about the Tory leadership battle, the incidence of avian influenza in Romania and Turkey, and the news that the ashes of Scotty from Star Trek are going to be blasted into space. Although ignorance can, of course, be bliss.

For instance, this avian flu: would the media GIVE IT A REST? Honestly. Ratcheting up blind fear in Europe's population, when 60 – SIXTY – people have died from the disease in South East Asia, all through rubbing their faces in the hind quarters of infected birds, or something. I'm aware of the implications of a pandemic when the disease starts becoming transmissable between humans, but until that actually happens, could the papers just confine any developments to page 18 in the “agricultural oddities” section of the newspaper? Yesterday on the TV, some insane bat from Nottingham rang a call-in show to say that she had just returned from Turkey, and felt a bit unwell. You know, dicky tummy. And – OMFG – she had EATEN CHICKEN! It could only have been funnier if she had described having eaten turkey in Turkey, and then said “ironic, isn't it?” If this mad woman slowly descends into a paranoid, mental illness-related death over this, I can only say that it's probably better for the gene pool. I'm reminded of the hoo-ha over the Flesh Eating Necrotizing Bug that killed a handful of people about 8 years ago, making blood-curdling headline news, and then promptly disappearing. For ever. I've not noticed thousands of people dropping dead from CJD recently, either. Although, one good thing may come from a flu pandemic: it'll stop those idiots who used to ring up work with a sniffle, saying “Sorry, can't come in, I've got flu”. You didn't have flu, you miserable specimen. You had a cold. NOW you've got flu, OK?

Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, Northern Line. I have a little sympathy for the stranded commuter, because it is a complete bastard to get anywhere at the moment. In Tooting I'm lucky to have 3 overground train lines within a long walk or short bus ride, but even those bus rides are jam-packed cattle carts featuring the kind of people at close quarters who you would normally go into the next tube carriage to avoid. One woman sat on the lower deck, telling the same story repeatedly, at enormous volume, of how she had been on the Northern Line the previous day when the bomb had gone off, which is why the line is shut. (There was no bomb. They've shut it to carry out emergency safety testing on the brakes of the trains.) “Yes, there was smoke everywhere. People were running for their lives. I thought I was going to die,” she said, clearly attempting to recall the details of some TV disaster movie she fell asleep in front of a few weeks ago. “Yes, we ended up stranded down there for 12 weeks, and ended up gnawing on each other's shinbones for sustenance, before we were eventually rescued by a fleet of Venezuelan helicopters.”

Some enterprising perverts are making the most of the new and exciting frottage opportunties afforded to them by these packed London buses. On a journey up to Balham, a man in his late 40s stood near the exit doors with a grin on his face and a cowboy hat on his head. He was also wearing sunglasses, a skinny-fit t-shirt and cowboy boots, and looked as if he might have been in an unsuccessful R&B band in the mid 1970s, but was still attempting to trade on the success of a particular night at Putney Half Moon where, inexplicably, the band played a pretty tight set and he had managed to get off with the landlord's daughter. “Rock'n'roll,” he kept saying, accompanied by a grin and a nod, as more and more people packed onto the bus. An Asian girl wearing a coat with a furry collar ended up standing next to him. As the bus pulled away, he reached out to touch it. The girl looked at him quizzically. “Hello?” she said. “Oh, just, er, touching your collar,” he said, smiling. “Rock'n'roll”. She raised her eyebrows. “Well, it's real, so try it again, and it'll have your hand off.” She turned away. He reached out again, touching her on the shoulder. “Sorry,” he said. “You don't have to touch me to say sorry,” she accurately pointed out. Mr R&B looked around for fresh quarry. He overheard two girls having a joke, and laughing. He attempted to join in with the joke, laughing heartily along with them, and using the moment to run his hand down the back of one of the girl's coats. “Hahaha,” he said, copping a feel. “Rock'n'roll”. The girl was either too amused by the joke or too traumatised by the journey to notice. He had got away with it, and sensing his luck may run out with that particular girl at any moment, turned back to the Asian girl, and tried touching her collar again. “Get the fuck off me, alright?” she barked. “Hey, chill out!” he said, hands in the air, grinning. “For god's sake, just chill! Jesus!” he laughed. No-one else was laughing. Unbelievably, he immediately tried it again, at which point the girl exploded in fury, and pushed her way to the exit doors, conveniently creating a path for me, who a) had had enough of Mr R&B, and b) was due to get off anyway. “Rock'n'roll,” he said, as we passed. “You're a prick,” I said, getting off the bus. Sadly, calling someone like that a prick in public tends not to have much effect on their behaviour. So if you're in and around the Tooting area and find yourself in an enclosed space in a man in tight jeans and a cowboy hat, my advice is to pull the emergency cord. And if you're wearing a coat with a furry collar, well, pull the cord even harder. If there is no emergency cord, then Make One.