Tune me in, turn me on

Between around 7.30am to 9am and 5pm to 7pm from Monday to Friday, routes into London are like a parallel universe. Hidden deep underneath the Regent Street Christmas lights, way below Trafalgar Square, there is an unsaid culture which is only valid between the times and days specified above. It’s the commuter culture,

In Dobuy, commuters are those people traveling in their own bubblemobile at 5kms an hour, doing a journey which only took 15 minutes 2 months ago, but is now taking over 1 hour. More than likely, in 3 months time, this journey will take 2 hours. That’s 4 hours a day; almost 1 whole day a week they are sat idle, time which will never return. So for 1 month a year, they are sat in traffic. How fabulous, so that’s why I’ve got that maid to clean my flat, why I pay a couple a quid for a bad dry cleaner who’s fucked up all my Armani suits. It certainly is why I can pay less for petrol to fuel my 4x4 gas guzzler, which incidentally has doubled in running costs in the past 3 years.

So what could be perceived as the ultimate in luxury commuting; your own space to and from work, becomes your jail cell. Imagine being trapped in time for 1 month every year with the only choice of sounds being the relentlessly awful drone on the radio, your ipod, your CD collection, or the hum of your air conditioning. You cannot sit there and read the newspaper, you cannot go through 2 books a week, and neither can you get any creative stimulation, as the only views you get are awful “towers” being erected by slaves or the twats driving around in the pose-mobiles.

Anyways, back to London, everywhere you go commuters are plugged in, every other person are wearing those distinctive white earphones. It’s certainly something I’ve failed to notice in the past, but this could be because the iPod was non-existent last time I was a commuter.

There is no where for people to wear them in Dobuy unless you want to walk around a shopping mall posing one. It does however have a whole new meaning with commuters and has become an essential survival tool to block out the outside world. Making the journey more bearable.

SO DUKO, ever heard of it? Me either until I touched started talking to people who commute. It’s a new puzzle stealing commuters mind’s whilst they are all bopping back and forth in unison. Kinda like a crossword but using numbers; highly addictive as well as intellectually stimulating; a fantastic combination severely lacking in Dobuy.