I attract loons. There must be something I give off, some scent that they receive and pick up subliminally. Like dogs and high pitched whistles. Ok, I'm waiting at Edgware rd for the Hammersmith bound train and there's a youngster loping around the platform with that look on his face that says plainly that his lift does n't stop at all floors. Teetering along the white warning line that indicates(or should, dependant on how compos mentis they are) that a step too far and they'll be twitching and sparking on the third rail. Always a warning sign when I see someone doing this.

The train rolls in and its rush hour, so its packed. Toehold space only wherever you look along the train, but I find a niche. So does my young friend. The same one as me. At this point I should have got off ; I know the signs. I did n't. Je ne regrette rien ? I think not

We lurch off. He has his back to me and I can only face it, too tight to turn round. I see everything he does ; all his body movements, suggested and actual. I don't like any of them. Even less, when he starts to, successfully, and horrifingly, prise the carriage door open while we're moving through a tunnel ! Now that I do not like at all. Shock that I might be nose to nose with a potential sucide attempt fires me up to stop him. I grab him by the arm. He flares up wildly, turning round, asking why I've done what I've done. I tell him that I don't want him to hurt himself (or anyone else - private thought) that I'm concerned for him, blah, blah, blah. You ever have those depressing moments in your life when you listen to yourself talk and all you can hear is something whiny, underpowered, defensive, shrill, off the back foot and childlike ? Thats how I sounded. The voice of the backpedalling middle class. I'm a Brit, what happened to my Winston Churchill genes ?

He gives me an earful. The "why you touch me" accusation intermixed with threats. None of this I relish but someone, a chunky looking, bullet headed man, does come in with some encouragement and support....and its for me as well! Trouble gets off, or so I think, at the next stop. As other commuters pass me to get out, they whisper appreciation etc. Nice of them except that I'm too focused on checking my flight or fight instinct. My calves were shaking like a tap dancers.

Another point: the A in my name does n't only stand for Archimedes, it also represents the capital A in Anxiety, meaning that I'm quaking the remainder of the journey, expecting an unwanted rematch. And I nearly get one. When I try to get off at the tube station before mine... so does he! ...slipping out of a carriage further along, so that's where he'd skulked off to, but, but, but, he does n't see me. Phew...small mercies and all of that. I hop back in, get off at my usual stop, race home and barricade myself in.

This City ! This sort of thing should n't be happening. People dangerous to themselves and others are roaming willy nilly. The next time I get on to a Tube is when every train has a buffet car and first class compartments with waiters. This is what living in London means for so many of us: an unshakeable sense that we are permanently under siege from capricious, unexpected, irrational and always malign forces. Since I moved down here all those years ago, my theatre of operations ie the freedom to roam unmolested and fear-less has shrunk to my front door. Do you want to start a commune with me somewhere in the country where its quiet and pressure means having to decide at just exactly what point to stop gazing wondrously at some blissful sunset ?

Just one problem, yeah, like the guy says at the end of Ghostbusters: " I love this town" I really do.