This week I'll be mostly keeping calm and carrying on at Clapham Junction

"Gonna barf on you"
Smith/Stephenson/Atkinson/Langham

You will remember that I've previously mentioned The Unfortunate Incident of Feeling Quite Definitely Not Very Well at all in Quite a Big Way on the 7.05 Jersey to Southampton. You will remember that the received opinion was that your blood pressure can be affected by a plane depressurising, and that if your blood pressure is stupidly low on a good day, then good luck staying conscious on a Monday morning on the Flybe into work.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself Feeling Quite Definitely Not Very Well at all in Quite a Big Way on the 6.06 Salisbury to Waterloo on Monday morning. Now, to my knowledge, trains don't get pressurised. I mean, they don't exactly travel at much of an altitude. So maybe it's just something to do with Monday mornings in general. Hmmm, there's a theory that needs further investigation.

Anyway, back to The Surprising Incident of Yet Again Feeling Quite Definitely Not Very Well at all in Quite a Big Way.

I have on a couple of occasions managed to stave off the inevitable by vigorously getting my circulation going. Either that or sitting very very still. There's only so much sitting very very still that you can do when you are having A Quite Serious Moment of Unpleasantness. And there's only so much stretching your arms and legs that can be done while sitting on a totally packed train into London before the guy sitting next to you starts giving you funny looks.

So I was trying to decide whether to Just Get On With It and Pass Out. But I really wasn't in the mood. I got up from my seat and mumbled something about not feeling well, and staggered out to the end of the carriage for the possibility of some fresh air or something. Of course, it was around 7.30 by now and we were about 10 minutes from Clapham Junction, so it was standing room only out by the doors, and besides you can't exactly open a window on a train nowadays.

This was going from bad to worse. Not only was I definitely on the verge of A Severely Unconscious Moment, but I was now standing up. Doh! And wandering around. Doh! Just sitting down and letting it happen was seeming like a much more reasonable option. But hey, I was here now. The bit of floor by the bike racks was looking awfully inviting. I stumbled over to the corner, and crumpled down onto the floor.

As a rule, us Brits are a polite bunch of folk. So as you would expect, while I was bordering on having A Bit of a Medical Emergency, none of these London commuters on their way to their jobs in their offices in the city was keen to make any kind of mention of my odd behaviour. I guess it is passed down genetically, because we all know that if there's some guy falling over in the bike racks looking like he's about to throw-up or something, the best thing to do is Keep Calm and Not Make Eye Contact.

I decided it would be prudent to get as horizontal as possible, so I stretched out on the floor. Yes, this really was turning out to be quite a lovely bit of floor. Nice and cool. A bit dirty, but that was the least of my worries at this point. I shut my eyes. Even with them closed I could tell that everything had gone black and white. And I was now hearing in mono. You don't realise quite how stereo your hearing is until it goes mono.

A minute or two later I found I was feeling refreshed from my little lie down, in a muggy, clammy kind of way. I got up, dusted myself down and staggered back into the carriage, where I was pleased to discover my seat was still vacant and none of the polite London commuters had stolen my phone or nicked my copy of Autosport.

A minute or two later we pulled into Clapham Junction, where I was getting off anyway. I grabbed my stuff, bundled out onto the platform (with everyone else) and made the most of the nice lovely fresh winter air (unlike everyone else). A minute or two after that, I was over on platform 12, catching the next train to Victoria, and Keeping Calm and Carrying On as if nothing had happened.