Kidnapped by the transport system.

I was held against my will by Virgin Trains the other evening.

The apparent culprit was an abandoned train at Milton Keynes, or so the unrepentant train manager told us after about an hour or so sat staring at dimly-lit tracks in the snow. After an even longer while we were informed that a driver had been found - but where the hell did he go in the first place? Did the call go out somewhere nearby, 'is there a driver onboard?'

Perhaps the local supermarket resounded with the tannoy echoes of 'could the owner of a silver Bombardier please return to your vehicle as it is blocking in the entire south east.' Those are never questions, even though they sound like them.

We were stuck immobile for nearly two hours outside Milton Keynes. You could tell that the great British public was starting to feel almost outright mutinous because each update over the PA was met with a low grumbling. Near me was one of those men in character ties who describes the entire carriage on the phone - 'I don't know why I didn't go on the quiet carriage, no loud children there. I know, I know, why can't they keep them quiet? Now I've got this guy with glasses making notes in front of me.' I don't even know if they're actually talking to anyone. Commute catharsis.

On it goes, longer and longer. You get to the stage where you can't remember life outside the train - you are only able to project your entire life forward from this everlasting moment and it ends up with you dying in a small riot in the buffet car, stabbed in the face with nail scissors over the last curled tuna sandwich at £8.65. The tannoy announcements have this world of hatred projected onto them, that train manager responsible for famine, pestilence and all abandoned trains in a three thousand mile radius.

The corporate language doesn't help - everything starts with 'apologies'. Apologies is what you say when you have to say you're sorry but you're not sorry and don't want to say that you're sorry. 'Apologies for running your yapping dog over.' The very worst thing is 'Virgin Trains would like to apologise...' - that's not even an apology, merely expressing a predilection.

Three hours into a one hour journey and I want to kill someone. I haven't been able to feel my arse since the first 15 minutes of the journey and I ate all my chocolate during the 25-minute wait at Clapham Junction because someone died on the train in front.

I finally reach Coventry after an entire universe of waiting, a journey that could be measured in proportions of a century. I gulp in the fresh, sharp air - that sweet taste of freedom. I wait for a bus. It's late.