Right outside Owen's Park student halls of residence is a new bus lane. There are two lanes now for traffic going into town; one going out. The into-town bus lane is buffered by a great big concrete kerb and the middle of the carriageway has now been transformed into a cycle lane.

How many things are wrong with the above three sentences?

Firstly, any poor sod on a bike is expected to pedal with traffic to their left and their right. Why not just throw them onto the M56 and have done with it?

I'm not a particular fan of cyclists. When I'm running by the river the track can be beseiged by mountain bikers who seem to think you should get out of the way for them even though they are the ones on an off-road bike. They seem to think it's helpful to say things like 'Another five should be coming past in a bit' as they wobble past with mud sprayed up their arses as if a) I'm going to be poised to leap out of the way for their mates (b) running is a completely insignificant past time and screwing up my chances of doing a timed run is perfectly acceptable (c) they don't know what a mud guard is. And not one of them possesses a bell. Anyway, I digress... the point is, I don't like them, but even I recognise they don't deserve a double chance of being squished.

Secondly, my journey home is now being held up by queues of (not so)Magic Buses dropping off kids outside Owen's Park. Sitting in one of six buses queuing to get into Fallowfield is not how I expect to spend my evenings. Especially not now they are drawing in and there's hardly anything of them left.

I realise the powers of commerce want all their lovely workers and shoppers in town as soon as possible and don't give a fig how long it takes us to get out again, but it's not good enough. We pay our taxes. We deserve to get home before it's time to go to work again.

Like the common cold. Like greenfly, spiders and whatever that shiny thing was living in the television in Poltergeist... they're back. Students.

I could, and probably eventually will, write thousands of words on why there should be student-only buses. They can make them free. I don't care. I just don't want to listen to their inane, twittering anymore.

It maybe my misfortune that my route is favoured by the most theatrical of Manchester's scholars but do they have to talk to one another, or down their wretched mobile phones, as if they were communicating with someone sitting in Bhutan?

Oh, and quick update: different bus companies charge different fares. Don't try to tell the driver how much a ticket to Fallowfield costs. Actually this is quite an amusing spectator sport but it does hold us up and some of us have got homes to go to at tea time.

Having said that I worked late tonight and still had to endure two girls lurching between pointing out course colleague's flaws and braying on about what they would be doing for their 21st birthdays.

"I said 'how did it go?' and she said 'Oh don't ask'. Apparently she'd done a 20 minute monologue, can you believe it? Apparently they said they couldn't understand why she'd done it because it was pointless and..."

Right, now imagine 15 minutes of that and then add some of this...

"Yes, we're hiring Tyger Tyger and having dinner for two hours and then kareoke for two hours and then were going to on somewhere..."

If you read in the Metro about two girls found slumped on a 143, garrotted with what is thought to be an ipod wire, it wasn't me.

No one sits you down as says 'right, you're using buses now. These are the rules you have to follow in order to travel as a good bus citizen.' But these rules are there. Do you remember your parents giving you a run down on the bus code of conduct? Did they teach it in assembley at school? Perhaps it was subliminal messages in nursery rhymes (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, catch the ball and indicate clearly to the driver that you wish him to stop.'). I don't think so.

And while there are obvious rules on buses - like paying the driver or shiwing him your pass - there are subtler rules going on. Ever noticed how we seat ourselves on buses?

Rule 1. If there is a spare seat on the deck of the bus you have selected you sit there, you do not sit next to someone else. Failure to do so will result in being presumed to be a wierdo.

Rule 2. If there are no whole seats free and sitting next to someone else is the only option, sit next to someone of the same gender.Failure to do so will result in being presumed to be a wierdo.

Rule 3. If you do wind up sitting next to someone of the same gender don't let your bodies touch each other. If you do, apologise immediately with a level of sincerity normally reserved for accidentally stepping on people's feet.

Rule 4. It is perfectly ok to grab one of the seats at the front of the bus first thing in the morning. Pensioners, the disabled and people with pushchairs aren't noted for travelling at 7am. Don't bother at tea-time though, you'll end up having to abandon it for some poor woman with a double buggie and three children.

Rule 5. Always give your seat up for the poor woman with the double buggie and three kids. Her need is far greater than yours, stupid shoes or no stupid shoes. Failure to do so will have you branded a bitch.

Yes, I know the five rules of seating are founded on the principle that your care what people think. Be rebelious if you dare, but remember; these are your travelling peers. Your tribe. Respect them.

And always say 'thank you' to the bus driver when you get off.

It was Tuesday. First day back in the office. Moving offices as well. Don't ask. total 'mare.

Anyway, journey home was a welcome prospect and as I stood at Bolton station surrounded by bags of shopping and dirty gym kit I was reading an old detective novel. The Buxton train pulls up and I look up, to see a man miss his footing and tumble onto the platform.

I have that moment of 'shall I, shan't I' help him up but decide to wade in and step over my bags. He's not making much of an effort to get to his feet but he insists he's all right. He looks a bit like Santa with straight hair, white beard and all. He also weighs a tonne.

Some other bloke steps off the train and joins in getting Santa to his feet. 'I'm all right,' he insists again, 'I'm just drunk'.
'Ah, happens to us all,' I say catching a heavy whiff of alcohol.
'I hope it doesn't happen to you,' he says, which was kind of sweet, and kind of depressing.

As I watched him and his friend make their way slowly up the platform, picking up my bags ready to get on the train I thought about the last time I was falling down drunk. And do you know, I think it was 1989.

How time gallops by. Painful, really. But I bet he had a bruised knee the next morning.

I was standing at the bus stop outside the Palace Hotel when I saw it, and, as Tracy Lord would say, 'My, it was yarh'.

Whoever tells you you can't tell the difference between a designer bag and something from Evans is a big, fat liar.

It could have been inky navy, or maybe it was black, but it had the look of a Chloe Paddington about it and it was hypnotic. Gold, stamped fastenings, baby smooth leather, shapely, capacious...

The woman sporting it slung over her should was smoking a cigarette feverishly. Nothing else she wore, black pants, shirt and shoes said anything else other than 'I work in an office/as a waitress/behind reception.' But bloody hell, that bag was talking: 'Look at me, admire me, envy her.'

And I do. And I do.

This blog is for and about the hundreds of people I join every day; commuters.

It is devoted to our journeys, our conversations, our observations - the world we inhabit while we make our way to our destinations.

I used to travel to work by car, until it fell apart about the same time as we bought our house. There just wasn't the money to go round and so I waved goodbye to my four-wheeled cocoon and started looking up timetables.

I'm a seasoned public transport user now. For nearly two years I've taken a bus and train to work. Yes, it takes longer, yes it involves facing the outside elements and yes, it means you can't prance into the office without sensible shoes and an umbrella (this is Manchester).

But do you know, I'm a covert. There are more ups than downs, many more pluses than minuses. Here's my top reasons to abandon your car:
* cost get a bus-train-tram monthly pass and you'll save about 65% of what you would have spent on petrol, car insurance, car tax;
* expand your mind think of the reading time you'll create. I do all my background reading for my MA on the bus to work;
* exercise my stroll to the bus stop, skip up Oxford Road train station steps and ten minute trot up the road to work means that with a bit of a meander at lunchtime I cover 12,000 steps a day without even trying;
* commuting chums people you speak to at the bus stop/train station, your comrades can brighten your day
* listening time invest in an ipod and you can catch-up on radio programmes, listen to your favourite music as you watch the world go by;
* plays for today buses and trains become theatres when the unexpected strikes. More of this later...
* faith in civility it never ceases to cheer me how polite people are on buses, thanking the driver, giving up seats;
* calmer karma; my drive to work round the M60 felt like a twice daily near-death stress test. Now someone else faces the traffic for me - love that;
* night life my train delivers me right into town on the way home so I'm more interested in going out midweek;
* food for thought since big supermarket shops have become a thing of the past I've started buying what we need for tea on the way home. We're buying less, throwing away less. Good for the planet and, again, good for the purse.