‘Be More Organised’, I said.’Drink Less Alcohol’, I said. [Or did I? Maybe I was supposed to drink as much as I wanted but make sure I went jogging.]

Here is what happened yesterday:

7am. Wake up in panic in a bed in my mother’s house, where I am spending weekend. Have massive suspicion that am going to have hangover. Must not have hangover because, as was fully aware last night, must find motherboard drivers for my mum’s computer – on which I do not know the model of the motherboard – and install them, before 3pm, or entire computer will not work because I have reinstalled Windows cleanly on it and it has eaten all the drivers, which I thought were on the Service Pack 1 CD which I installed on previous day, and which did nothing. But cannot get up now and do it as feel extremely unwell. This is entirely own stupid, stupid fault.

Realise that panicking really makes hangovers feel worse than they actually are, as hangover is partly the nervous system suddenly getting all the body’s shock signals from the period when it was numbed from the alcohol. Attempt to stop panicking. Get up, drink water, find one single, extremely strong painkiller in washbag in bathroom. Go back to bed, feel a bit better, fall asleep.

10am. Woken by twin forces of mother-with-cup-of-tea, and very enthusiastic cat. Cat kindly massages my fragile stomach area with claws. Drink cup of tea. Stroke cat. Feel sick. Get up, make bowl of muesli and go to computer.

10.15am – 1.30pm. Horrible period of Googling bits of serial numbers and names written on the motherboard, downloading software, eating muesli and conferring with Tom over email about what to do. Finally get correct drivers from Service Pack 1 CD, which had told me it was installing them when it hadn’t really. It had not provided the essential information that rather than click ‘install drivers’ and watch it installing something [still unsure as to what] I was really supposed to go through the list and manually install the drivers, of which there were several different ones and no information as to which was the right one. However, through the Googling of motherboard-related things I now know what to do. Computer finds its hardware and devices and the graphics become normal. [This may disappoint mother, who told me she liked how it looked when the graphics card wasn't working.]

1.35pm. Stop panicking and eat some ham.

2pm. Some relatives arrive to have coffee. Have to balance socialising with them, pretending do not have hangover, running Windows Update, sourcing anti-virus software, setting up my mum’s email and packing to go home. Nearly manage this.

3.10pm. Get lift to station. Go to correct platform. Sit in waiting room on own.

3.36pm. Train arrives. Get on it. Phone rings. Is my mother, telling me that I have left the power supply to my MacBook at her house.

3.37pm. Argh! Argh! World goes a bit spinny. How long will battery in MacBook last? What will I do?!

3.38pm. It is arranged that my sister, who was also visiting my mother, will take the power supply to her house in Leeds and I can collect it from her. She is going back there today but not leaving for another hour. I am going back to York, now. Decide will collect power supply tomorrow. Feel very very annoyed with self, as huge waste of time and money.

3.56pm. Arrive Carlisle. Look for my train to Newcastle. See there is a train to Leeds instead! Decide, in amazing moment of genius, to get Leeds train, meet sister in Leeds tonight and collect power supply, and then go on to York from there, as Penrith – York ticket allows either Newcastle or Leeds route to York. Hooray! Am suddenly upgraded to Genius from previous Idiot level.

3.57pm. Run frantically about trying to find platform 6, from which Leeds train will depart at 16.00.

3.59pm. Get on train. Hear two other people discussing whether or not it really is the Leeds train. They seem to think it is, but am made nervous by their doubts.

4.10pm. Become more nervous. Train has not yet left. Four people next to me are merrily talking about embarrassing text-message-related incidents and worrying about the fat content of the cream-covered hot chocolate, chocolate bars and crisps they are eating. A couple are snogging each other’s faces off on the platform.

4.25pm. Man gets on with copy of Daily Mail and starts reading it, two seats in front of me. Cannot help seeing headlines. Am frankly appalled.

4.30pm. Train announcement: ‘Welcome aboard the 16.37  [what? Was sure it said 16.00...] to Leeds, calling at Armathwaite, Lazonby and Kirkoswald, Langwathby .. blah blah, endless list of stations … and Leeds.’ That’s all right then. Can relax.

4.37pm. Train leaves.

4.38pm. Suddenly realise am starving. Eat Fisherman’s Friend as only food present.

4.39pm. Think about Langwathby. This is the station that my sister is getting a train from. There are several stations near my mum’s house, all on different lines. I was taking the train from Penrith, going up to Carlisle, across to Newcastle [where I was possibly supposed to have coffee with a friend] and down to York. Now I am taking a route which meant going up to Carlisle, back down to almost the exact same place I got on in the first place, and on to Leeds and across to York. This is silly. Realise that my sister is likely to get on same train as I am, having left the same place I was staying at but an hour later. Feel slightly stupid about route-planning.

4.40pm. Send text message to sister saying to get on in the last carriage [where I am sitting] as suspect may be on same train, but not to mention this to any family members as will never hear the last of it.

4.45pm. Text friend in Newcastle to say cannot come to Newcastle. Attempt to explain all of the above within the characters allowed in a text message.

4.50pm. Text back from friend apologises for not actually getting the message I sent earlier trying to arrange having coffee in Newcastle, as has been gardening all day and has only just come in because apparently gardening in dark not effective. Consensus is that we are both equally disorganised and will try harder next time.

5.02pm. Sister gets on train. Incredulity and explanation occur. Receive power supply for laptop. Eat a small amount of cake that my sister has with her.

5.05pm – 6.50pm. Watch Will and Grace DVD on my laptop, sharing pair of headphones with one ear each. I stick one one end of another pair of phones in the other ear. This is not plugged into anything, but blocks out the sound of the people having conversations about text messages. Feel much, much better.

7.30pm. Arrive in Leeds.

7.35pm. Say goodbye to sister, who gets on a train back to her specific bit of Leeds. Look for train for me.

7.38pm. Hideous. All trains to York replaced by buses tonight. Then manage to find very last one which is still a train; rush to platform 15b.

7.43pm. Get on train, sit down. Extremely hungry. Consider offering girl opposite me £5 for her bag of prawn cocktail crisps. Decide actually stupid idea.

7.45pm. Train announcement: ‘Welcome on board the 19.47 Transpennine Express service to Middlesbrough, calling at Thirsk, Northallerton …’ Half the population of the train gets up in panic as York has been missed off the announcement; am going to have to get horrible bus after all.. everyone starts getting up to leave.Woman in official jacket yells ‘No! Stay on the train! Get back on!’ at people getting off it.

7.46pm. Slightly embarrassed train announcement: ‘This service will be calling at York. Sorry.’

7.47pm. Everyone settles back down. Consider bursting into tears but decide this would be both unproductive and unEnglish, which would alarm other passengers.

7.48pm. Eat another Fisherman’s Friend.

8.10pm. Train arrives in York. Am met at station by Tom, who has a) a car with him and b) food in the oven at home! Say many appreciative things. May continue to do this for rest of life. Or at least for next week, anyway.

8.30pm. Get home, have shower, take ibruprofen, eat roasted things, look at emails, play some music and have interesting discussion about neurology, muscles and playing instruments.

12 midnight. Check email again, drink valerian tea, collapse in bed and sleep for an extremely long time. Resolve not to leave house ever again.

I’m on a train heading for Glasgow at the moment, in the pleasing world of free-wifi-on-trains. Less pleasing, however, is the passenger across the aisle from me, a Scotsman in his early thirties who got on with fish and chips, a portable DVD player, a very loud film that sounds as if it’s set in an army base, and noticeably without any headphones about his person.

I spent some time fuming quietly about him but now he has finally turned the volume down so that it’s only peripherally irritating as opposed to vastly intrusive, I’ve realised he may, wittingly or unwittingly, be conducting a sociological experiment into Englishness. And although he’s exhibiting rather selfish and unsociable behaviour which I don’t condone, the way that both myself and the other passengers have responded is both amusing and a little worrying.

When he initially turned on the DVD, it made some very loud fanfare sounds. He held his hands up, looked round the carriage and said, ‘Sorry…. sorry…’. This, so far, is reasonably normal behaviour in British society. [Although I guess it would be more usual to just gasp and look embarrassed than actually voluntarily talk to other members of the general public.] However, despite my assumption that his apology was accompanied by the intent to rectify the problem – after all, if he was apologising he must have been aware that he was being intrusive – he then continued to watch the DVD without either producing headphones or adjusting the volume.

After about five minutes I glanced at him. He looked back at me and said ’sorry’ again. In fact, he said, ‘Sorry…. I know you’re busy…’ but still didn’t adjust the volume. Then he tilted the DVD player slightly in my direction and said, ‘Wanna watch it?’

This was surprising, and threw me somewhat, so all I could do was smile and shake my head [instead of, as I really wanted to several seconds later, asking him why exactly he thought it was all right to be doing what he was doing].

Was he taking the piss? Seeing how far he could push English sensibilities? He was acknowledging, by his apology, that he was doing something that was upsetting people, that I was busy and therefore would be likely to be annoyed by his soundtrack of gunfire and yelling, and yet continuing to do it. And even offering to share! It was almost clever. Because of his polite apologies he was conforming to normal English behaviour, and yet because he was making no effort whatsoever to change what he was doing, he was absolutely not conforming to it at the same time. It was very confusing. He was being polite; yet he was being rude. It’s much easier to deal with someone who is being outright, straightforwardly rude, but to combine a veneer of British politeness with rudeness does something strange to our minds and it seems we don’t quite know how to react.

It wasn’t just me who was baffled. A man from several seats away approached DVD man, and said, ‘’Scuse me mate, have you got any headphones for that?’

’No, sorry,’ replied DVD man. ‘Is it annoying? Oh, sorry…. Nothing I can do about that, mate…’ He said it in such a sincere, genuine-seeming way that the man simply walked away again, even though ‘nothing I can do’ was such a downright obvious lie. Of course there was something he could do! He could switch it off, or at the very least turn the volume down. I think a little while after this he did turn it down to a level that was only slightly annoying.

There are no actual “rules” dictating that he was doing anything wrong, at least there aren’t as far as the Rules of the Train go. We weren’t in the Quiet Coach, which is the only place where people could have approached him and requested that he turned the sound off with an Official Reason. And if he had refused, they probably would have contacted a member of staff who would have enforced it in some way.

Because he was being supposedly polite in his speech, nobody had any grounds to fetch a member of staff because he was being aggressive or abusive. The only rules he was breaking were unwritten cultural codes, which are not officially enforced by the staff of National Express. Most people brought up to be culturally English don’t even realise what these rules actually are, until someone suddenly goes against them. And then we generally have no idea what to do.

This reminds me of a time when I was in a pub with a friend, a few years ago, and a woman asked – very politely – if she could sit at our table. So we said that was fine, and she sat down. Then, without asking us whether we minded, she lit a cigarette and made no effort to keep the smoke away from our faces, which was quite unpleasant. It was another example of combining rudeness with a semblence of politeness – and we didn’t know how to deal with it at all. In the end I think we left and went to a different pub, where we complained bitterly about the rudeness of the woman and told each other about all the things we’d have liked to say to her.

A common factor in both incidents is that they both took place in public places. Had they happened in our houses, we would, of course, have told DVD man to turn his machine off [and leave; what was he doing thre anyway?] and asked cigarette woman to go outside. But because a pub table is no more ours than hers, and a train carriage is no more mine to type on my laptop than DVD man’s to play his war noises, we didn’t feel entitled to do either of these things. And while most of us try to be considerate, if someone decides not to be while on this common ground, we feel it would be rude to ask them to stop whatever they’re doing, even if they’re being rude themselves.

I can’t help wondering whether this weird psychology is connected to the way that many people in this country don’t directly complain [i.e. they just mutter about it behind closed doors] or feel they can do anything when certain rather powerful people do terrible things while wearing smart suits and speaking the Queen’s English. It’s not an exact parallel [sometimes, for example, people don’t realise that the things those certain few smart-suit-wearers are doing are terrible – perhaps because they are wearing smart suits, so it must be all right?] but it does have a few similar themes. And both problems might have similar solutions: the former involving everyone in the carriage asking DVD man to turn his volume down at the same time, and the latter involving a large percentage of the people in the country complaining to the people wearing the suits, at the same time. This has been done before. So the next time anything like that happens on a train I am going to take a petition round the carriage and get everyone to sign it.

I imagine the other passengers will look at me as if I am a mad person, and subsequently refuse to make eye contact. They may even fetch a member of staff.