NORTHERN PLANNER

So it's five weeks into the new job. 

All good.

I've also developed a commute regime with military precision.

Realised the optimum apparel to cycle and train is a hard shell jacket and a thick base layer with in-built ninja hood to warm my bald head and protect my face from the winds whipping by at 40mph down the hill. 

The bike, train, walk thing is now totally efficient.

I've even worked out it's quicker to miss the first station home from Manchester and run there  -and I stay warm in freezing weather,in just a cycling hard shell, plus I burn 200 calories extra.

Just as the routine from jumping off the train, unlocking bike, gliding through the ticket barriers and bombing up the hill home, in time to play with the kids and put them to bed, resembles this…

Also it's good to be amongst everyday people everyday. Great to plug into a busy city. 

The latest Thinkbox research highlight how much media folks misunderstand the lives of folks they're targeting. For example, we totally overestimate how much they're on social media, because we spend too much time Twittering ourselves. 

The more we're in the lives of others, the more we can know them. There is nothing more revealing that the daily grind of public transport. The kindness of giving up seats, the everyman for himself of getting one in the first place, the game of sitting in a reserved seat hoping its owner won't show up.

And a subtle shared feeling. Somehow I just know that this Christmas we're collectively saying 'fuck it' let's spend a bit. There's a sense in the conversations, the shopping bags and an ancient sense of what we're all feeling, that we're saying bollocks to austerity, wer'e going to have a good time.