We definitely need more rules on trains. I mean, apart from not smoking and not getting on the track, there are hardly any.

I want a long list like the ones you get in swimming pools; no running, no jumping, no diving, no petting, no pets, no food, no treading water etc etc.

In fact, if Connex wants to ease the stress of commuting they should let passengers set their own rules as, have discovered this week, thinking of and deliberating on potential rules is in itself a way of diffusing stress caused by signal failure etc etc.

"No boring phone conversations, obviously," said Mark.

"No engaging in conversations with people who don't want to talk to you," said Sarah, who has an open, friendly face and is often left listening to the person who doesn't regularly make the journey but wants to talk about their day.

"No opening of broadsheets beyond the imaginary line which would equally divide a double seat in two," I added.

And so our journey to London was spent, dreaming up a list of rules which would make life slightly more bearable; no eating of anything with crumbs or grease, no make-up applying, definitely no nail filing, no putting bags on seats, no talking about your sex life, (especially if you are gay man with extremely colourful sex life), no cosy coupledom, no laughing at things in papers without sharing the joke and definitely no mention of plastic surgery.

The latter added after particularly stomach-churning journey in which attractive woman sitting with attractive male, presumably colleague, discussed the various body enhancing procedures she had gone through or would like to go through.

The conversation began innocently enough; "Got a holiday planned this year?" said attractive male of duo.

"I thought I might go to Hungary for lip implants," said female. "You can get a week's break at a spa, including the treatment for about eight hundred quid and it costs that here for the treatment alone."

Colleague looked mildly surprised and asked why she wanted them done. Was told she wanted a pout like Liz Hurley's, which no amount of volumising lipstick was ever going to produce.

Colleague then wondered if she wasn't worried about surgery, to which the reply was that having had several other such operations she didn't see why this should be any different.

She then went into details of her ear tuck, nose job and back teeth removal, the last of which left her in hospital for a month after a bad reaction to the anaesthetic but was worth it because of the effect of fabulous cheekbones it had produced.

She went on to explain that she was fairly happy with the state of her body but once she'd reached 30 she'd definitely consider liposuction, breast upholstering and a whole gamut of other age-defying operations.

I spluttered into my coffee at the mention of 30 being an age at which it all starts to go downhill, a splutter noticed by friend Mark who was sitting in seats opposite, next to blond athletic man from Hassocks.

I nodded in direction of cosmetic surgeon's dream as we got off the train and grimaced, to which Hassocks had the decency to say "I prefer more natural looks myself."

To which Mark couldn't help himself from adding "You should have told her about the tummy tuck you had in Goa . . . " to which, since Hassocks was the other side of Mark and running for the tube, I didn't have time to reply.