Friend who enjoys number crunching says he's worked out that even if you take five weeks' annual leave, all the bank holidays and have two consecutive weeks off sick, there is no way you can save money on your season ticket by buying it weekly or monthly and not buying one at all when you're not working.

Still, find the prospect of parting with several thousand pounds in one go pretty hard to stomach.

So, try to beat the system by buying a month's season ticket, then a week's, and then a single ticket for Friday, because I'm having a week off after that and so won't need a ticket at all then.

No doubt, if I added up all these transactions I'd find myself wildly out of pocket. But, I reassure myself it's the right thing to do with my own mantra: "Who knows, I might get another job and not have to commute anymore...."

The fact that I've been saying this for the past three years, without any sign of it happening, hasn't stopped me from hoping.

Anyway, last Friday was having one of my single journey days and had worked out that best way of paying for trip was to buy single ticket to Victoria in the morning and single back using Network Card in the evening, thus making saving of about £3 on day's travel.

As it turned out, I'd have been better off taking advice of friend and simply buying a yearly season ticket and having done with it.

Arrived at station to find large queue in ticket office. So, having cash, decided to use machine outside ticket office.

It, however, had decided that combination of adult single and London without Underground was not a combination it was prepared to accept, and refused to even give me a quote for price of said journey.

London with Underground it was prepared to let me have, but without, well . . . quite frankly, it obviously wondered if I was planning to walk all the way to office and decided this was unlikely.

Tried another machine that agreed yes, I could have adult single to London without Underground but no, it was not willing to accept the £20 note with which I proposed to pay.

So, if wanted to continue with the transaction I'd have to find another less scrupulous machine. But they, however, had decided to be out of order.

By this time queue at ticket office was longer than ever and joining it would have meant missing train. So decided to proffer offending £20 note in exchange for cup of coffee and lots of change and again tried second machine.

This time it decided it didn't really fancy being stuffed full of small coins. So, while it was quite happy to retain the £10 note I'd given it, it was damned if it was going to feel bloated all day with a stomach full of loose change.

I was just about to give in, join the queue, miss the train and buy a season ticket when man behind me suggested swearing might help. Once again I tried the combination of adult single, London without Underground, £10 note, three £1 coins - so far so good - handful of loose change - No Thank You.

"For ****'s sake," I threatened. Whereupon it relented, gobbling up several dirty coppers and spitting out a pristine ticket.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.