I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a morning person. Waking up at the crack of dawn to commute through Central London is a challenge at the best of times, but it's a particularly unforgiving experience in winter, when the sun ascends more slowly than a geriatric mountaineer and Jack Frost pays regular visits to anything outdoors.
You’ll forgive me, then, for being more irritable than usual before 9am, and I’ve developed a real pet peeve during recent morning commutes: the 'Tube gate holder-upper'. You know the ones – those equally bleary-eyed train travellers who manually activate and approve their contactless payments every morning. And sure, that process only takes a few seconds, but you’d be surprised at how quickly a queue of disgruntled, tut-tutting rat racers can form when headed by someone whose smartphone isn’t playing ball.
