Is it me?

When I was a youngster programmes like Dr Who, Star Trek and Lost in Space convinced impressionable youngsters that we would be invaded by an army of alien machines who would colonise earth by use of mind-control devices.

Forty years later, and travelling to London on a commuter special - the 7.45am Petersfield to London Waterloo - yesterday I realised that day had come to pass.

Everybody, other than your correspondent, was being fed mind-control instructions from a hand-held device called a Blackberry. It really was like a scene out of a cheap 60s' sci-fi drama.

It appeared to me that nobody in the carriage was resorting to the traditional commuter-travel standby of a national newspaper, or the latest pot-boiler from Jackie Collins. Admittedly I had on my MP3 player, listening to Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent - after all it wouldn't do to engage in conversation with other species - but at least I was aware there were other people around.

For everybody else the entire world was contained in a small metallic box only slightly larger than the average wallet and subsequently the panacea for all ills was displayed on a LCD screen smaller than a credit card.

Thousands of years of evolution - all for this. What are these people doing? Twittering? Blogging even? Are they labouring under the illusion there are people out there who really give a toss about what they think? Who'd be stupid enough to believe that...?

My incredulity was only heightened when I alighted at Waterloo and took the Northern Line to Leicester Square and then the Picadilly Line to King's Cross St Pancras - I'm nothing if not thorough when it comes to setting a scene.

On the Underground there was every living cliche you could think of:

• the broad-shouldered rugby-playing ex-public schoolboy, now city trader, in his £600 suit and £300 shoes with his hair slicked back completely using enough oil to provide the annual gross domestic product for a small third world country;
• the overweight teenage mum resplendent with huge hoop earrings and complete with pushchair and small child, still stuffing her face with a family-size bag of Doritos despite the fact her leggings were screaming "enough already!" (she may have been Jewish as well...);
• the poor Asian student for whom carrying his textbooks in a rucksack automatically marked him out as a terrorist suspect to almost everybody in the carriage;
• the power-hungry, 40-something single-woman, dressed to kill and with a tongue to match - after all being rude to people is the only way to get on in a male-dominated society;
• the 'trendy young guys' who dress to give the impression they're at the cutting edge of fashion and may even be a rock star you haven't heard of, and who think they look really cool in their retro gear, whereas anybody over the age of 30 will tell you they look a 'knob!';
• the commuting banker, in three-piece Savile Row suit, with a rolled-up copy of the FT under one arm and a brolly in his other hand, despite the fact it's the warmest October day since the dinosaurs keeled over;
• the fat, long-haired, unshaven Motorhead t-shirt-wearing 30-year-old on his way to a Dungeons & Dragons convention in a dark room in Soho - this was not me by the way: I do not possess a Motorhead t-shirt;
• the knuckle-dragging, tattooed skinhead sporting a BNP badge and making snide comments about anybody "who shouldn't be in this country";
• the impeccably dressed gay, with his designer glasses and £500 man bag;
• the painter and decorator in paint-splashed overalls who takes great delight in brushing up against anybody in an expensive suit or anybody with impressive breasts;
• a middle-aged Japanese tourist who sees nothing wrong in wearing a 3/4-length denim jacket, with tracksuit trousers and a Van Heusen shirt...

I could go on, but suffice to say that's the last time I attend a public transport users action group meeting...