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I was standing in a full District Line carriage this early evening, and of course every next person was plugged into their little white happy machine. I usually find the scene of people with no private physical space but totally private mental spaces a bit odd, but today was even weirder.

I myself was listening to Mogwai's Mr Beast album, when some tracks* came on that instantly reminded me of the soundtracks to those short animated films shown late at night on Channel 4. You know what I mean. In these films' worlds, everything is grey or ethereal. Settings are overwhelmingly urban. Characters are sad, wispy, Scream-like things. There's inevitably a slow zoom-out that shows the main protagonist as part of a vast machine. And for a moment, the tired, rush-hour carriage paused in a west London tunnel became one of those worlds. We did not reach the next station a moment too soon, and the country(ish) air at the end of the line was welcome indeed.

* "Team Handed" and "Friend Of The Night", to be precise.