I'm celebrating," said friend Sarah, taking a very large bottle of champagne out of a carrier bag.

"Good. What?" I asked, eagerly accepting the plastic cup she handed me. ". . . are you celebrating?"

"No more commuting," she replied, which seems to be becoming a regular topic of commuter conversation.

Whereas people used to talk about the exceptionally long journey the day before, whether it was best to change at East Croydon or Haywards Heath and the quality of the coffee, now everyone seems to be hatching plans to stop using trains altogether, plans which seem to be working.

Last week sat next to compulsive working mother who, after 20 years of commuting, had decided it was time to 'manage' her children at home.

A few days later, friend Graham announced he'd had enough and, in a rather extreme move, was going to New Zealand where he'd be able to get to work in five minutes.

Then, I overheard man in late 50s saying he'd managed to wangle early semi-retirement and would be working from home as a consultant to company in East Croydon which, since last October, has taken him too long to get to.

"There's going to be nobody left . . ." I complained, as Sarah narrowly missed breaking the glass of the emergency door handles with flying champagne cork.

"Well, I'm not actually giving up altogether," she said, pouring bubbles into plastic cups. "I've managed to persuade them to let me work a four day week, two of which I'll work from home."

So, Sarah's plan is to stay one night in London with friends, meaning she only has to make one return train journey per week, thereby saving herself a million pounds in fares and a million hours in travelling time. We drank to that.

"All the more seats available for me then . . ." I said, wondering if I could engineer a similar arrangement. "How did you manage to wangle that?"

"Blinded the boss with figures and flow charts."

Sarah works for a management consultancy and her boss will agree to any request so long as it is phrased in incomprehensible management speak and backed up by colourful diagrams and appendices. Numbers of hours spent travelling to work, stress caused by number of hours spent travelling to work, resulting in time off for ill health, that sort of thing.

Showed him I would be doing five days' work in four days. He couldn't really argue."

"Congratulations!" I said, raising plastic cup and wondering whether I could persuade editor that I too could get five days work done in four without venturing out of front door.

Given the number of days lately when I've been "unavoidably" (a Railtrack quote, not mine) delayed, I thought she might be persuaded.

But that was before blond athletic man from Hassocks sat himself down next to us.

"Celebrating?" he asked.

"Yes," Sarah jumped in before I'd had time to flutter eyelashes. "No more commuting. I've been given dispensation to work from home."

"But not you?" He said turning and looking at me with those large brown eyes. "You'll still be here. Won't you?"