New boy, Howard, has been keeping self, friend Sarah and rest of the carriage entertained with bizarre seat-cleaning ritual!

This involves vigorously rolling it with useless thing intended to remove pet hairs from furniture, as advertised in useless thing magazine enclosed with Sunday supplements.

Sarah, who first spotted Howard on the train last week, has written him off as a weirdo-obsessive compulsive. I, however, was willing to make allowances for strange habits, bearing in mind his Greek god - in Anglo Saxon, brown haired, green eyed, lean, mean mould - good looks.

"Imagine what he must be like at home," said Sarah. "I bet you couldn't sit down and eat toast without him brushing hairs from the back of the sofa and vacuuming crumbs from under your feet."

Being a self-confessed Hoover fetishist and the proud owner of one of those dusting things which the TV ads claim: "Doesn't simply move dust around the house but gets rid of it FOREVER", I thought Howard might actually be rather nice to have around the house, rolling the backs of chairs and removing dust FOREVER, while at the same time looking like a Greek god - in an Anglo Saxon brown haired, green eyed lean, mean mould. So I leapt to his defence.

"Well, he does have a point. The seats on the train are pretty filthy." In fact, once Howard arrived on the scene, with his scrutinising and rolling routine, I've noticed a lot of people inspecting their own seats and sitting up much straighter than usual, in an attempt to avoid actually making head contact with the back of the seat.

At this point Howard arrived, found a seat, and began fiddling about with bag, from which he usually produces pet hair gadget thing, with which he cleans seats. Today, however, Howard has gone one step further. Gone was the pet hair thing and in its place was a freshly laundered, crisp, white, antimacassar (like the not-so freshly laundered ones you get in first class) which he proceeded to pin neatly to the back of the seat.

He smiled as he sat down and rested his head against it. I smiled back and Sarah muttered. "Obsessive compulsive...." and gave me discouraging looks.

He then took out his very own, stainless steel, shiny (very, very shiny and clean in fact) flask from his bag of wonders and his very own mug (with no stains on the inside). He poured himself a cup of tea, added milk (from a tiny, shiny stainless steel container) and sugar (ditto). Then things started to go a bit wrong.

He couldn't find anything to stir it with and, as I just happened to have one of those plastic stirring things (given to me when I bought coffee from the buffet), I saw my chance to get acquainted.

"Do you want this?" I asked, proffering the plastic stirry thing. Howard looked horrified, shook his head and dived back into his bag. Eventually, he produced hermetically sealed bag, inside which was individual, very shiny, stainless teaspoon - which did the trick for the tea.

"Forget it!" whispered Sarah. "He probably wears tissues boxes on his feet." I looked and saw very large boots - but even so....