"I thought we absolutely agreed that you would be here with time to spare," said editor.

She was waiting for me at unearthly hour in the morning, in hotel foyer where we were meeting celebrity fitness guru.

"I got the first train there was..." I tried to explain, but was cut short.

"She's waiting in her room. I told her I was still waiting for you." She snapped and made for the lift before I had time to give excuses - or rather genuine reasons for being actually only five minutes late.

I was supposed to be in central London by 8am and had caught the first train there was at 5 something am.

Had even been at station ten minutes before the five something am was due to leave; giving self time to buy coffee and something to eat. But, never having been at station this early, discovered that it was like the Marie Celeste.

One window of ticket office staffed by one night shifter open; WH Smith, cappuccino stall and both Pieces of Cake closed. So, instead of spending extra ten minutes stocking up on breakfast and paper, got on to waiting train and waited.

After a 20-minute wait, in which only two other people boarded train, I began to wonder whether I was on the wrong train.

There was another one on the adjoining platform that looked bound for London. So I asked the only other person in the carriage if this was indeed the London train. "Oh yes," he affirmed, sipping coffee from the flask he'd brought with him - obviously a regular at this godforsaken hour.

Waited another ten minutes, taking comfort from the fact that since this was the first train out of Brighton and even if it was half an hour late, we would still be in London in plenty of time for my 8am interview. Eventually, a chugging began and the guard began to speak over tannoy.

"I'm sorry about the late start of this train," he apologised. "Entirely my fault. I was sitting on the train on the adjoining platform, thinking that was the London train. Very sorry for the delay."

At every stop guard apologised for having been the cause of the delay. Until Gatwick, when there must have been a staff turn-around because a new guard apologised for train running late "due to staffing problems at Brighton".

By East Croydon this had become "due to a late start by crew at Brighton," and by the time we'd done Coulsden South, he was laying the blame firmly at the foot of the poor old Brighton guard.

So when we reached Victoria (at 8. 30am, nearly three hours after setting off) he announced "I must apologise for the late arrival of this train. This was caused by the guard at Brighton getting on the wrong train and keeping everybody waiting".

Poor guard. I, who had spent the last three hours sitting on the train with nothing to eat, drink or read, was feeling quite sorry for him and was still musing on the cruel way in which his colleague had publicly blamed him when we arrived at the door of celebrity fitness guru's room.

"I'm sorry we're late," I registered editor saying to celebrity. "Entirely due to my colleague, who has a bit of a problem getting up in the mornings...."