h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Travelling by public transport appears to represent an unusual manifestation of Time Dilation. A journey that should take an hour, or however long, always feels like half the time. And the more you travel by bus the faster time seems to pass when you're travelling - as if the body is irradiated with a time distorting energy particle. You seem to be able to read less and less[1], on average, per day even though the journey should be the same every time.

This is the sort of thing tax-payers money should be spent on looking at, instead of investigating the composition of high gravity pixies (or G-nomes, as they've recently been branded by the gutter press).

[1] Or draw. Or play games. Or do crosswords. Or gawk open-mouthed at attractive members of the opposite sex.

Ah, but, this phenomenon is also related to your height above the ground. i.e. If you are standing up, the journey takes longer. Worse, if you are standing up and it is very crowded then train journey have been known to take days, rather than the expected twenty minutes. Can anyone remember the research grant peoples address, I feel a grant request coming on.

The other thing in travelling on public transport is the 'stich in time' effect, whereby although I left for my destination 5 minutes late, I wind up there half an hour late. Similarly with leaving five minutes early- I get there half an hour early.

So leave on time!

Shockingly this sort of behaviour is most likely to trigger the more troublesome and unpredictable side-effects of time dilation and distortion. Leaving on time could, conceivably, result in tipping the scales of your very life, fate and karma. Don't do it... it simply isn't worth it.

Nononono, YOU are thinking of yoga.

What about bad news? It goes faster than light, and it doesn't seem to care about time...of course, you're so unwelcome wherever you go that there's no point in being there if you were to mke a method of transportation based on it...I can't remember that quote exactly...