I am stuck in the middle of nowhere. The barren stretches of nothing-ness sweep into view. The desolate wasteland of twisted metal and abandoned vehicles stretch as far as my eye can see - although once I put my glasses on, I can see a block of flats.

I am at Cornbrook station looking out towards Salford.

We are stuck. The doors of the tram will not open. People sit nervously twitching. This is the last thing I need after the weather pissed me off already. Ever since I bought some shorts it has rained constantly and yesterday My Canadian Girlfriend proclaimed that it was now cold enough for her to start wearing her Kinky Boots again. So it warmed up.

The balding ginger man looks up from "Blood, Sweat and Tea" as the driver strides out. He uses the emergency open switch and finally people can get off the tram! One peron gets off an two get on.

"Are we going to start moving now?!?" said a young woman as the driver walked past her. "You see if I'm late, even just once, I get fired for gross misconduct." Sounds to me like she could do with a new job if they fire her for that.

Tensions rise.

The young asian man standing opposite me carrys on with his student breakfast and opens a can of red bull to go with his Twix. The doors beep but the tram goes nowhere. The driver emerges. He explains that now he can't shut the door.

There is an inevitability in the resulting tut from the impatient passengers. I begin to panic too - I cannot even smell a Starbucks from here. I don't mind being stranded - I just don't want to be left here. I'm neither near home, work or town. I am in limbo.

The doors eventually close and the driver returns to his cab and he comes on the speaker. "Unfortunately ladies and gentlemen, Metrolink control have just informed me that because there is a nutter on the track near G-Mex we all have to sit here until he moves or the police arrive."

Everyone looks anxious. I have never seen so many people actually want to get to work. I cannot believe they all do jobs that are so important that they need to be in work NOW!

I could understand if it meant Little Timmy's transplant operation was going to be cancelled or that illegally parked cars weren't going to get a £30 fixed penalty notice. But for the majority of people who spend the day copying a formula from B23 to E23 and emailing the results out to a bunch of people who can't even open an excel file let alone make decisions based on it's content - a ten minute wait isn't going to ruin their day.

I call work, tell them I'm dead, put my feet up and start doing a Sudoku.