Early Morning at Canary Wharf

6.40 am: On the train from Plumstead to Greenwich - About half of the passengers on the train are dressed in suits. The other half look like construction workers. There is not much conversation - people keep themselves to themselves. The men mostly read newspapers and the women, novels. Only the Polish, of whom there are quite a few, talk to each other.

7.50am: Outside Carluccio's at Canary Wharf - Share prices scroll past on the side of the building opposite. There are clocks every few feet along the pavement ... time is money ...People arrive in swarms with each incoming tube train. Nobody smiles. Women wear suits with trainers - their smart office shoes in bags, to be put on at the last minute. Only about half of the men are wearing ties ... dress-down Friday? Do they still do that?


8.10am: A few school-children join the throngs. A man filming at the top of the steps with a tripod is stopped for the third time by the police. Wearily showing his permission letter again, he films on.
The most cheerful person to be seen is a whistling street-cleaner in a bright red fleece.
A few people are carrying weekend cases and one or two have sets of golf-clubs. The weekend beckons. Nobody seems to look at the scrolling share prices. I try to work out which of the women are secretaries and receptionists: I have a theory that they are the ones with great big handbags.
Below the stairs, a string of people enter the building, each holding the door for the next in line. They smile at each other!


News comes through on the Reuters screen that the American bail-out deal has not yet been agreed. The scrolling share prices, previously a mixture of ups and downs, are now all resolutely down.

8.30am: People are still streaming through from the tube to the building, and a few very young men with oily hair and problem skin are wandering about with cardboard trays of coffees ... office juniors on the "bun run".