She Loves London

Category: Commuting

Twice a day, every day.

  • 14 Good Podcasts That’ll Improve Your Terrible Commute

    14 Good Podcasts That’ll Improve Your Terrible Commute

    Does anyone actually enjoy their commute?

    Obviously no one enjoys getting up for work in the morning, no one enjoys being seated within close proximity to other humans at 8am (or any other hour of the day, come to that) and no one enjoys spending upwards of £100 per month on what is, essentially, a daily exercise in self restraint.

    But can we agree that every commute has its flipside? For me, that’s having 45 minutes to listen or read or watch something without feeling like I should be doing something else. Looking out of the window soundtracked by some gentle pre-recorded chatter instead of a man shouting “I HAVE FIRM FEELINGS ABOUT THIS. CAN YOU SEE THIS? THIS IS WHAT I THINK’ and flipping his middle finger up into his iPhone at 9.30am.

    Problem is, once you start listening to podcasts – you sort of start wishing your commute was actually longer. If that sounds like something you can live with, here’s some recommendations for your journey to and from work.

    Song Exploder

    Ever wanted to know how Mobb Deep came up with the piano riff on Shook Ones? No? About how they found this Herbie Hancock sample and reversed it and slowed it wayyyy down and that’s how it came together? Do you care? No? Then this podcast is not for you. It is, however, for me.

    Search Engine

    Once upon a time there was a great podcast called Reply All, and then like all good partnerships there was a scandal which caused hosts PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman to part ways. Like Ant and Dec, or Bill and Ben, or Mel and Sue, these two men are interchangeable, so one of them – Alex and / or PJ, created Search Engine, which is a show that tries to make sense of a question that’s been plaguing them.

    This is Love

    I’m Phoebe Judge and This… is Love. This is one I put on and fall asleep to, not because it’s boring, but because it has such a nice gentle way of telling a story that isn’t explicitly about love but also very much is. Phoebe also presents Criminal.

    Where Should We Begin?

    If I could pay to have a voice in my head telling me what to do in life it would be Esther Perel’s. Relationship therapist and author of Mating in Captivity, each episode is a one-time counselling session between a couple or person, and edits the shit out of it to get all the boring fluff out.


    Modern Love (NY Times)

    Length: 23 minutes

    If you’ve ever read the Modern Love column in the New York Times and liked it, or even if you haven’t and you just like listening to stories about relationships in whatever form they take. These are really lovely essays read out by a well-known person. Nice and short.

    Start here.

    Heavyweight

    Length: 50 minutes

    A new podcast, and probably one of my favourites. How to explain this one? Each episode is about someone wanting to change or fix something that’s been weighing on them for ages. Like, the person’s estranged from their brother, or they want a CD back from a friend (who happens to be Moby), or they need to scatter their dad’s ashes on the 18th hole of a golf course but haven’t done it and it’s been 16 years – and it’s how they work it out. It’s hard to explain, but it’s usually poignant and funny and lovely. Am I explaining this terribly? Yes, yes. I am. Just listen.

    This American Life

    Length: 1 hour

    Probably the best and most well known podcast on the list, this is an hour long radio show hosted by Ira Glass. If you listen to Serial, and liked it, then hurrah! These are the women and men behind it. Each week there’s a few different real life stories based on a chosen theme. It’s really good.

    Death, Sex and Money

    Length: 25 mins

    This podcast focuses on honest discussions of things everyone thinks about at some point throughout the day: relationships, money, work, family issues, and features both celebrities and us normals. Usually pretty thought provoking, especially the series they did 10 years after Hurricane Katrina.

    Snap Judgement

    Length: 50 mins

    It takes a little bit to get into, because the presenter usually does a bit of a story told to music at the beginning before they get into the actual thing. But even if you don’t listen to anything else, click on this episode about the bloke who found hip hop legend J Dilla’s “Lost Scrolls”. It’s amazing and if it doesn’t bring a tear to your eye on the bus, you’re dead inside.

    Criminal

    Length: 20-40 mins

    A good short one if you’re lucky enough to only spend 20 minutes getting to work. As the name suggests, each episode tells one story with a criminal theme. I liked this recent one about an officer and his new police dog. Obviously.

    Serial

    Length: 1 hour

    I’d harbour a bet that even your most elderly relative probably knows about Serial by now. But if by some miracle you haven’t listened to the first series which investigated, week by week, the story of a teenager called Adnan who was in prison for murder (rightly or wrongly, the debate still rages), then start there. Otherwise, as you were: frantically refreshing every Thursday.

     

    Want more?

    I also dip in and out of Love + Radio (54 mins), Longform (1 hour), Hidden Brain (20 mins) and TED Radio Hour (55 mins), Revisionist History, and Note to Self.

    If you listen to podcasts on the way to work, tell me, educate me, let me know which ones.

    That way, along with stories about our awful commutes, we’ll never run out of things to say at a party.

    This post was originally published when we all commuted daily in 2016, and was updated in 2026.

  • 11 Good Books To Improve Your Commute

    11 Good Books To Improve Your Commute

    I don’t cope well without books.

    If I don’t have a book on the go, it makes me nervous. I carry one in my bag every day even if I know I’ll be listening to podcasts on the bus or walking to work. You never know when you might need one, just in case.

    And since I decided social media is a waste of time and I’d rather be reading, I’ve read quite a lot. Big props to my local library for supplying 90% of the books on this list.

    Here are some of the good ones I’ve read over the last year.

    1. Ordinary Human Failings – Megan Nolan
      Really enjoyed this, found the ordinaryness of the characters really compelling and liked the story and the writing style.
    2. Wasteland – Oliver Franklin Wallis
      Brilliant, compelling, interesting, really engaging book about waste and where it goes. Genuinely changed what I throw away and buy.
    3. Our Evenings – Alan Hollinghurst
      Loved this brilliantly written, beautiful long book from one of my favourite authors (Line of Beauty, Swimming Pool Library).
    4. So Late In The Day – Claire Keegan
      Great short story, just 39 pages giving a snapshot of misogyny – just wished it was longer.
    5. Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart
      Intense and bleak, but completely absorbing story of a young boy growing up in 1980s Glasgow with an alcoholic mother – loved it.
    6. The Safekeep – Yael van der Wouden
      Good book, great twist, enjoyed it a lot.
    7. In Memorium – Alice Winn
      Found this in the ‘new books’ bit of my library and grabbed it thinking the blurb sounded interesting. Turned out to be a brilliant book set in the brutal, brutal trenches during World War 1. Pretty unflinching fiction. A proper page turner.
    8. The Haves and the Have Yachts, Dispatches on the Ultra Rich – Evan Osnos
      Another impromptu library pickup. Collection of essays written by journalist Evan Osnos from the New Yorker about the mega rich oligarchs ruining the world. I’d say 90% of them were very revealing and interesting; some a little too American-focused for my British brain. Still, enjoyed.
    9. Heart the Lover – Lily King
      What a book! Brilliant. Excellent. Love story, farewell to youth, mortality, humans, oof. Sped through it, cried at the end. Didn’t even clock that it was a sequel? – Prequel? – to Writers and Lovers. If I ever write something half as good as this, I’ll be happy.
    10. All That Glitters – Orlando Whitfield
      Really enjoyed this memoir about a guy whose best mate was committing art fraud. Good little peek into the London (and worldwide) art world. Which is ridiculous.
    11. The Bee Sting – Paul Murray
      Pretty chunky (600+ pages), which made it difficult to get pulled into but then… it hooked me into the ins and outs of a dysfunctional Irish family, laughed out loud in places.

    And remember the golden rule of books buying: if you can, buy local, and use your library, and if you liked it, tell me what you’ve read.

  • On the 149 to London Bridge

    On the 149 to London Bridge

    I have an enduring respect for the girl who, at 9:16am on Monday morning, barrels up the stairs of the 149 to London Bridge. 

    I’m not the only person to look up a bit surprised, because you don’t see many four year olds alone on the daily commute, and we watch as she pauses, waiting, trying to decide what to do next.

    We’ve all been there: we’ve all risked it in rush hour, gone up to the top deck knowing the odds but giving it a go anyway, tilting our chin up, peering expectantly looking for a spare seat while also trying to discreetly check why it might be free. And there you are in front of everyone, head bobbing side to side, squinting down the bus. A pointless move at this time of day and everyone knows it, so you have to retreat quietly back down the stairs while, you imagine, the seated roll their eyes at the back of your head. 

    But she’s not like us, this girl, mostly because she’s four and unspoken bus etiquette hasn’t got into her head yet – so she stands there, waiting patiently at the front by the stairs.

    Then her dad appears – but the bus is full, right, so I expect him to look around and see there aren’t any spare seats and do that slightly chastising louder voice parents do when they’re saying something more for the benefit of the adults around them than the kid, and announce that there’s no space, sweetheart, let’s leave these good people alone and go back down. But instead the girl – a pink plastic headband made of tiny flowers around her head – looks up at him. And in a quiet, encouraging way – more eyes than voice – he says:

    “Go on.” 

    And then she steps between the bulky jackets and belongings, and squeezes into the aisle space between the front row of seats. Their occupants shift slightly at the intrusion, then relax slightly when they see who’s causing it, and shuffle their bags about to make space. And the whole time her dad stands there, not apologising or getting in the way, just letting her get on with what I like to think is a daily routine. No one offers to give up their seats, and they’re not expected to really, no one expects anyone else to get up.

    And anyway, the girl’s fine. She’s dead centre at the front of the bus, both hands grasping the horizontal rail, eyes straight ahead: transfixed. 

    She’s looking out of that big window, a prime spot between the seats everyone likes the best, because from there it’s like the bus is calmly floating through the city instead of whizzing past it.

    And occasionally, she just glances back at us – the stupid grown ups with our headphones in, stroking our tiny screens like delicate eggs  – giving us this look that says, you’re all adults and can do what you want, so why are none of you doing this?

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