I LIVE IN a suburb where no politician lives and therefore the trams run infrequently, often late and without proper brakes. Two, three times a month, when the driver applies a little pressure to the brakes, we are all sent hurtling to the front of the tram like atoms in a particle accelerator. Last month, in a particularly violent trajectory toward the wall (where we are apparently supposed to smash against a plate and separate into our constituent parts) two of us tumbled to the floor. The woman next to me apologised in halting English for falling. A man in a smart suit rushed to her aid. 

‘Are you all right?’ he whispered. She nodded.