CAPITAL BLUFFERY

Well I didn't swoop in like the Milk Tray Man. Neither did I blend into the background like a kind of out-of-town chameleon. I simply threw open the heavy glass door, walked straight in, picked the nearest person I could find (a girl with a cup of hot coffee in a cardboard cup) and asked her whether I was in the right place.

"I hope so," she said, half-smiling, "Otherwise I'm in the wrong place too."

I smiled back, then peeled off my rucksack and coat as though I'd just arrived at a friend's house. Pretend you've got it, said my brain, repeating it like a mantra, and you've got it.

The whole day's been like that. Task one, as hideous as it sounds, was to line ourselves up in order of experience - most experienced at this end, least experienced at the other. Naturally, the group of strangers crowded into the middle of the room, desperately trying not to be at either end. Nobody wants to stand out at these things. I interrogated the people around me and they quickly and unanimously decided that I should be at the experienced end. And so there I ended up, apparently the most experienced person in the room! After that hilarious eventuality, the confidence act was easy.

As for London, well a bit of comfortable bluffery seems like enough to get you through it. Everywhere I've been today has felt as though I've been rubbing elbows with strangers. At Costa in Paddington Station, a lady kindly pulled a chair out next to her for me to sit down. I smiled and said thank you and then joined a table of people who clearly didn't know each other. On the train this morning, I squished next to a guy writing an email with long and unnecessary words in it. I know, I know, forgive me, I couldn't help it, but it's a bit tricky not to eavesdrop when everyone's so close together.

Maybe everybody is forced to pretend, to fit in, to be part of this massive, sparkling, heaving city - from the headphone-wearing students with trendy shoes, guitars strapped to their backs, and colourful hair, to the balding suit-wearers on the phone to their stockbroker. Is it all a game of close-quartered bluffery? Everything moves so quickly and everyone is everywhere - perhaps there's no time to be anything other than carried along with the crowd of pretenders.

So, that's Day 1 of the course done with anyway. I'm on my way back now, yet again on a packed  train. East Berkshire is flying past the window and the sun sinks low behind layers of horizontal cloud. I guess it hasn't been so bad. Sometimes you have to overcome your fears, bite the bullet and be the best you can be, even though deep down you don't feel anything but small, insignificant and worthless.

And anyway, you very quickly realise that you weren't any of those things in the first place.