Coming home on the train this afternoon, I witnessed an unusual commuter picnic. A chap in his fifties sat opposite me and tucked into his Marks and Spencer sandwich. What was unusual was that he washed it down with a Bucks Fizz!

It was a carefully crafted meal. He had placed his sandwich carefully on top of his newspaper. Then he took a clear plastic cup out of his bag and half-filled it with orange juice from a carton. He proceeded to quietly open a bottle of Cava and top up his drink.

I gave the scene some consideration. Normally when I see someone drinking on a train I feel slightly nervous. So why did I not feel threatened simply because he had Cava instead of Buckfast? His neat pinstripe suit and polished shoes also helped convince me he wasn’t about to burst into song or lob his empty bottle down the train.

In fact, as he lovingly placed his little cup on the grubby Scotrail floor while he took a bite of his sandwich, I felt a pang of jealousy at his level of lunchtime organisation.

His luxury lunch, precise but odd demeanour and maybe his copy of an Ian Rankin novel that had clearly been dropped in the bath at some point convinced me that he was a harmless eccentric.

I couldn’t help imagining though, that he was a credit crunch victim who had been required to give up his chauffeur driven Jag and was trying to hold on to some vestige of luxury