How to be a Man

A few weeks ago, on one of the busy, sticky, spectacularly unpunctual trains for which my country is justly famous, I sat next to a young man around my age. He looked put-together, ambitious, very London; he was wearing a nice, clean polyester suit and had an official-looking work pass dangling round his neck. What impressed me most, though, was the intensity, the care, with which he was reading his book. He kept flicking back and forth, underlining things, taking out his phone to make additional notes.