Man do I need some sleep.

My eyes sink through the floorboards of the tube train I'm travelling on, and are devoured by the pestiferous rats whose home is the London underground.

More accustomed to chewing on tickets and coke cans the rats spew them out. They slowly rise and reluctantly resume their position behind the spectacles of your fading, fey, middle aged host Konisberg. I've been working nights.

I've been dragged through London backwards by an army of baying psychotics.

I've had 2000 rounds with Lennox Lewis's tougher older brother.

I've been working nights.

I am a market research interviewer. Each day I ask the public a series of questions spanning many areas of late 20th century life. The only proviso being that these questions never touch on any issue a non vulcan might regard as even remotely interesting. Even the ever-reliable word banal won't come anywhere near to describing these questions. (The word banal has just informed me it is taking immediate industrial action as a result of being mentioned in the same sentence as market research questionnaires. I can't use the 'B' word for a week. As well I'm Konisberg the columnist and not Konisberg the reviewer trying to describe an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical.) This makes for a seething relationship with the general public. They become frustrated with boring surveys, and we become frustrated with their frustration.(and the boring surveys). Producing a foul mixture in the researcher. Sociopathy and misanthropy being its key ingredients. If you visit your local job centre, and apply for the position marked "serial killer" - you will stand not an iota of a chance unless you have at least 5 years as a Market Researcher under your belt. (Don't even think about applying otherwise.) Geoffrey Dharma was for 10 years standing in shopping malls and asking people questions about baked beans consumption, and their shopping habits, before he decided to wreak havoc on the general public in a slightly more direct fashion.

This month however an unusual job became available. Interviewing all night on London night buses. 12 midnight to 6 AM. Of course the questionnaire retained its traditional ban*****(I've never a crossed a picket line and I don't intend to start here) but the hours promised some new excitement and experiences. (& most vitally much better dough than usual). I didn't jump at the chance.- My reactions are somewhat dulled by years as a market researcher. - We don't jump - but its fair to say I raised my eyebrows at the chance, and grabbed it with one and a half hands.

So it is that I find myself at 2AM on a London nightbus. Asking people to give marks out of 10 for different aspects of their bus journey. Like Dudley Moore all those years ago in "10", but this time we're not marking the pulchtritudinousness of the divine Ms Bo Derek. This is slightly less glamourous. I am asking questions like "The cleanliness and freedom from graffiti of the outside of the bus, as a mark out of 10." If there was a film made about our bus surveys,(about as likely as Andrew Morton being compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald in any of the reviews of his Lewinsky book) perhaps it could star cuddly Dudley as Ben Konisberg. However I'm thinking more of Dud in 'Derek and Clive' mode than his Hollywood period.

The dull ban**e cockney accent he adopted as the swearing, scatological, straight talking East London toilet cleaner in the sublime 'Derek and Clive' recordings, would be the perfect one for reading out these daft questions.

Dramatic license would also mean he could improvise in the Derek and Cliveeese that Konisberg would love to adopt, but would soon see him debussed and back on dedole.

" The driver's behaviour & attitude to you as a mark out of 10. So if you think he's a c--- give a low mark."

(Also dear www peruser what on earth is/was Bo Derek's name short for? Bo-legged? Bo-sums? Bo-ne idle? A free market research questionnaire to anyone that knows.

Or you might just get a book if my night bus fees come through in time.)

This bus is so full of alcohol fumes that it is possibly being powered by alcohol. The main challenge is, to find people who are merely drunk, as opposed to prostate, puking, and paralytic to do our survey. This isn't difficult. For long standing English tradition declares, that, if a man is merely drunk on a London Night Bus at 2AM on a Sunday morning, he must carry a sign reading "merely drunk", and wear a little bell around his neck. I'm convinced that if Hogarth were around in the 1990's he would be struggling up the stairs of a London Nightbus with his easels.

So it is that I find myself interviewing a large, intelligent homeless man at 3AM. He is 19 but is as prematurely wise as anyone I know in their 30's. He's the most sober person I meet all evening. We cross Westminster Bridge and an exquisite nighttime view of The Thames and our beautiful city flashes by. The driver is a mensch's mensch and he allows this guy to ride around all night with him when he works this route. The guy has a bus pass, but the driver lets him stay on the bus and in the relative warmth, even when no passengers are supposed to be there. So the bus is a kind of travelling hotel for this man. Certain answers he gives in the interview are inevitably unrepresentative. "How satisfied are you with the length of time the journey is taking as a mark out of 10?"

He's been on the bus 4 hours, and we've just been caught in traffic for half an hour. But he doesn't want the night to end when this driver is on duty.

We have a little chat when the survey's finished. He kindly tells me which night buses to avoid working on at weekends. He's stayed in all these hotels! Most are too crowded to put your feet up and have a good kip in at weekends. The heating doesn't work in our bus. It's not the first time and he's not happy. He's complained and complained to hotel management but they don't listen. What you gonna do? We're meant to be a 3 star rated travelling hotel/nightbus as well.

We're also meant to be an "advanced industrial society", and yet the state gives a man a bus pass but not a (stationary) roof over his head.

Social propriety breaks down at 4AM to be replaced by surreal torpor. I'm interviewing 2 German girls when a gang of lads gets on. Immediately one of these young women catches their collective eye. She has frighteningly perfect uber blonde good looks. One of the lads is stomping around the bus shouting "GIRLS, GIRLS GIRLS!!!" as if he's in an Elvis Presley film. And, bizarrely, he's a good spit for the King. I'm thinking "JESUS CHRIST, JESUS CHRIST, JESUS JESUS JESUS CHRIST" And wondering about the chances of Germaine Greer getting on a bus on the Old Kent Rd on a rainy Sunday morning carrying an electric drill.

Seeing that I'm trying to conduct an interview Elvis's mates have the good grace to disappear upstairs. But he stays, stops his shouting, and just stares. Utterly enchanted by this woman. It's truly the most uncomfortable interview I've ever done. I'm catching him out of the corner of my eye and I'm pretty terrified. I feebly continue the interview, fully expecting lecherous, drunken interruptions from him. But he remains quiet, transfixed, and just stares. This makes it worse. I'm tense with anticipation & wishing like crazy I was where I'm supposed to be at this hour - at home, safely tucked up in bed, and having nightmares about doing market research surveys.

Finally he breaks his silence.

"What you doing?"

"It's just a survey mate. Be done in a minute." I say timidly.

But his reply is not at all hostile.

"No you carry on mate, good job, no problems". He says and joins his pals upstairs.

I relax. He's gone, and my shift's 3/4's over. I feel privileged. How many market research interviewers can say they've had their work approved by Elvis Presley on the N9 to Kingston at 4.30 AM on a Sunday morning?

The night bus jobs are over but I'm still exhausted. I'm tiptoeing somnambulantly through London on other surveys. The torpor follows you and pounces when you think you've shaken it off. Waves of respect go out from this column to the people who go to work every day at 3- 4 AM. I interviewed many of them during the week (as well as the dipsomaniac hordes at weekends.)

I've seen a new world of pillow headed people. Some stunning night time views of our city, and even the drunks weren't as bad as they might have been. Plus I can afford a new CD player. Not bad really. I hope this doesn't delay the smooth transition to serial killer.