New analysis published this week by the TUC reveals that Londoners have on average a 75 minute daily commute to work and back - longer than any other area of the UK.

The average across the UK is 52.8 minutes per day travelling to and from work, whilst workers in Wales have the shortest average commute at 41.4 minutes.The survey identifies that travelling time for men has slightly decreased - yet women's commuting time is increasing.

Depressingly TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "The average commuter spends the equivalent of more than five weeks a year just to get to work and back."

The report was published to mark Commute Smart Week which highlights the many ways employers and employees can work together to avoid or reduce the misery of commuting during the dark mornings and evenings

We are luckier than many with our area having very good transport links into central London: both tube and rail - along with frequent buses on Green Lanes.

For many commuters it can be a complex mix of decisions to find the right location and then suitable accommodation. So an online tool - also released this week - can help when determining the where to live and where to work puzzle: Mapumental from the MySociety stable of teriffically useful websites is an interactive site that allows you to plot your place of work - and then calculates neighbourhoods that are within a specified travelling distance of that point. But it also goes one stage further by then linking properties available to rent or to buy within the specified areas. As the site creators state - its strangely compelling!

One further aid to tackling the conundrum is offered by the Rentonomy Project who have combined various data sources to present a number of useful ways to look at the costs of housing in London with analysis and comment Wood Green for exampl is characterised as "lots of young working people living in metropolitan terraces from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds."

Detils on the Rentonomy site include this innovative graph of average rent shown by stations on the Victoria Line -with North East London being considerably cheaper than many areas of the capital.