Friday, 30 November 2007
(Topical) Julian Lynch recoils from the life the rest of us lead
~
I usually take to the streets of Oxford on a bicycle. I do this because I have a subtle, almost subconscious death-wish and consider luminous yellow safety jackets to be representative of a new wave fashion design about to crash onto the beaches that are our high streets. Any minute now, I'm telling you.
Anyway, my bike is broken down, as it often is. I discovered (while hurtling down a steep hill ending at a t-junction with a rather fast road) that my front brakes don't work at all and that my rear brakes work only reluctantly and like to scream like a baby being fed into a blender when they do. So, the bike is sitting outside the house until I have time to get it fixed, and I'm taking the bus.
The bus, as you will no doubt have guessed from this rambling, is the point of this article. As I'm sure regular users of buses will be aware, within their steely, sweaty confines, the rich tableaux of human existence is played out at high volume for the benefit of its passengers, whether they like it or not. Hence, this article, or perhaps series of articles; Busbrain - the page where I review my most recent bus journey for your edification.
For no particular reason, I am devising as I write a spurious mark scheme, the particulars of which I shall lay out for you...
Marks are out of 10 overall. 5 marks are related to my sense of fear and danger; the more danger I feel I was in, the higher the mark. 3 marks are for disgust: funny smell? Puddle of... lemonade? Annoying chav kid throwing manky chips at my head? All feed into this. The last two points go for service - pleasant bus drivers, vehicles arriving on time, a kind word when I leave the bus: all these will count against a good score.
Thus we come to tonight's feast for the senses - the Number 1, taken from Queen Street to Templar's Square, taking about twenty minutes from 7.15 to 7.35. Stagecoach provided a stage, appropriately enough, for the action that was to follow.
So, to the review:
Fear
My initial impressions were poor here. The bus wasn't too crowded, no one was skulking in their hoody, knife tucked just out of sight and no one jostled me as I got on... a damn shame. Fortunately, this first impression quickly proved to be deficient.
Settling myself on an isolated seat, I realised after a few moments just why there was such a big space at the back of the bus. The reason was sitting a couple of seats away from me, muttering on a regular basis and occasionally bursting into fits of insane giggles. He proved to be the least of my worries though - indeed, in time I came to take his particular brand of insanity as a kind of benevolent eccentricity that I was happy to accommodate if only because he kept the frothing-mouthed denizens at the front of the bus from getting too close to me.
Said frothing-mouthed folks were a couple to whom I think I would be giving too much credit if I assumed were the mother AND father of the clutch of children they had brought with them onto the bus. The children, ironically enough, were about the best behaved I've ever seen for sprogs their age on public transport, despite their mother shouting SHUT THE FUCK UP TIMMY' at them every sixty seconds. More frightening though was the argument between mother and father(?). What exactly the poor man had done I don't know, and indeed I couldn't hear what he said (since inconsiderately he did not shout as if he had to make himself heard over massed artillery fire), but the conversation to me sounded like this:
Man: *mumble mumble*
Woman: Am I bovvered? I said, am I bovvered? I SAID, AM I BOVVERED? I SAID, AM I BOVVERED? I SAID, AM I BOVVERED? Shut the fuck up then! Shut the fuck up then! Shut the fuck up then! SHUT THE FUCK UP THEN! SHUT THE FUCK UP THEN!
Man: *mumble muble*
Woman: What did you say to me? WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME? If you're gonna say something to me, say it so I can hear it! IF YOU'RE GONNA SAY SOMETHING TO ME, SAY IT SO I CAN HEAR IT!
And so on and so on between Queen Street and the Cowley Road Tesco.
At this point the man seemed to grow tired of this (weren't we all...) and so retreated to the seats immediately behind me. This of course racked my fear factor up, because not only did he look like his earliest memories were of Wormwood Scrubs, but I also feared his girlfriend(?) would be summoned up the bus to continue the argument.
Fortunately she never came up the bus, but instead he went back and began a conversation on his phone. This conversation resulted in a gentleman boarding the bus at the next stop to keep him company. Now, I'm assuming here people have seen that breed of crime drama which features as the main character some psychotic Irish villain who seems all smiles and charms until he cuts your face off and rubs Guinness in your exposed nasal cavities. Well, the man that got on the bus was exactly like that. And he was drunk. His presence exuded a tangible wave of malice and cheap whiskey stink up the bus, and gave me the treat of wondering if his friend had summoned him to he could make an example of his girlfriend(?) all over the disabled seating area. Alas I never got to see if this was the plan, as I left the bus at the next stop. I did get one extra blast of delicious terror though since Irish Psycho stood so as to completely block the walkway in the bus, forcing me to brush past him and fear that I'd have my balls sliced off and handed to me in the form of a novelty napkin ring for having the temerity of touching him.
So, fear rating. 4/5... not my worst experience, (there's a story here about drunk, homeless ex-boxers, but I'll save it for another time), since at least they weren't talking to me, but their psychosis made up for most of the distant between us.
That brings us on to disgust and quality of service, which I'll deal with briefly since neither stood out on this particular journey. While I was pleased to have to sift a certain amount of rubbish out from under my seat in order to get my feet touching the floor, I was disappointed to find most of the rubbish to be both dry and not in a state of partial decomposition. Stagecoach is obviously letting standards slip here, since I'd normally expect a pile of rotting McDonald's chips and a full can of coke teetering on the brink of spilling itself all over the passenger in front of me's feet. As for service, the bus driver merely ignored me in surly fashion - standard, but disappointing compared to the levels of rudeness I'd expect him to show towards me, or at the very least some other customer. He was even polite to Irish psycho, although perhaps I should forgive him that - he may have had a family to think of.
So, disgust 1/3, and service 1/2.
That gives an overall score of 6/10 - enjoyable, but lacking that certain something required for a bus journey of true horror. Still, I'm back in the belly of the metal beast tomorrow, so perhaps then I shall have more tales.
Adieu friends, assuming I live to talk again of these things with you.
Anyway, my bike is broken down, as it often is. I discovered (while hurtling down a steep hill ending at a t-junction with a rather fast road) that my front brakes don't work at all and that my rear brakes work only reluctantly and like to scream like a baby being fed into a blender when they do. So, the bike is sitting outside the house until I have time to get it fixed, and I'm taking the bus.
The bus, as you will no doubt have guessed from this rambling, is the point of this article. As I'm sure regular users of buses will be aware, within their steely, sweaty confines, the rich tableaux of human existence is played out at high volume for the benefit of its passengers, whether they like it or not. Hence, this article, or perhaps series of articles; Busbrain - the page where I review my most recent bus journey for your edification.
For no particular reason, I am devising as I write a spurious mark scheme, the particulars of which I shall lay out for you...
Marks are out of 10 overall. 5 marks are related to my sense of fear and danger; the more danger I feel I was in, the higher the mark. 3 marks are for disgust: funny smell? Puddle of... lemonade? Annoying chav kid throwing manky chips at my head? All feed into this. The last two points go for service - pleasant bus drivers, vehicles arriving on time, a kind word when I leave the bus: all these will count against a good score.
Thus we come to tonight's feast for the senses - the Number 1, taken from Queen Street to Templar's Square, taking about twenty minutes from 7.15 to 7.35. Stagecoach provided a stage, appropriately enough, for the action that was to follow.
So, to the review:
Fear
My initial impressions were poor here. The bus wasn't too crowded, no one was skulking in their hoody, knife tucked just out of sight and no one jostled me as I got on... a damn shame. Fortunately, this first impression quickly proved to be deficient.
Settling myself on an isolated seat, I realised after a few moments just why there was such a big space at the back of the bus. The reason was sitting a couple of seats away from me, muttering on a regular basis and occasionally bursting into fits of insane giggles. He proved to be the least of my worries though - indeed, in time I came to take his particular brand of insanity as a kind of benevolent eccentricity that I was happy to accommodate if only because he kept the frothing-mouthed denizens at the front of the bus from getting too close to me.
Said frothing-mouthed folks were a couple to whom I think I would be giving too much credit if I assumed were the mother AND father of the clutch of children they had brought with them onto the bus. The children, ironically enough, were about the best behaved I've ever seen for sprogs their age on public transport, despite their mother shouting SHUT THE FUCK UP TIMMY' at them every sixty seconds. More frightening though was the argument between mother and father(?). What exactly the poor man had done I don't know, and indeed I couldn't hear what he said (since inconsiderately he did not shout as if he had to make himself heard over massed artillery fire), but the conversation to me sounded like this:
Man: *mumble mumble*
Woman: Am I bovvered? I said, am I bovvered? I SAID, AM I BOVVERED? I SAID, AM I BOVVERED? I SAID, AM I BOVVERED? Shut the fuck up then! Shut the fuck up then! Shut the fuck up then! SHUT THE FUCK UP THEN! SHUT THE FUCK UP THEN!
Man: *mumble muble*
Woman: What did you say to me? WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME? If you're gonna say something to me, say it so I can hear it! IF YOU'RE GONNA SAY SOMETHING TO ME, SAY IT SO I CAN HEAR IT!
And so on and so on between Queen Street and the Cowley Road Tesco.
At this point the man seemed to grow tired of this (weren't we all...) and so retreated to the seats immediately behind me. This of course racked my fear factor up, because not only did he look like his earliest memories were of Wormwood Scrubs, but I also feared his girlfriend(?) would be summoned up the bus to continue the argument.
Fortunately she never came up the bus, but instead he went back and began a conversation on his phone. This conversation resulted in a gentleman boarding the bus at the next stop to keep him company. Now, I'm assuming here people have seen that breed of crime drama which features as the main character some psychotic Irish villain who seems all smiles and charms until he cuts your face off and rubs Guinness in your exposed nasal cavities. Well, the man that got on the bus was exactly like that. And he was drunk. His presence exuded a tangible wave of malice and cheap whiskey stink up the bus, and gave me the treat of wondering if his friend had summoned him to he could make an example of his girlfriend(?) all over the disabled seating area. Alas I never got to see if this was the plan, as I left the bus at the next stop. I did get one extra blast of delicious terror though since Irish Psycho stood so as to completely block the walkway in the bus, forcing me to brush past him and fear that I'd have my balls sliced off and handed to me in the form of a novelty napkin ring for having the temerity of touching him.
So, fear rating. 4/5... not my worst experience, (there's a story here about drunk, homeless ex-boxers, but I'll save it for another time), since at least they weren't talking to me, but their psychosis made up for most of the distant between us.
That brings us on to disgust and quality of service, which I'll deal with briefly since neither stood out on this particular journey. While I was pleased to have to sift a certain amount of rubbish out from under my seat in order to get my feet touching the floor, I was disappointed to find most of the rubbish to be both dry and not in a state of partial decomposition. Stagecoach is obviously letting standards slip here, since I'd normally expect a pile of rotting McDonald's chips and a full can of coke teetering on the brink of spilling itself all over the passenger in front of me's feet. As for service, the bus driver merely ignored me in surly fashion - standard, but disappointing compared to the levels of rudeness I'd expect him to show towards me, or at the very least some other customer. He was even polite to Irish psycho, although perhaps I should forgive him that - he may have had a family to think of.
So, disgust 1/3, and service 1/2.
That gives an overall score of 6/10 - enjoyable, but lacking that certain something required for a bus journey of true horror. Still, I'm back in the belly of the metal beast tomorrow, so perhaps then I shall have more tales.
Adieu friends, assuming I live to talk again of these things with you.
~
Fear - 5 out of 5. The other passengers were by and large perfectly normal people on their way to work, and so the bus driver clearly decided to make up for that. He made an excellent first impression by arriving at the stop at high speed and grinding to an abrupt halt, and maintained that quality of driving throughout the entire ride from Greyfriars to Carfax. Accelerating and decelerating at a rapid, jolting pace, the driver also skilfully steered the bus so that it swerved and weaved from side to side like a punch-drunk boxer. When he started tooting his horn at a truck in front of him which had the temerity to hesitate for 1 millisecond at the Plain I realised he was one bad day away from a road-rage incident.
Disgust - 1 out of 3. The one drawback of the excellent job the driver did was that it focused my attention on things outside of the bus which we might smash into at high speed as opposed to things inside the bus. The single point comes from the man with the big bushy beard who stayed close to the exit. Just who was he leering at - me, or the old woman sitting nearby?
Service - 2 out of 2. This driver has cultivated an exquisite hatred of passengers and isn't afraid to let you know. A mere glance at him is enough to tell you his story. Having given the best part of his life to the buses of Oxford he was let go under unfortunate circumstances and left to stew in his own resentment for about a year before cutbacks forced the bus company to beg ex-employees to come back to fill in for a staff shortage. It galls him to swallow his pride and serve once more the public whose complaints cost him his job the first time, and to work for the company which upheld those complaints, but he needs the money. He doesn't feel that he owes anyone anything, though. He did not speak as we embarked or disembarked, and acknowledged our presence only once, when he snarled at us to move back down the crowded bus, away from his inner sanctum, his throne of driving majesty, his chamber of solitude, his lofty driving cabin of the gods.
Overall, 8 out of 10, the bulk of which came from the driver himself. The Oxford Bus Company is hiring the brightest and the best these days, clearly.
Perhaps I should review my ... walk. Which I owe entirely to the bus companies of Oxford. Without them, I'm sure I'd be using public transport.
I can see no good reason for them to be doing this unless it is, as I suspect, a money-saving scheme to avoid having to cart bus drivers to the terminus. Considering that they also seem to be cutting back on the decent drivers (I swear that the bus drivers never used to be this rude on the OBC), I have to wonder whether they'll last another 5 years, let alone another 125...