Now don’t get me wrong, I think public transport is great. Coming from a place about as accessible as Machu Pichu, I think it’s a fucking miracle that a bus can take me from my front door to practically anywhere in London. No, my problem with TfL and their piss poor bus services runs a lot deeper than the fairytale timetable it claims to operate. While it would be unfair to say that they crap in my cornflakes every day, they just about always do.
As with all these things, the bus journey from hell always happens on an already shit day. Having battled to drag yourself out of bed, still slightly drunk from the shamefully predictable night that ended in the Tuns, stood comatose in your shower letting the lukewarm water dribble over you and stumbled to the bus stop you stand patiently for your chariot to arrive and take you to your 9am class. As you’re presenting on the finer points of Moravcsik’s views of the Democratic Deficit you’ve given yourself a respectable 20 minutes leeway to make it in, what can possibly go wrong? Answer = fucking everything.
The first problem you are likely to incur is the complete ignorance of bus drivers to the concept of bus timetables. 10-12 minutes in bus language means whenever the fuck they feel like turning up. Predicting your journey time is like trying to guess when the Student Loans Company will decide to give you money. Very predictably however, every other bus in the entire district will drive past – several times. No exaggeration, I once watched SEVEN number 185s go past my stop before either of the two, supposedly more frequent services that I needed, arrived. The saying then goes that “when waiting for a bus, three will arrive when they finally do”. I’m now pretty certain bus drivers heard this expression and have decided it would be funny to do exactly that.
Assuming you manage to get onto a bus having overcome the series of inane obstacles that lie in your way (namely bus drivers ignoring your request for them to stop, shutting the doors on you or just having a crap oyster card reader that claims you’ve already given Boris all of your mythical student loan) you then have to find yourself a seat manoeuvring past morons staring blindly into nothingness listening to their shit music on their iWanks. If you are lucky enough to find a perch, unfortunately next to an obscenely fat sweaty man reading the Daily Racist, you can finally begin to hope that you might make it to LSE vaguely on time. You may even hit the jackpot and get the holy grail of the Double Decker bus: a window seat. This is not always the blessing it first seems though. For some reason, completely beyond anyone’s imagination, Tfl has instructed its drivers to leave the heating on ‘incinerate’ all year round.
Even when the sun beams down on London for those few hours in July they insist on leaving you to melt. Oh but it’s really nice when it’s cold outside you say? Here’s a novel idea – If it’s cold when you walk out of the door wear a fucking coat. Then the rest of us can stop being stewed in our own juices.
Now, if you survived the best part of your journey without gouging out your own eyes, you might actually be on time with a handful of seconds to spare! Despite your painful trip, soundtracked by the guy who has shit headphones and then plays his music so loud you have to listen to the tinny faeces of Kings of Leon, you’ve nearly made it to the hallowed walls of Houghton St. Despite everything, buses in London do a very good job of helping transport millions every day for what is actually a very low fee (I pay £6 for a single journey 10 minutes down the road in Yorkshire). While it would be unfair to say that they crap in my cornflakes every day, they just about always do.
Then, God takes a massive shit on your head. “This bus is being held here temporarily to help regulate the service”. Cunts.
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