Justin Moorhouse: A wry eye at a mad world
IS it wrong of me to believe that there are certain things in life that should be a given?Health care should be free and available for all. I think we all believe in that. Don't we?
Similarly, as long as we are all putting in, it is only right we expect our rubbish to be taken away and our streets to be safe. The basics. I firmly also believe that public transport should be that: a public transport service, not for profit, not only available on the key commuter routes, but a universal service helping people get about.
Do you remember when the world was an easier place? When if you a saw a big double-decker thing that was orange you knew it was a bus? Simple blissful times. All the buses were the same; you got on, handed over a few pieces of change, got a cool yellow square ticket and sat down.
Some people (girls) knew a secret code about the tickets that if you added a certain sequence of numbers together it gave you the initial of the person you were going to marry. I'm still looking for a girl called Q something.
Then it all changed. I met Quilla - no I mean the buses changed. The buses were deregulated. That's a brilliant word isn't - deregulated. We have removed the rules.
Sure we were excited about the Little Gems and the Bee Line Buzz Company, smaller buses that went down your street and you could get off and on wherever you wanted, but the fascination waned and those two bastions of the Big P (privatisation) have disappeared from our streets for good. Now we just have loads of different coloured buses all over the shop.
Busiest
I'll hold my hands up and admit I'm not a frequent bus traveller but I do know about them. I spend most of my life surrounded by them. That's because I live south of the city centre and have to endure what must be the busiest bus lane in the world.
Every time you go on the Oxford Road route into town its like a bus version of the Italian Job. Buses here, buses there - no one on them but buses still going everywhere.
The ones I like are the Magic buses. What's magic about them? Most of them look about 50 years old and they just been sprayed blue with yellow stars.
It could be worse, we could be in London. One of the first things the new Mayor of London Boris Johnson (or as I call him Dick Withoutaclue), did on gaining office was to implement one of his manifesto pledges. Fantastic. That's what we want isn't it? A politician doing what he says he was going to. It's only when I discovered what Boris's first piece of work was that I started to get concerned. I quote: "The Mayor has announced plans to rapidly deliver the key manifesto commitment of banning alcohol on Tube, bus, Docklands Light Railway, and tram services and stations across the capital."
What? Banning it? When was it legal? OK, it must have been, but do we really live in a world where drinking alcohol on the bus is legal? Or socially acceptable? Are people necking a couple of cans of Strongbow on the rush hour 192 every morning? Do we really need actual official government-style laws to stop people getting leathered on the bus? When did the world change?
Of course, this is sledge- hammer legislation that ruins it for everyone. I understand the idea is to crack down on anti-social behaviour. These young people quaffing alcopops on the buses and trains are stopping us civilised folk from having a wee nip of whisky on the way to work. I would - I'd have to be drunk to even think about getting on a Magic bus.
Published: Thu, 15 May, 2008
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