ONLY LOSERS TAKE THE BUS

The title of a song by The Fatima Mansions, back in 1989. A great song title which I took pleasure in quoting when a mate suggested it might be easier for me to go somewhere in London by bus. I said, "Fuck off - only losers take the bus."

Of course, those words have come back to bite me in the ass during these lean times. I am a loser, for sure, possibly a born loser, and I do indeed now take the bus. And I feel no shame. Well, maybe once in a while when some young city prick passes the bus stop where I’m standing, driving his open top Porsche, girlfriend next to him with her head buried in his lap. I get the odd twinge of envy when I see that.

Anyway, the point of this rant is not about my descent from middle class professional to bumbling scumbag no-hoper. It’s about the public at large using the transport designed for them – public transport.

So, you can’t afford to run a car? Well, let’s say you need to travel from Taunton up to London early one morning, say on a Monday, and you want to come back late afternoon, say on the Friday. Fuck me, it’s going to cost you the best part of 200 squid !! I kid you not. You could probably do that in a taxi and get picked up and dropped off at the door, AND get a hand with your bags. And if there’s two of you traveling, then that option has to be worth taking. Bugger me – 200 nicker!!

Thing is, Gordon Bastard-Brown and his jock cronies are hammering us motorists right left and centre – tax this, pollution charge that, congestion charge this and remote fines from some fucking camera on a pole that snaps a pic of you stopping on a single yellow to check the map – all in a bid to make us use our cars less and reduce our carbon footprint by taking the train or the bus. Yeah yeah yeah. All very noble and all that. But what about the cost?

Go to Belgium or Germany, or some other European country and see if you have to pay the kind of money we in the UK do in order to ride a bastard train for a couple of hours. No way you’d have to pay 200 squid and on a Friday afternoon and have to stand all the fucking way to Taunton.

Even in the US (Murricka as we like to call it down this way) where many people have never seen a train, let alone ridden on one (some in Alabama might not even know what one looks like either) I traveled about 120 miles out of New York down to Asbury Park in New Jersey for 20 dollars. Return. OK, it was a shit train and it took nearly three hours, but you get my drift?

On the bus – it is actually half reasonable in London at £1.20 per ride with th old Oyster card. Until that is you need to take four different buses to get where you are going, then it’s a different matter altogether. But down my way, it costs about two quid to go a mile and a half into town, and then another two to come back to the village. I call that fucking pricey. Especially when I could go right across London on the No 11 for £1.20.

But what really gets me going is stuff like the sign I saw on a bus I passed (in my car I might add) when passing through Hungerford a couple of weeks back:

‘Exact fare only – no change given’

Fucking bastards or what?

What about the poor sod who only has a twenty, late at night, waiting for the last bus home, because he was out of cash and went to the hole in the wall to get some bunce but couldn’t change it up because everywhere was closed. What are they going to do? Kick him off I suppose. And it’s not like the driver won’t have any change, because all the other losers have been scurrying round making sure they have the right money before they dare get on. No change given. What kind of utter bollocks is that? Is it because the driver is too bone idle to hand it over? Or are they too thick to work out change in Hungerford? Perhaps it’s a money-making scam – the fare is £1.50.

“oh, I’ve only got two one pound coins”

“Tough titties, madam. That’s an extra 50p in my pocket then”

Otherwise you can fucking walk it you pee-smelling old buzzard.

Do that several times on a shift and I’ll bet they can rack up a few extra quid on top of their wages.

Can you imagine being turned away from the last bus out of Hungerford on a foul night in January with the rain coming at you sideways, while some smug bastard behind the wheel shrugs his shoulders and shuts the doors in your face.

Maybe it was something like that what got Michael Ryan so pissed off back in 1987.

Public transport? Do me a favour. Shite.

Bill Turnip