Night bus fun
December 6th, 2008 at 18:13
Living in London has changed me quite significantly. Three months ago, I was a terrible wimp, nervous about walking around late at night in Leicester – by contrast, I now don’t think anything of catching the night bus home in the early hours from Stabbington to Murderville via Kill[&]Burn. In fact, I’ve learnt to just sit back as an observer and almost enjoy watching potentially deadly situations unfold in front of me. So I’m basically just like the international community with Zimbabwe.
On the night bus home the other week, for instance, the bus was trundling along through Soho, and it was about the time when people get kicked out of clubs, so there were plenty of drunks. One group of drunk girls tried to board the bus but the driver, quite rightly, was not having any of it, as one of them didn’t have a ticket. This led to an interesting stand-off where the girls screamed “You’re legally entitled to take her home”, with the stress on “entitled”, as if this clever piece of legalese was a loophole that allowed for free bus journeys. In retaliation, the driver simply switched off the engine.
Wisely, I decided not to wade in and point out that the phrase they were looking for was “legally obliged”, and that the driver is not legally obliged in any way. Other passengers didn’t feel the same way as me though. One passenger emerged from the top deck – an old man of about 60, who had the Churchill-dog-esque partially melted face look about him, decided to try and broker some peace.
“You’re being disruptive and abusive”, he told the drunk girls with the natural air of authority that older people tend to have, before undermining himself slightly by adding “…now fuck off“.
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