Off The Buses

I’ve been getting the “Loser Cruiser” to work on a regular basis. The buses in Mordor are a lot like those in the UK except for five very important differences…

1- The buses run late. Now, I know that buses in the UK run late too. It’s just that here it is kind of expected here and the timetables are taken as a rough and wildly optimistic guideline. Because of this, people don’t get that narked by it and start smashing the bus shelters or complaining loudly to their fellow stranded passengers. They know the bus will turn up when it turns up (or maybe it won’t) so just accept it. It has taken me months to get used to that attitude, and I’m still not there. Much like the 770 that never arrived last week.

2- Some of the buses are a health and safety nightmare. Devoid of cameras, dimly lit at night and driven by madmen, you need your wits about you to get up, pull the bell cord and make it to one of the doors without serious injury or death. I got on a bus recently that (I shit you not) had a mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel’s famous neck strainer. I don’t know why it was there but the sceptical part of me suggests it has something to do with taking your eyes and mind of the lousy driving.

3- I’ve yet to see a bus with an empty Lucozade bottle rolling about the floor.

4- People are friendly. At the bus stop one morning, I got into a conversation about bus timetables and then music with a huge Pacific Islander lad who worked at the Vector Arena. Disturbingly though he was a teenager and dressed like a member of Slipknot he said the best gig he had been to recently was Robin Gibb. His final reminiscence being underlined with the statement…
“That Robin Gibb put on an awesome show, bro.”
As the bus journey ended at the Newmarket terminus, the driver got up out of his seat and as it was a Friday wished everyone a cracking weekend, waving to us as we alighted.
If that had been the UK, the incident at the bus stop would have been a punch up over which Gibb had the best voice and the only waving the bus driver would have conducted was the two fingered variety.
The only exception to this is the Filipino bus driver who said to me in excellent English as I boarded his bus…
“Hello. I remember you from yesterday as you look like a member of the 1990s UK pop sensations Right Said Fred”.
I almost killed him.

5- Bus mentalists seem to be few and far between. The ones back in Leeds were especially plentiful, including the colourful character who liked to quiz people about their favourite films before revealing his was popular 80s scapegoat “I Spit On Your Grave”. Possibly for the artistic direction, but more likely for the graphic sexual violence.
I have only had one run in with such an individual here in Mordor and this delightful episode only occurred as I boarded the bus one morning and failed to disengage my nutter magnet in time.
As we stopped at the bottom of Symonds Street, a bloke got on. With his shaved head, shorts and army boots, my howling moonpig detector went straight into the red and I shifted along on the seat to take up as much room as possible while he explained to the driver exactly what stop he was after, what the distinguishing features of that bus stop were, his ultimate destination for the day’s business (a hostel) and his God given purpose for doing so.
He lumbered down the bus clutching his ticket and dropped into the seat opposite the aisle from me.
By this point I had plugged in my earphones (which were switched off in case I needed to hear a steady build up of mentalism prior to him going postal) and carried on reading my book so he wouldn’t talk to me. My subtle plan failed spectacularly as he looked over and started his jabbering…

Mental: Are you Major General Fitzroy?
Me (pulling out earphone): What, mate?
Mental (looks right and left): Major General Fitzroy. You’re him, aren’t you?
Me (jokingly): Ha ha. No, I just look like him. He’s my twin brother.
Mental: I need to talk to him about that business today. 160,000 British soldiers dead in Kabul.
Me: Oh…
Mental: 1000 Centurion tanks destroyed. Don White will be a long time paying that off.
Me: Don White being?
Mental: The Prime Minister. I’m just off to see him in Western Springs.
Me: Isn’t the Prime Minister called John Key? And why would he need to…
Mental (stares with his head cocked to one side like a dog): …
Me: Okaaaaay….
Mental: I was a Colonel in the Falklands War and won 4 VCs, including the one that belonged to Freaky Frank.
Me: Right. Yes. Hmmmn. Good one.
Mental: I’ll tell Don you said. 160,000 dead. He needs to be told.
Me: Yeah, let me know how that goes…

He got off further up Symonds Street, walked in the direction of the hostel and then turned on his heel and started walking back towards town. I wonder what Don White made of it all.

Though not in the mental category, I do regularly get the bus home with a couple of Chinese ladies, one of whom sings on the journey like a demented Mogwai having its nuts pushed through a garlic press. I’m not sure what it is all about, but if it’s a love song it makes me wonder how the Chinese aren’t extinct as a race.

One final note…as I leapt to safety from the bus the other morning I spotted a huge container ship peeking through the early morning fog as it made its way up the busy harbour to the sound of foghorns and Uruk Hai war cries. By my return to Britomart Transport Centre the ship had docked and was being unloaded. Registered in Singapore the ship was called MV Madame Butterfly and it got me wondering about the crew of that fine vessel. Would you really want to serve on a ship named after a famous (albeit it literary) suicide? I’ll bet there are loads of jobs going on the MV Kurt Cobain. I might sign that bus mentalist up for it.