A tragic farewell to the bendy bus.

I was first introduced to the magic of the bendy bus when I moved to London a few years ago and had no money on my Oyster; "it's ok", my friend assured me, "we'll take the free bus".  In my extreme naivety I believed him and hopped on the 73.  Where I realised it wasn't free.  It was in fact a choice - a choice between paying and settling down for a relaxing journey, or bypassing the Oyster reader and sitting in fear until the relief of the bus stop came.  Obviously on this occasion I chose the latter.  And had an encounter with a ticket man.  Fortunately he was the worst London ticket controller I have ever come across and didn't have his techno Oyster reader with him, we just waved our cards at him and he was happy enough.

Yesterday I was given some horribly upsetting news.  The 29 bendy is no more.  It is a double decker.  Criminal.  I have spent much of my life on that route and now it just won't be the same.  The 29 day route, the N29 night route, even one massively dedicated time spent on the N29 to GO to work.  Hardcore.  Nightbuses should never be experienced sober.  It's a horrendous realisation of what you usually look like at that time of night.  Dire.

One poor sod I watched attempt to get on a nightbus was clearly hoping to do the bendy bus backdoor fare dodge.  Only it wasn't a bendy.  The driver slammed the backdoors on him.  He fell out.  I laughed.  It was brilliant entertainment.  I suppose karma came back to bite me though.  I have experienced the tube door squeeze.  Jumping onto a train I was frozen mid-flight as my backpack got stuck in the doors and I recoiled yo-yo stylie into the door-backpack sandwich.  It's not fun.  Especially when you're by yourself and have no-one to laugh it off with.  And other passengers have to yank you through the doors because they refuse to bounce back and persist in jamming you between them.  You can't even thank your rescuers and hurry on your way, you have to spend the next few painful minutes sharing a carriage, knowing that they think you're an absolute tit.  You also want to acknowledge the fact that you know you're a tit and maybe should have waited the one extra minute for the next tube, rather than taking a leap of faith through the doors at the warning beep, but you can't laugh, because you're by yourself, and would just look like a deranged tit.  Rather than simply, a tit.  Which I think is much better.

One particularly wet day when there was near torrential rain in good old England, a wonderful bus driver stopped by the side of a road I was waiting to cross and wound down his window.  He handed me an umbrella!  Wow.  What a lovely man.  Puts your faith right back into humankind.  It wasn't his.  It belonged to some probably now very wet bugger who'd left it on the bus, but a beautifully kind gesture all the same.  So thanks Mr Bus Man, and thank you bendy 29 for all your memories and bendy N29 for all your memory lapses.

The case of the cabbage munching man.

Many things I see amuse me.  For instance, the man that sat opposite on the train the other day, munching on a cabbage.  Like an apple.  A full on cabbage.  In all its rawness.  Like an apple.  On first glance I took it for a lettuce and thought, bit odd, but not overly absurd; on taking a closer look I realised it was a raw cabbage being eaten from its wrapper.  Wow.  He was hungry.  Laden with Sainsbury's bags he clearly just couldn't wait until he got home to crack into his purchases and had selected the cabbage as the most suitable snack.  Digestives were also in his bag.

This journey reminded me of a wonderfully horrific tube ride I had a while back.  Standing propped against the side of the carriage making my way merrily along I was unaware of the horror to come.  The train came to a halt.  The doors slid open.  In entered the most disgusting wave of smell that I have ever experienced.  I turned to look down the carriage and the culprit was stood there.  Faces were subtly aghast; in the very British way of polite ignorance the passengers were doing their utmost to keep their noses from crinkling.  The kids however, made no pretence of pulling their jumpers up over their faces.  The couple next to me began to plot a cunning plan.  The carriage hop.  I contemplated joining their escape but decided to stay put.  Mistake.  When the train stopped at the next station and they hopped down the platform and into the adjoining carriage of sweet London underground air, I instead moved further down my carriage into a newly available seat.  I thought this was an excellent find as I was now positioned right at the end of the carriage, the furthest away possible from the smell.  Wrong.  I had failed to spot that the only other freshly free seats were in my row.  One of which was next to me.  Next to me in my end of the row squashed in the corner seat.  As the smell got stronger I felt his presence nearing.  I shared a nervous smile with the woman opposite me.  We didn't know what to do with ourselves.  Her half amused half terrified expression told me she was feeling exactly the same; time seemed to slow as the man advanced and various possibilities were considered in my mind.  Will he sit next to me?  Will he sit a few seats along? Is it too late to get up and move?  No, that's too obvious I've only just sat down.  If he sits next to me, will I be able to make it through the journey without fainting? Panic, fear and amusement all mounted as the man approached; along with a warming feeling of unity amongst myself and fellow passengers.  The unspoken communication between us gave a refreshing communal edge to the tension.  At last it reached the moment of truth.  The smell bearer had arrived at our row of seats.  I held my breath.  He took a few paces.  And sat.  A few seats along from me.  THANK GOODNESS.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Which was an error.  A huge breath out must be followed by a huge breath in.

On the subject of the tube, I made another discovery on the underground yesterday.  If you're in a rush, going down stairs two steps at a time just doesn't work.