Pundits representing the save-the-planet lobby are to be heard fervently extolling the virtues of public transport. ‘Leave the car behind,’ they say (not even considering that you might not have a car to leave behind). ‘ Take the bus,' they say in a way that makes you think they’ve only just discovered that buses exist. Or, the train. Let it take the strain AND save the atmosphere.
The atmosphere on the top deck of the 63 is KFC. No one appears to be eating crumbed stringy bits of hammered chicken flesh right now, it’s just a residual smell. I spot that the seats at the front of the bus are vacant. Happily, I head for them but, just in time, spot the reason. Faeces. It could be animal or human. By it lies a crumpled smeared tissue. Protruding from the brown mound a Q-tip.
On the bendy bus I endure every nerve in my body being juddered. When I’m not being shaken I experience nausea with the way the bus swings out to take corners. A whippet of a white man, shod in trainers and limp tracksuit attire, gets on the bus with bedraggled woman and thin children. The man is smoking. There is no one who is going to remonstrate.
These are but two journeys on one day in London. Yeh, go Green, take the bus.
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