• A 20p bargain
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I don't often travel by bus—do you? You should, you know: it's reasonably priced, leisurely and entertaining. I took one last week, a number 16 London bus from Cricklewood to Marble Arch, and it cost 20p a taxi would have charged £2.20. So it's cheap by bus.
According to the timetable it arrived 10 minutes late. It's a 20-minute service, but then it was running late, perhaps to help the passengers capture the leisurely mood. A few minutes after I boarded we had a refreshment stop for the crew—not, you will note, the passengers. The delay wasn't too long. Within seven minutes or so a relief crew had boarded and we moved off. Some of the passengers were murmuring objections but the delay must have been in order because two inspectors stood across the way while we waited and when we moved off they nodded their approval in unison. The journey which should have taken 23 minutes lasted 40 minutes, so there is no doubt it was leisurely.
The most entertaining seat in a doubledecker is undoubtedly inside the lower deck adjacent to the platform with your back to the pavement. This is where it all happens.
The passengers appear to play a game with the conductress: the idea appears to be that the passengers should all get aboard before she presses the bell to get the bus moving. One of the rules is that the conductress turns her back while the passengers get on board. There is an adverse handicap system in operation: old people, shoppers with parcels, mothers with children get no time allowance and no assistance. So for the spectators it is extremely entertaining.
It is also romantic when the "human ticket dispenser" turns her back on the passengers to chat to the driver in the next bus. (In this case he was driving a number 16 and should have been 20 minutes behind.) He noses his bus up close enough to slide open the window and have a chat at each stop. The conversation continues between stops by the use of sign language. It is a pity I'm not bilingual, as I feel I missed the best parts. Still I'll pick it up in time because I'm going to travel by bus again. By the way, it's also thrilling to travel by bus. For instance, they dropped me at a stop 12ft out from the kerb on the Edgware Road at Marble Arch and I joined 10 other passengers in playing dodge the taxi. This time I won. Who can beat London's number 16?