Tea. Sandwiches. Racism.
Lived in Leeds. Met a lady, and fell head over cleft in luurrve. And not just any old luurrve either. The kind that induces reflexive vomiting in random strangers, and has your flatmates seriously contemplating having you killed. There is simply no excuse.

Aforementioned object of my steadfastly neurotic and uncomfortably priapismic affections then moves to London, for reasons far too pretentious to recount here. Now a long distance relationship will teach you many things. It will tell you pretty early on if the two of you are meant to be together. It will teach you that if you don’t relax, learn to trust your girlfriend and stop worrying about where she is and who she’s with, you’ll go absolutely hatstand pretty fucking quickly. But most of all, it will teach you to hate the National Express with an intensity you never thought possible.

Yep. Every other bastarding weekend I would spend at least 8 hours trapped in a sweaty coach with the country’s leading specialists in fruitcakery. And while 90% of NE passengers are perfectly well-adjusted, budget-conscious people who just need to get from A to B (via C, D and E) without selling their houses/nieces/organs to cover the confusing, extortionate and terrifyingly arbitrary cost of a train ticket, it would appear that I’m some sort of mentalist magnet.

Every cocking time I clambered aboard, praying to a God I don’t believe in that the bus would be relatively empty and I’d get a double seat as far as Meadowhall or Milton Keynes, I’d be instantly rewarded for my wild delusions of grandeur by some 26 stone Care In The Community patient with a tuppaware full of egg mayonnaise sandwiches, and a deep desire to tell me all about his budgie. Oh joy.

This story, however, takes place on a rare occasion when the bus really was quiet. In fact, eerily quiet. For some reason there were only about 6 of us on board for the entire journey. Which would have been great, except this service also had a refreshment lady with a trolley full of inedible sandwiches and faintly worrying beverages. And naturally, with 6 people on board, she was bored shitless, and decided to engage everyone in conversation.

She was middle-aged, slightly maternal and fairly pleasant, so even though I just wanted to read my book, I felt compelled to smile and nod as she chatted inanely about her illustrious career.

“22 years I’ve been working on the coaches. I’ve seen some sights, let me tell you.”

Smile. Nod.

“I do love it though. You get to travel all over the place, and meet some lovely, interesting people.”

Smile. Nod.

“I couldn’t imagine doing anything else really. It’s a marvelous job.”

Smile. Nod.

“The only thing I don’t like is the blacks.”

Smi-

Excuse me?

“I don’t like having blacks on board. They’re just not nice people. Oops, you’re not supposed to say that nowadays are you?”

And to my eternal shame, I was literally too gobsmacked to do anything other than smile and nod. And so Combat 18’s trolley dolly decided she’d found an appreciative (and ethnically acceptable) audience, and proceeded to spend the rest of the journey telling me all about how the coaches were much nicer when all the passengers were white. This is because I don’t believe in you, isn’t it God?

It was the last time I ever prayed for an empty bus. Come back Budgie Man, all is forgiven.
(Monkey Tennis isn't Spartacus, Sat 27 Jun 2009, 17:33, 1 reply)

two words.
personal stereo.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Sat 27 Jun 2009, 18:37, closed)