Grumpy, snappy and cranky

Grrr. Hayfever has made a weeping mess out of me. I know a lot of other people are suffering, and let me tell you, I FEEL YOUR PAIN, people. It (the pain, suspended in mucus and tears) is running down my face and pouring out of my nose. Strangers are offering me tissues on the street and asking me in soft, concerned tones who my next of kin is.

Historically, my hayfever has been a lot better since I moved UK-side. I think the pollen count must be worse this year than usual. Plus, I haven't been sleeping and things at home have been a little - shall we say - fraught? Also, I just moved offices, so I am back on the tube. Otherwise known, in my head at least, as the Stinkin', Overcrowded, Frequently Delayed Festering Tunnel of Communicable Disease (or SOFDeFToCD for short). If you have even the slightest hint of hayfever or a cold, your journey on the tube becomes almost unbearable. The filthy air quality adds to the general torment happening all over your face.

To summarise, I am NOT in a good way.

London Rag Lights Up My Morning

The British press do a great line in putting a negative spin on virtually any story you can throw at them. This morning: Cig Ban Will Lead To Blaze Death Chaos! or something of that nature, in the reliably sensationalist Metro paper. Apparently, the impending cigarette ban will lead to more people smoking in their homes; which means more house fires and more deaths as a result.

Smokers? I'm sorry, but I don't care if you die in a fiery inferno, sparked by your own supidity and laziness. One dead smoker is one less a**hole making my journey to work/trip in the elevator/lunch at the pub that much stinkier.

In other news, Bob Fossil got on my 43 bus this morning. And I am happy to report that his hair is still very much in character.

Tempers rise on the number 43

Every now and again there is a little touch of drama on the bus journey - usually to do with some drunken yob making trouble, or packs of seriously scary teenage girls throwing things at you, or maybe just a man of "middle-eastern origin" pulling on a full-face balaclava for no apparent reason (I have experienced all of these, BTW).

Last night, I experienced two extremes of behaviour. A well-dressed black man sat directly in front of me, reading the paper, and I looked up as an elderly white guy sat down next to him. He leaned over a little too close as he took his seat, gave him the loveliest, most winning smile, and asked how his night was going. The black guy was a little on the defensive, being a Londoner, but responded and soon they were engaged in a little conversation. The black guy ended up giving him his paper as he got up to leave. A tiny act of kindness, nothing at all really, but still it warmed my heart to see.

Later on, two extremely drunken, well-weathered 40-ish white guys got on the bus and sat down a few rows behind and on the aisle opposite me. The combined stench of stale cigarette smoke and gin made me wince from metres away. They were talking loudly, in voices which were a mixture of drunken slurring and hoarse raspiness. Everyone on the bus studiously ignored them. One of the men took an interest in a young Yugoslavian girl sitting opposite him, and carried on a rambling, one-sided conversation which everyone on the top deck could hear. At some point, the girl dropped her umbrella (probably out of nervousness). This provoked the turning point for the guy, whose conversation, in the manner of nasty drunks everywhere, took a turn for the worse.

I have been in a similar sitation a few times, and each time it makes me sick to the stomach. I sat there, my heart thumping, while he became more and more abusive towards this poor girl, accusing her of stealing his benefits, his council house, then making threats on her life and safety, all in a vicious, slurring growl. There is no situation more horrible than when your heart is telling you you must do something to stand up to these thugs, and your head is saying "don't get involved". You hear of too many incidents in London which turn nasty for the "nice guy" who intervenes, and invariably ends up getting beaten, mugged, stabbed, shot or worse. I was too scared that these guys would follow me off the bus if I said anything to them.

At one point the girl finally got up and went downstairs to leave, head down and hunched over, his evil words hissing behind her all the way down the aisle. I could feel every insult as if it were a sting. With his target gone, the man resumed slurring to his equally noxious mate as if nothing had happened.

As I went downstairs a few stops later, I saw the girl sitting in a new spot on the bottom deck. I stood waiting for the bus to reach my stop, wishing I knew what to say to her, to offer her some comfort or support. She was doing some work, her face set in frozen studiousness. Eventually the bus creaked to a stop and I got off, too torn over the whole incident to speak to her.

My heart didn't stop pounding the whole walk home.

6 months in and still not bored of the bus journey

Taking the bus instead of the tube was one of the best decisions I made last year. Miraculously, I never get bored of the journey to and from London Bridge each day - there are always so many people on the street to watch - couples having fights outside a restaurant, cyclists getting into punch-ups with homicidal drivers, and of course the sorry street cleaners at the bottom rungs of this city's economy. Not only do they have the noisiest, dustiest, most toxic job in the world, they have to endure the added humiliation of driving what looks like a miniturised pope-mobile, with whirling brushes attached.

Recently, banners and bus ads have started appearing that proclaim "WE ARE LONDONERS", with the "ONE" highlighted, in big black and red letters. They give me a slightly eerie feeling of hands-joined solidarity tempered with a streak of good old-fashioned fear of being blown up. I was in London on 7/7, and I took the tube to work the day after (my reasoning was, the terrorists aren't going to strike two days in a row, right, I mean - that's just too obvious!). I definitely feel safer on the bus, though, where I can eye-ball everybody who gets on and keep a lookout for suspicious packages/shifty looking men.

I know it is highly unlikely, and that I am probably more likely to be hit by a bus than be involved in a terrorist incident, but the truth is, no one knows when it could happen again, and how bad it will be next time. Terrorism statistics don't count for nothing in my book, because the motivation behind such acts are impossible for white Westerners to comprehend or account for.

Anyway, in the unlikely event that there is a bomb on my bus, at least I will see the sky before I die.

Land of the great white weirdo

Everyday on my way to work, from the top deck of the double-decker bus, I see a man jogging around the City. Not so unusual, you may be thinking, except that this guy jogs backwards, occassionaly turning around to give a few high-leg karate kicks at his invisible enemies. No, seriously, he jogs backwards, turning his head now and again to check that he is on course for wherever the hell he is going.

This is even weirder for the fact that his chosen stomping ground is smack bang in the middle of the City, literally in the Square Mile, amongst the most corporate crowd in the UK (and possibly the world). It is a veritable sea of grey suits and knee-length skirts with sensible heels, and everyone has the grim, pinched look of a person who would all too happily trample right over you if you got in their way.

It is only middle-class fear that keeps me from stopping him and quizzing him. I would love to shout him over and ask him, first off, why are you running backwards? And secondly, where are you going? And have you ever considered that it might be faster/safer/more normal to run facing forwards? But obviously a man like this doesn't care about things like "normality". Reality is for us uptight, workaday losers.

Hot, hot, hot

Too... hot... to .. type.. must.. find.... life-giving... ice-cream!

It has been seriously broiling over here. And I do mean "broiling", as in cooking in one's own juices, which is exactly what happens to a body if you get on public transport in London in this weather.

Seeing as they still haven't invented teleportation, I have two non-air-conditioned transport options to choose from for my daily commute:

1. The bus.
Pros: Windows allow access to "outside" air (I would hesitate to call it "fresh"). You can get off if it gets really - ie. nausea-inducingly - oppressive. Cheaper; hence more money for ice-cream. Head room.

Cons: Windows only crack open about 1 inch. Seats are made for child-size people; chances are you will spend the entire journey vying for elbow-room with a businessman in a full-length woolen suit. If you find yourself stuck on the Non-Shady Side, you might as well kill yourself now. Duration (1 hour 15 minutes in this traffic), ensuring you arrive at your destination red-faced, dripping with sweat, and harbouring an inhuman hatred for your fellow man.

1. The tube.
Pros: Duration (45 minutes). Free Metro paper to distract yourself from the horror which surrounds you (grasping at straws here).

Cons: Ridiculously, outrageously, hideously packed. 500 different whiffs of underarm BO, all clustered around your face. People who feel it is perfectly acceptable to press their whole, full-length body against yours, crotch and all. No windows. No air. No head room. All ensuring you arrive at your destination red-faced, dripping with sweat, and and harbouring an inhuman hatred for your fellow man.

Time to purchase a pedal-operated machine of the two-wheeled variety, methinks.

On the buses

This is a pic taken from the front seat of the top deck of my bus - the number 43 from Frien Barnet to London Bridge, via my house. I don't usually ride right at the front, as it takes the hair-raising effects of being two stories high and in the charge of a maniac to heart-stopping levels.

Ah yes, London loves its buses...even more so since the introduction of the Congestion Charge in Zone 1, which the likes of Madonna (sorry, how many MIL did your last pathetic album earn you?) have been moaning about. To which I say, get your sorry ass into a peak-hour bus seat and shut up.

There is something quite majestic about being ferried around the city at a (jerky) snails pace, sailing in and out of traffic and feeling like a look-out in a crows-nest. Of course, there is also the added excitement of the odd cyclist/bus driver standoff - a kind of a modern-day, urban David & Goliath scenario where each tries to edge the other out of the bus lane, preferably without killing the cyclist.

I have read somewhere that being a bus-driver is one of the most stressful jobs around; largely because of the lack of control you have over your circumstances - ie. the horrendous traffic; and the ever-present risk of violence on board.

Well, heres to the London bus drivers - who have contributed in getting me to work and back (mostly) on time over the last few months, in their cheeful red vehicles - always a welcome sight. I don't miss the tube in the least.