470: Bus Station Observations

A group of people – two women and a man – stand around a pram containing the babiest fourth member of their group. One of the women held a lit cigarette directly over the infant as she yammered on about whatever crap such morons talk about. She took occasional drags, moving the cigarette to her own face, but always returning it to its position above the baby. Not once did she look in the direction of the hot smouldering fire in order to check it wasn't raining down on that innocent wee head. The man took out his own cigarette and, finding himself want of a lighter asked to borrow her cigarette for lighting off. She passed directly over the baby and he lit his from hers over the pram, leaning over with both cigarettes as he passed hers back. Two lit cigarettes waving blindly about above a pram, as the unbelievably selfish idiots gab gibberish blindly.

A black-skinned lady wanders through the large crowds of rush-hour bus-waitingers seeking out other black people. When she finds them she hands them a little leaflet; it looks to me like one of those little churchy 'remember Jesus this xmas' type things. She approaches a group of friends, one who is black and the other two are white. She hands one to the black man and he accepts it; the other two, a man and a woman, hold their hands out and she says, "No, not for you". "Sorry," says the man, and she walks off. I lose her in the crowd, plus my bus arrives and I am about to fall asleep.

The biggest recovery/breakdown vehicle ever created by man or by god is pulling a sad kaput double-decker bus up on its back two wheels. For buses to get out of the station in Piccadilly Garden they have to double back in a u-turn and head off the way they came; it's the only way out due to tram lines and one-way systems. As the breakdown truck tries to tow the double-decker around this tight hairpin-ish corner it becomes jammed in. It can't reverse and it has only inches in front before it hits the barrier. It inches hither and thither for five or ten minutes, with an ever-growing queue of buses running far behind it. Eventually it escapes, moves forward a few metres then has to stop at a zebra crossing... eventually it moves forward a few metres, then has to stop at a red light...