Category
Transport
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01.16.06Snippets overheard on a rush-hour bus through deepest Tooting[The territorial markings of schoolboys on the bus window] "I 'AVE got an X-Box, I swear" "Bollocks" "No, I 'AVE, I SWEAR on my MUVVA'S LIFE I 'AVE" "Fark off, you 'aven't goh one" "I farkin' 'AVE. I'll go 'ome an' take a picture and bring it in tomorrow an' show ya" "Fark off, you ain't goh shih" "I FARKIN 'AVE. On my MUVVA'S LIFE. Would you believe me if I said I swear I 'ave, on 'er life, if she like dropped dead tomorrow?" "Whah if she goh shoh in the streeh or sumfing?" "Easy, bra! No need to be farkin' rude about my mum!" --------------------------------------------- "...I KNOW, that's what ...
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09.19.05Things I learnt from the boy behind me on the busIt wasn't him what broke the windows at school But he got excluded anyway Which weren't fair, brar It was Chris and Lennox and that lot Everyone assumed it was Travis too But it weren't And he told them In fact, he told the headteacher that she was like totally fucked in the head if she fought it was him This was based mainly on his assertion that if someone broke his windows he'd be proper grieved He never broke no fucking windows, true And he never disrespect anyone, brar Amazingly, they excluded him anyway His parents don't want him smoking no grow, innit They don't give a shit if he smoke cigarettes, ...
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08.19.04This is like a conversation I overheard on the bus"Listen, mate, I'm, like, totally having a complete mare" "...." "Nah, nah...I literally CANNOT find any jeans. It's totally doing me in." "..." "I've looked, like, everywhere" "..." "Yeah, yeah, and there..." "..." "No, seriously. There are, like, none - it's, like, totally mad" "..." "You know how, like, four years ago you could buy fantastic jeans for like seventy quid, yeah? Well now the same jeans are like a hundred and forty quid and the ones which are like seventy quid are, like, totally bloody awful. Wouldn't be seen dead." "..." "I know, I know. I'm, like, totally not paying a hundred and forty quid for jeans, you know? A hundred, ...
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02.28.04On sozzled cab rides homeFunny thing about getting married - it opens doors. I don't mean career-wise, or anything - it just weirdly allows conversations to happen between relative strangers which would otherwise have no place. About getting married. About being married. Odd bits of advice, and stories, and theories. You suddenly get it all. It's like a secret handshake. Relative strangers offer up curious nuggets of information, like cinder toffee. Example: In a cab on the way home from a night out with friends, the driver asks where I've been. I mention that I've been out with friends to celebrate my forthcoming wedding. The ...
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02.19.04It’s for you-hoo (2)On the packed bus, his phone rings. "Hello?" "Hi Olly, it's Emma" "Oh hello, you alright?" "Yeah, not bad - I'm on the way, now" "Oh great" "Do you want me to pick anything up? I nearly stopped at Tescos on the way but it was horrific" "No, no worries, I think we've got everything we need" "Lovely" "I'm just on the way home too, so call me when you get there, ok" "Yeah, course [she sneezes loudly]. Sorry..." "..." "..." "Oh god, how totally embarassing!" He looks around. She is sitting in the seat in behind, and one to the left. They both go very red, and hide silently in their newspapers for the ...
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01.18.04Bus Sketch (v)He said "are you a broadminded girl?" Not knowing how to reply, I shrugged and sort of smiled bashfully, which could have meant anything. The bus was deserted, apart from another passenger up near the front, the conducter lolling on a seat in the middle and me, on the facing seats near the platform. "Only I've got this joke, see," he continued, "and I've got to tell it to someone because it's been cracking me up all morning, since my driver told it me." "Go on then," I prompted. "There's this bloke in a bar," he continued, "and he's being a right pain in ...
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01.16.04Bus Sketch (iv)They got on with bags marked CDG. One tall and tired-looking, the other shorter, blonde and with a tie so garishly striped diagonally in yellow and black that it must have signified membership of something. He says in a voice that is slightly too loud for the proximity to his friend: "I always find that wilderness and density of population go hand in hand. No, not wilderness, that's not what I mean...what's the word? Ah, willingness!" His friend looks tired, slightly exasperated, and shifts in his seat. The blonde one weaves in front of his seated chum, and says: "...so I typed it in: W ...
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11.10.03Misty morningP left the house at quarter to nine to walk to the station. I left ten minutes later, and waited at the bus stop for my ride to work. In the distance, sirens wailed. It was grey and misty when I woke up, and I couldn't drag myself out of bed for another forty minutes. The duvet charmed me into half-sleep, listening to the radio and postponing the inevitable, slipping in and out of snoozing. When I got outside eventually, the ground was wet from mist, which made the leaves slippery. The bus took ages to arrive, and when it did, I ...
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11.06.03Bus sketch(i) Dressed in a funereal black suit with scruffy brown shoes and thick white hair well beyond its last trim, he boards the bus by Hammersmith bridge. He carries a foldaway pine stool, a well-thumbed copy of yesterday's Evening Standard and a small frying pan in a crumpled polythene bag. Who is he and what is his story?
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11.01.03HonkThe man walks down the middle of the access slipway out of the bus station, burberry cap pulled snug on shaved head, cockily smoking a fag, ignoring the prominent signs which forbid pedestrian access. Does he know that there are rules? Or does he think that the rules are stupid, or that they do not - or should not - apply to him, specifically? Or does he think that he is better, more important than the rules? Is he making a point by sauntering down the slipway? Does holding up traffic - or the potential to do so - make him more ...
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Looking for the Anti-Valentines?
