Fare enough

On the day: 
04/05/2012 


On the way: 
Inspiration is not on this bus. 
He was down the pub last night, spending cash he didn't have on Newcastle Brown, depending on drinking mates for the last pint, the last couple of pints. 
They proclaimed him "a laugh" and got the next round in. Then, when the guv'nor had long since called last orders, they supported his spare frame from the pub and took him to his stop. There they waited with him, the milk stout of human kindness flowing in their veins, until his bus arrived. They even hoisted him in with his plastic carrier bag of, of some stuff, and negotiated his passage with the driver who was strangely resistant to the idea that because he was "skint" and "drenched" he should travel without paying a fare. What was the driver going to do, reasoned they, he couldn't leave the old boy at the side of the road. 
And somehow he teetered to a seat. Somehow he carried his bag and his sweet, sour stench to a seat, the sparse, yellowing strands that adhered to the top of his head looking more likely to remain upright than his turkey neck or the spindly legs in his flapping trousers. And somehow... somehow... But the thrum of the bus had lulled away the last lolling gobbets of consciousness... 
So no, inspiration is not on this bus this morning. 


On the pod: 
Failure - Laura Marling 


On the front page: 
Advantage Labour as voters punish coalition