On the day:
12/09/2012
On the way:
Jag in Space - Rule of Evidence, that's what he's reading today. Last time it was Judge Dredd.
Not that he's abandoned Mega-City One and all that it stands for. It would take much more than some square-jawed Kiwi to destroy all that Dredd has stood for over the years - a culture of ultraviolence, a fascist police state and THE LAW.
He's a big guy - not huge, not fat, but big. At least he looks it in Doc Martens, waterproof black trousers - the partner of the waterproof black top over his knees - and a black fleece, sleeves pushed up to the elbows. A severe haircut is growing out salt and pepper and his beard is little more than stubble.
On his lap is a backpack large enough to carry the necessary hardware to give him a fighting chance against the first wave of an invasion of mutie scum from the Cursed Earth, or a riot by urban creeps, or a zombie outbreak.
Or perhaps it contains essential survival gear in case of a mutually assured destructive nuclear strike - the water purifier, the compass, the crossbow, the ultimate-factor sun cream, the UV-reflective shades (aviator-style of course, already in place perched on the bridge of his pointed nose, with peripheral light excluder accessories in a side pocket of the bag) and a triple-pack of chocolate Hobnobs (two packs for £1.70 on special at Morrisons).
Or maybe the whole of Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series. For when he's finished the Jag in Space. Just in case the train gets swallowed up by a temporal vortex and we're stuck between stations for (what seems like an) eternity. Again.
On the pod:
Pseudo Silk Kimono - Marillion
On the front page:
Saturday 15 September 2012
Tuesday morning coming down
On the day:
11/09/2012
On the way:
Following the euphoria of the victor's parade, London is coming down.
Literally in the case of "London 2012".
It's all around. Just here, for instance, the photographic exhibition outside the London Authority carbuncle is being dismantled, a stage in the Scoop mini-amphitheatre is being struck, the giant screen on Potter's Field has disappeared, leaving only scaffolding behind.
It can only be a matter of time before Wenlock and Mandeville disappear from our public spaces and shop windows to turn up in bargain bins - on Leicester Square they were being flogged for half-price even before the roar had subsided on The Strand.
And if you look up while crossing Tower Bridge, tucked away below the upper span, is the Paralympic Agitos symbol, ready to be removed, probably forever.
It's all going normal.
Normal, that is, for the greatest city on earth.
On the pod:
Bones - The Killers
On the front page:
11/09/2012
On the way:
Following the euphoria of the victor's parade, London is coming down.
Literally in the case of "London 2012".
It's all around. Just here, for instance, the photographic exhibition outside the London Authority carbuncle is being dismantled, a stage in the Scoop mini-amphitheatre is being struck, the giant screen on Potter's Field has disappeared, leaving only scaffolding behind.
It can only be a matter of time before Wenlock and Mandeville disappear from our public spaces and shop windows to turn up in bargain bins - on Leicester Square they were being flogged for half-price even before the roar had subsided on The Strand.
And if you look up while crossing Tower Bridge, tucked away below the upper span, is the Paralympic Agitos symbol, ready to be removed, probably forever.
It's all going normal.
Normal, that is, for the greatest city on earth.
On the pod:
Bones - The Killers
On the front page:
Nothing serious, just buggy
On the day:
07/09/2012
On the way:
Oh she's a lovely, smiling little mama, neatly built and neatly dressed in a long black cardie, blue jeans and black and white striped T-shirt, hair that won't grow piled in a stylish up-do. She boards the bus with a baby buggy containing a little charmer in a white babygrow, all big, inquisitive eyes gazing over a substantial dummy.
The problem is the two buggies and the two smug mummies already in situ.
No problem. The new arrival stops at the bottom of the stairs to the upper deck, effectively blocking passage in all directions, unstraps the precious cargo, hands it off to the acquiescent grey-haired lady standing at the exit door to hold it up high enough to deploy 360-degree cuteness, releases the bed from the frame and places it in the luggage bay at the front of the bus across from the patiently waiting driver, folds up the frame and slips into the slim space next to the other two buggies, retrieves her weapon of mass distraction and finds a seat, all without breaking a sweat or letting her smile slip.
The dam burst, the three or four passengers who stepped got on directly behind the little mama trickle off, followed by a flow of five, six, seven who washed up on board while the bus was waiting, benefiting from the delay, and finally two spherical shoppers who popped like corks from the mouth of the charity store, bounced, barely, across the pavement and bobbed in on the current.
And finally the bus moves, five to ten minutes after ETD, and still neat mama smiles, and still cute baba charms, and still commuters coo, and still no one is bothered (except maybe the smug mums whose children are rnow being roundly ignored).
Why worry about timetables while still the sun shines on the Lympic summer of love?
On the pod:
Nobody Knows - Nik Kershaw
On the front page:
07/09/2012
On the way:
Oh she's a lovely, smiling little mama, neatly built and neatly dressed in a long black cardie, blue jeans and black and white striped T-shirt, hair that won't grow piled in a stylish up-do. She boards the bus with a baby buggy containing a little charmer in a white babygrow, all big, inquisitive eyes gazing over a substantial dummy.
The problem is the two buggies and the two smug mummies already in situ.
No problem. The new arrival stops at the bottom of the stairs to the upper deck, effectively blocking passage in all directions, unstraps the precious cargo, hands it off to the acquiescent grey-haired lady standing at the exit door to hold it up high enough to deploy 360-degree cuteness, releases the bed from the frame and places it in the luggage bay at the front of the bus across from the patiently waiting driver, folds up the frame and slips into the slim space next to the other two buggies, retrieves her weapon of mass distraction and finds a seat, all without breaking a sweat or letting her smile slip.
The dam burst, the three or four passengers who stepped got on directly behind the little mama trickle off, followed by a flow of five, six, seven who washed up on board while the bus was waiting, benefiting from the delay, and finally two spherical shoppers who popped like corks from the mouth of the charity store, bounced, barely, across the pavement and bobbed in on the current.
And finally the bus moves, five to ten minutes after ETD, and still neat mama smiles, and still cute baba charms, and still commuters coo, and still no one is bothered (except maybe the smug mums whose children are rnow being roundly ignored).
Why worry about timetables while still the sun shines on the Lympic summer of love?
On the pod:
Nobody Knows - Nik Kershaw
On the front page:
Uh-oh, you're in trouble
On the day:
03/09/2012
On the way:
A 136 bus. Lewisham. 11.23. Monday night.
"You are troubleman."
It's inevitable. The pervading influence of London's summer of love - the Olympic/Paralympic elation, the fellow feeling of following the same team and of cheering on the valiant opposition, of celebrating the bodies both beautiful and broken, the competitors in their countries' colours and the cheerleaders in pink and purple all putting in performances worthy of pumping up collective pride - has had over the city got to reach its limit somewhere.
"Don't tell me how to do my job," responds the driver, four inches from fury.
The beige man with the long scraggly beard covers the distance with the ease of an arrow from the bow of an Olympic archer. "You troubleman," he reiterates.
And hits the bullseye.
There follows a frank discussion of what the responsibilities of bus drivers do and categorically do not include. And of what passengers can and cannot reasonably expect and express in the event that they are disappointed with the public transport experience.
Which is all very edifying, even when witnessed from a bus-length away, but what have we really learned today? We have learned that the feelgood factor does not extend to a 136 bus, in Lewisham, at 11.23 on a Monday night.
On the pod:
On the front page:
03/09/2012
On the way:
A 136 bus. Lewisham. 11.23. Monday night.
"You are troubleman."
It's inevitable. The pervading influence of London's summer of love - the Olympic/Paralympic elation, the fellow feeling of following the same team and of cheering on the valiant opposition, of celebrating the bodies both beautiful and broken, the competitors in their countries' colours and the cheerleaders in pink and purple all putting in performances worthy of pumping up collective pride - has had over the city got to reach its limit somewhere.
"Don't tell me how to do my job," responds the driver, four inches from fury.
The beige man with the long scraggly beard covers the distance with the ease of an arrow from the bow of an Olympic archer. "You troubleman," he reiterates.
And hits the bullseye.
There follows a frank discussion of what the responsibilities of bus drivers do and categorically do not include. And of what passengers can and cannot reasonably expect and express in the event that they are disappointed with the public transport experience.
Which is all very edifying, even when witnessed from a bus-length away, but what have we really learned today? We have learned that the feelgood factor does not extend to a 136 bus, in Lewisham, at 11.23 on a Monday night.
On the pod:
On the front page:
Saturday 1 September 2012
Road tripper
On the day:
30/08/2012
On the way:
He's a small man with a small face and a healthy head of hair to his shoulders, the bleach blonde growing out. It's a slightly crumpled face, protected by sunglasses on a rainy morning and a west coast rock moustache through which his mumbles into his mobile phone.
He still has a chain around his neck and his jacket is still leather, but it gangs over sloping shoulders and his walks with a stiff-legged hobble, like Ozzy Osbourne, as though each impact with the unforgiving station platform judders straight through the soles of his cheap black plastic shoes and jangles nerves long-since shredded by a borrowed life of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll on the road with the bands that took him on unimaginable trips - Kashmir, Panama, Africa, sweet home Alabama.
Oh the stories he could tell about boozing with Bonzo, kicking back with Keef, jams with Jimi. If only he could recall... If only he had been there...
On the pod:
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
On the front page:
Lift-off! The Paralympics are go (Metro)
30/08/2012
On the way:
He's a small man with a small face and a healthy head of hair to his shoulders, the bleach blonde growing out. It's a slightly crumpled face, protected by sunglasses on a rainy morning and a west coast rock moustache through which his mumbles into his mobile phone.
He still has a chain around his neck and his jacket is still leather, but it gangs over sloping shoulders and his walks with a stiff-legged hobble, like Ozzy Osbourne, as though each impact with the unforgiving station platform judders straight through the soles of his cheap black plastic shoes and jangles nerves long-since shredded by a borrowed life of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll on the road with the bands that took him on unimaginable trips - Kashmir, Panama, Africa, sweet home Alabama.
Oh the stories he could tell about boozing with Bonzo, kicking back with Keef, jams with Jimi. If only he could recall... If only he had been there...
On the pod:
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
On the front page:
Lift-off! The Paralympics are go (Metro)
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