43 BACK TO BLOGGING

2008-01-10T09:33:00.001Z

BUT NOT HERE!!

I'm now at:

40three.wordpress.com

and ready for a new journey...

The End

2007-04-30T15:31:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking it over for some time now, and I have decided to draw a line under the 43 blog. It is time for me to move on to new things. I haven't posted regularly for some time now and all my attempts to get it going again have failed - my heart has moved on and it has taken me a while to realise it.

This blog has run its course, it has reached the end of the road. Better to stop now than pretend that i will get back to it. Part of the problem is that I nearly always cycle now - no bus blog with out a bus, as i said once before.

Thanks to all who have commented and read and encouraged. It's been great fun!

You may want to remove me from your links and blogroles, but I will leave the content up for now.

Bye!

Orthello's Sandwich Bar

2007-03-29T12:21:00.000+01:00

An eastern lady with a kind face serves me a mug of coffee and a smile for £1 from behind a raised glass counter that protects an assortment of sandwich fillings from the grubby fingers of the young and the sneezes of the old. Against the back wall where you may expect to see a chalkboard of prices and menus there is only a blue fly-zapping light that hums quietly, waiting for more pray.

I immediately like the place. I look around and it is busy and so I take a seat in the smoking area at the back – not that there are any smoking signs, but there are ashtrays and it is slightly separated from the main seating area.

Metal framed chairs with plywood seats are clustered around small round tables. At one of these tables sits a girl with Down’s syndrome. She is with a friend and smiles at me and every other customer.

The walls are painted mustard yellow from the waist up, and red below, all surrounded by bold blue woodwork. From where I’m sitting I can see into the kitchen where a man leans over a paper on the counter between fixing up plates of chips and beans, or bacon and eggs, or something similar.

I would recommend Othello’s Sandwich Bar – I enjoyed m mug of coffee and my time there.

Northenden

2007-03-26T18:26:00.000+01:00

With a population of about 12,000, Northenden lies on the south side of the River Mersey and is just outside M60 Manchester Ring Road. If this gives it an air of being ‘left out’, then the M56 and the ever busy Princess Parkway that further surround it (in a tight triangle of misfortune) make it feel somewhat ‘hemmed in’. Northenden is the kid who is rejected from the Cool Group but can’t find anyone else to play with because he has inadvertently found him self paralysed by fear in the middle of a year 11 football match.

The town faithfully clusters around the south end of Palentine Road, part of the 43 bus route, and on this little stretch of congested tarmac linger an array of interesting and not so interesting shops and bars and general services (you know, banks and funeral directors and that sort of thing).

One of these is Othello’s Sandwich Bar, where I found myself stopping for a coffee a few days ago (I often ‘find’ myself in places, I react badly to too high a degree of intentionality).

I would tell you about it now, but I don’t like long posts, so I will tell you about it tomorrow, instead.

One Year On.

2007-03-20T15:18:00.000Z

I have just noticed that I have been blogging 43 for over a year! Happy one year anniversary!

It has been a journey of ups and downs, of enthusiasm and of boredom, of lush fertile weeks of regular posts, and dry arid weeks of emptiness and nothingness.

The 43 has passed through deep shadow filled valleys, where death and decay are in the air and all is motionless but the slow steady creeping of the hit counter… but we have survived and the journey continues!

(I know what you’re thinking - It’s just a blog, Geoff, get some perspective – and I reply… well, actually I don’t reply, I just ignore you.)

I would like to thank those of you who have been so faithful - those who have bookmarked my blog, or added it to your feeds, and those who would have done so if you knew how - and experienced with me the highs and lows.

The truth is, for a little bit now I have been waiting to be inspired. The worst thing a blogger can do (that is, apart from going crazy and killing people or leaving wash-back in the milk bottle) is get bored of their own blog, and I confess, I have been a little bored.

But I am feeling inspired again! The 43 bus route is one of such depth and diversity and there will always be more to be said. What is more, the 43 bus route, broadly speaking, is my Manchester – the Manchester in which I live and work and drink coffee and meet friends and go to church and visit the bank.

So as I begin this new year of blogging, I will at times be getting off the bus and telling you about those places – the estates of Wythenshawe and Sharston, the Urban Villages of Northenden and Didsbury, through to Withington and Fallowfield, to the Curry Mile of Rusholm and on to the teaming bustle of the University. It is a cross section of the diversity of south Manchester.

On The Bright Side

2007-03-20T15:05:00.000Z

Do you ever look around you at the city - at the cars and roads; at the houses and power cables and telephone lines; at the manhole covers and pelican crossings - and feel wonder for what humanity has managed to put together?

Of course, it’s not perfect; far from it - it might not even be 'good' - but sometimes I am just a little impressed by it.

Nearly all the time cars don't crash into each other, they drive somewhere near the speed limit and on the correct side of the road.

And beneath what can be seen there is a complex infrastructure of pipes and drains and cables and information being ping-ponged around faster than you can think. It is all far beyond what any single person or organisation could come up with.

Many people feel it important to criticise society. Some do so because they want to improve it, and others just because they like to have a moan, (perhaps it makes us feel powerful).

Sometimes in Britain we can be a bit like spoiled children, forever perplexed as to why thing aren’t better.

And certainly there are things to criticise, and certainly it does need bettering, but there is also a place for a little bit of appreciation, every now and then, don't you think?

I am rather fond of the free local paper, Wythenshawe World, which gets delivered in humble monochrome to our estate twice a month. It searches high and low for the little achievements, the progress, the victories of the local people – and reports them next to a slightly fuzzy photo, nestled in amongst the adverts which fund this pioneer in positive thinking.

So next time I wait 25 minutes for a bus and see two arrive at once, before I get annoyed I will try and remember that it is a Pretty Good Thing that there are busses at all, buses that keep the rain off and carry me seven miles into the city without crashing.

Carpe Diem

2007-02-22T11:04:00.000Z

I sit in my seat, just behind the stair way, looking around at everything and nothing. Sometimes it amazes me that my mind can whirr away for forty minutes and achieve nothing. All those dead end thoughts and half formed ideas. Superficial musings drift aimlessly in and out of my head like floating seaweed in a harbour. Nothing comes together to last beyond the next traffic lights; no impressions made that deserve a place in the memory, except perhaps that I realise that if I look at windscreen wipers too long they become weird. Swish swash.

"Carpe Diem" - how important do I think this is? It did great things for Harvie.

But we cannot spend every moment of every day trying to squeeze the most out of it, can we? There is a time for working and a time for sleeping and time for letting seaweed drift through the mind. Perhaps I need an aimless bus ride every now and then?

The Ups and Downs

2007-01-26T13:17:00.000Z

Life is full of decisions (in case you hadn’t noticed). In fact, more than that, I think so much of life revolves around the interplay between our own decisions, (our autonomy, our choices) and external influences (coincidence, other peoples decisions etc). Life is like a game of ping pong (my mother used to say), and try as we like, we can’t play both sides of the table.

As I approach the roundabout I see the bus go past. He is indicating to pull into my stop (which is just out of sight), but I won’t get there in time.
Despair.
But, what if, just perhaps, there are four people waiting at the stop to get on, perhaps one of them has a pushchair, perhaps they will all want to buy tickets with notes, perhaps one of them will ask for a week pass that needs to be printed and put in it’s little pouch, perhaps then if I half ran from here I would make it.
Hope.
A shot is played and I choose to go for it and I make it. A good decision. I save myself ten minutes of bus stop waiting.

As I head home I choose to stop for a cheese pasty before I get on the bus. As I leave the bakery I see a 43 disappear into the distance. Had I not stopped I would have been on it. I wait 20 minutes for the next bus, which is only a single decker, and a few stops later we are told to get off and wait for the another bus (no explanation given).

Stopping for a pasty was a bad decision, costing me 25 minutes of bus stop waiting.

These are some of the ups and downs of my life right now.

I hope I do not take it for granted.

Vacation

2007-01-19T09:14:00.000Z

I apologise for the longest break since this humble blog began its life. I have been on a blog vacation which means that, for an extended period of time, I tried to forget I have a blog. It has been rather (un)like the little boy who, tired of the feeding and the care and the cleaning after the initial novelty has worn away, tries his hardest to shut out the memory of his pet rabbit in the hope that it will be forced to escape in search of food, or perhaps even curl up into a small ball deep in the hay and enter a wakeless sleep. But much to his surprise our young protagonist returns to the hutch after the cold winter to find the rabbit emerging from a deep hibernation and looking as content and healthy as ever. Filled with a renewed sense of respect for his sturdy pet the boy determines not to abandon his rabbit right now (he decides he should at least try and keep it alive for a year).

The interesting thing about not blogging for a month is that my hit counters haven't shown any decline (and no, not all my hits are from stray googlers in search of bus timetables).

On Shared Experience

2006-12-12T10:08:00.000Z

More than many things we are relational. We all must share our lives, to some degree, though I'm sure some feel that need more than others. It seems inescapable, however, that one of my motivations for blogging is the desire to share my experiences. I make this journey alone, and I'm fine with that. In fact, I quite enjoy it. But at times I want to share a glance, share a joke, an experiance. While I waited at the bus stop an old man cycled past on the other side of the road, straining with each peddle, all wrapped up against the biting December combination of damp and cold, and he reminded me very much of Fungus the Bogeyman. In fact he reminded me of Fungus the Bogey man more than anything has ever reminded me of Fungus the Bogeyman. If you have never read Fungus the Bogeyman you really should.

A lady sat down in front of me on the bus and talked to herself quietly until she reached her destination. If I had been sat with someone we would have exchanged looks, but the looks wouldn't have said anything in particular, except perhaps they would have shared an understanding of the fuzzy pathos of the moment. And I won't say anything else now because really, what can you say?

Across from her a couple who both bore a resemblance to Mick Jagger gave a running commentary on the journey. They talked about how expensive that flat might be, and how futile that mans attempt to run for the bus was, and how that lady is going to get herself killed if she keeps stepping out into the road like that.

Old Man Flags Down Bus

2006-12-05T17:32:00.000Z

I recently bought a PDA, complete with scribbly note-taking software (as you may have guessed). Using this I faithfully recorded the posture of an old man flagging down the bus.

Time-Lapse

2006-12-01T11:17:00.000Z

I pass at least a couple of building sites on the journey at the moment. Each time we drive past some small change has taken place, the buildings growing slowly up from the ground like, you know, things that grow...plants and things.

And it occurs to me that seeing a snapshot of the progress, as we chug past each day, is rather like watching one of those time-lapse videos, except, of course, that I have to wait a while between each frame.

There is something fascinating about the illusion of time-lapse photography. We see a process take place at a speed that matches the speed of our lives more closely, and it becomes a whole new process. I think that we're just not very good at understanding things that happen too quickly, or too slowly, in the same way that we struggle with thinking about things on the wrong scale, too massive, too tiny. The world that we know, it seems, is only a small subset of what is out there.

Port Out...

2006-11-29T08:20:00.000Z

Today the top deck is peaceful and warm. A few muted sounds drift up from below; the hum of the engine is therapeutic. A guy with glasses and a brown coat (you know, that guy) is asleep in the back corner. Today the top deck is predominantly middle class. (Can I say that? I'm sure some of the other passengers would object.)

I look across the road to a 43 bus stuck in a queue of traffic heading south, and I'm glad I'm not on that bus (mainly because I'd then be going the wrong way, and I'd have to get off at the next stop and cross the road).

We pass house number one hundred and ninety nine on Palatine Road, and it looks like quite a Posh house, mainly because it has the house number carved out in words on a piece of stone. Their next-door neighbours, at No. 197, seem a little more down to earth.

Notes From The Field, No.1

2006-11-27T09:02:00.000Z

Philosophies of the 43, No.2

2006-11-24T09:41:00.000Z

Empiricism

Empiricists generally hold to the belief that the only way to have any idea about the timings of the bus is to actually go out and empirically measure the arrivals and departures. True Knowledge of The Bus, they say, comes only through what our senses can observe about the actual bus. Other methods are shunned, particularly the appeal to the Bus Timetable. Such an ancient text (sometimes up to six months old) offers no path to truth, and should not be taken as authoritative, argues the empiricist. Bus empiricists are a product of the enlightenment: we should no longer just unquestioningly accept the teachings of the Bible, the Ancient Philosophers, or indeed, the Bus Timetable.

Read more about empiricism here.

Sunny-sunny-cold-cold

2006-11-22T08:30:00.000Z

A journey marked by magpies (there really are a lot of magpies) and piles of leaves, and a used nappy on the side of the pavement.
I waited a while for the bus to arrive, but that was ok; my gloves kept my hands warm and I listened to Sticky Fingers. Blue skies and orange leaves and the 43 bus is particularly well suited for this sunny-sunny-cold-cold-day and I pay nine pounds and fifty pence for a 'Mega Rider', but because 'mega' is not a word I like to say too much I just ask for a week pass. The bus driver seems to care that he is late and is in a hurry and now the laminate pouch that holds my ticket will have a crease in it all week, but I soon get over it.

Philosophies of the 43, No.1

2006-11-20T08:57:00.000Z

EXPRESSIVISM

To say that the bus is ‘on time’ or ‘late’ is not to state a fact about the tardiness of the bus, but rather to express a personal attitude towards the specific time that the bus gets to you. There is, according to expressivism, no fact of the matter as to the lateness of the bus.

A potential problem for the expressivist is that many people believe that a bus can be labelled according to the time it was supposed to arrive. Hence ‘look out, Beatrice, here comes the 9.10’ and ‘the 5.35 never even bloody turned up!’ are phrases that can be heard at many a British bus stop. It would follow from this that a bus could truly be late or early depending on when it arrived relative to the time it was supposed to arrive. So if the 9.10 arrives at 9.15, it would, as a matter of fact, be late.

The expressivist still has a few tricks up her sleeve though. She would argue that to attribute specific times to a bus is to mistake the common bus for an intercity train, or perhaps an aeroplane. This is an error that should be avioded, cliams the expressivist, because a train is a lot longer than a bus, and aeroplanes have big wings. Instead, the expressivist argues, there are just a bunch of times, and a bunch of busses, and no particular correlation between the two. It turns out there is plenty of evidence to support this claim. SO, to describe a particular bus as the 9.10 to Piccadilly is a category mistake.

If a commuter turns up to the bus stop at 9.15 and the 43 arrives a few moments later, they would be quite rational (according to our expressivist) to say that the bus was exactly on time. However, the old lady who has been waiting since 9.00 would also be rational to say, of the very same bus, that it was late. They are simply expressing attitudes towards the bus that are neither true nor false.

A recent survey shows that many bus drivers are expressivists, and subsequently tend to ignore passengers who complain that the bus is late, since they will always arrive at the stop at the same time as the bus and describe it accordingly as exactly on time.

Read more about expressivism here.

On Yellow Coats

2006-11-09T09:10:00.000Z

When it rains, and the air is cold and thick, and you can see your breath, I think it is quite understandable to be unusually appreciative of the colourful company waiting at the bus stop. A short stocky man in a yellow rain coat, who I have seen before on a number of occasions (always wearing that same rain coat) confidently strode up to our little gathering. He had a brown woollen hat pulled over his head and a smile as wide as his face. In a thick Jamaican accent he chatted to an older man, who he evidently knew to some degree (no doubt they had met at this bus stop a few times before). From their conversation I learned that the Co-Op in civic is due to close after Christmas, ('What's going to take it's place?' 'I don't know...Asda?') and that the women with two dogs across the road takes the dogs for a walk at 4am every morning, without fail. Apparently.
This little experience got my day off to a good start. It might have been that the familiar Jamaican, with his low, heavy stature, all weather clothing and wonderful smile had imparted to me a sense of being able to face whatever the day may throw up, with a smile thrown in to boot.

How it was.

2006-10-31T11:10:00.000Z

Now it’s later in the evening, the 43 reduced to once every half an hour. I wait under rain and the orange street lights, surrounded by a haphazard scattering of evening bus riders; mothers and misfits and melancholy wanderers, and those that are like me, and those that are so different from me, and our breath and our sounds are muffled by the heavy clouds that linger not far above, up-lit with the pallid glow of the city.

I’ve been waiting for 45 minutes, watching the other buses role past and kick up spay, the damp slowly rising up my trouser legs. I wonder where all the 43 busses go when the sun goes down and the rain falls. Perhaps they migrate south.

Eventually, a single decker, left alone and struggling to cope. Through the heavily steamed windows I make out a heaving mass of people inside, and once aboard I can only hover in the door well, next to the driver, standing well forward of that notice - the notice that, as all bur riders know, we are not supposed to stand forward of.

I allow my eyes to wander across the sea of faces: such diversity. As we push southwards the passengers begin to thin, the bus breathing a sigh of relief as more people get off than on, and I find a seat behind a ginger haired student reading a book on the histories of women’s imprisonment.

There is no moral to this brief anecdote, it offers no emotional cadence and has no witty remarks to wrap it up, because this is not a story with an ending, this is just how it was.

Update:

2006-10-17T00:08:00.000+01:00

Allow me to interrupt your 43 bus blog experience for a rare deviation. Yesterday, at the first ever annual Manchester Blog Awards, ‘43’ was named winner of the Blog of the Year category! Can you believe it?

What's that? What do you mean 'No'? Look, I was even given a logo to prove it.

Yes, an unlikely turn of events, especially given the quality of the competition: ‘43’ was shortlisted for Blog of the Year alongside the venerable Mancubist, and the witty and intelligently written Airport Diaries. The writer of the Airport Diaries and I were even given the opportunity to read a few of our posts out at the award ceremony at Urbis, which was tied in to the Manchester Literature Festival.

A big thanks goes out to the Manchizzle for masterminding and organising the awards, and also for therefore disqualifying herself from the competition and hence giving the rest of us a chance.

While I’m at it I’d also like to thank my wife for staying out late and supporting me even though she has to get up early because she has a real job.

In more (shamelessly self promoting) news, it’s been an busy few days for the 43 blog, as only a week ago I gave a short interview for Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester. In case you are curious Richard has kindly posted about it on the BBC Manchester Blog.

Please accept my apologies for interrupting normal viewing to bring you this (I couldn’t resist), more 43 proper coming soon.

Digital Journey

2006-10-13T10:43:00.000+01:00

I must know, but I daren’t ask!

He is dressed all in black, broad shoulders, heavy build. His skin is tanned dark and thick fuzzy black sideburns extend from a dense head of black dreads that hang no lower then his ears. His feet are planted firmly on the floor and he stares intently forward, the front window absorbing his concentration like a giant video screen.

Then, suddenly, as the bus slows up, he whips out a compact digital camera, holds it out a foot in front of his face (in that slightly awkward manner so typical of digital camera users) and shoots. In an instant he has captured the view ahead in his little silver gadget – this familiar scene of Oxford Road converted into a million ones and zeros. Then the camera is gone, hidden somewhere within his black coat.

Only, as we pull into the next bus stop, the same thing happens again! And again, and again, all the way to Northenden. And I would absolutely love to know why. Who (apart from me) would take this much interest in the 43 bus route? But I daren’t ask.

On Moving Forward

2006-10-10T09:31:00.000+01:00

For the first time I board the brand new stagecoach double-decker. Stepping into the future, I buy my buss pass with anticipation.

What technological advances will be incorporated into this icon of 21st century travel? Perhaps personal video screens, or wireless internet, or a massaging electric seat, or a holographic assistant to tell me when my stop is approaching, or maybe even an escalator to carry me to the top deck.

From the outside it is clear that the designers of busses still feel that the future is marked by an increasing degree of curviness. The only obvious addition, apart from making things a bit more curvy, are roll-bar type structures running up the front edges, presumably to parry low hanging braches in leafy suburbs, or maybe for the odd monkey or two to hang from.

Once inside I confess to being a little disappointed. No heated seats, no wireless internet. The ‘stopping’ sign has been given a new sexy-curvy makeover, but really not much change at all.

Except, that is, for one phenomenal advancement. We are truly living in an age of progression. On this new model double-decker the no-smoking stickers are on the outside of the window! No longer will they be picked at and scratched and torn by bored commuters. I bet someone got a raise.

Unbrellas

2006-10-09T10:36:00.000+01:00

So many umbrellas!

Of Brass Letterboxes

2006-10-03T13:19:00.000+01:00

We’re driving through Didsbury, something we do pretty regularly on this bus, and I gaze with envy at the large period housing that lines the road, with healthy driveways and giant front doors. A fair few of these houses have been converted into apartments, and I happen to notice that the front door of one such conversion has large letterboxes stacked from top to bottom, such that the majority of the door is in fact made of brass. I imagine the postman pushing letters through each box, on his tiptoes one minute, on his knees the next - poor guy (or girl). I picture them all landing in the same pile on the floor on the other side - anything to amuse myself (it doesn't take much).

Never A Dull Moment

2006-10-03T13:16:00.000+01:00

I look down and see and black wallet on top of a bus stop. I wonder if there is any money in it? No, I’m sure there isn’t. But you never know, it might belong to someone who wants it back? No, it’s damp and mouldy and has obviously been there a long time. If there was anything of any value to anyone it would have been taken out. Really? But perhaps that’s what everyone thinks, and in fact it is housing a huge wodge of drug money? I doubt that very much. It’s a fabric wallet with a Velcro fastening, not posh enough, and it’s hanging slightly open, and look, it’s all damp and mouldy. But what if…? I could come back another day and have a look, or jump off the bus now and hoist myself up to see? No really, leave it, it is most defiantly not worth it. And you would look like a tramp.

The 43 pulls away before I even get to wondering about the large orange roadworks barrier and the baseball cap that similarly grace that bus stop roof. Saved for another day.

City Love

2006-09-20T22:31:00.000+01:00

From this seat, ten feet up, through a window I watch a city pass that I love. There are two kinds of window that lend themselves to city gazing, and this is one of them. The other is the window of an apartment, high above and looking out – at night after the rain has just let up, as the street lights tinkle in the puddles far below.
But what is lacked here in elevation is made up for by motion. I sit still, aboard my 43, and gaze and the city rolls past and I absorb it and adore it, from suburbs to centre.
But to love a city? A city of bus congestion and wet streets? A city with angry looking souls, who smoke on the back seat, a city with students who crowd the streets and pubs? This and so much more. Manchester, what a city.

SeptemberBus

2006-09-20T22:16:00.000+01:00

A beautiful September sunshine is breaking through cartoon cotton clouds that drift so effortlessly above us.

Bus of mine, together again, welcome, how have you been?

Where have I been? Somewhere warmer, where I rode a bus that took Euro’s and had a little video screen above our heads, continuously spewing forth gaudy advertisements. I am glad you have no such screen, (yet - I see it coming, over that next brow).

We clatter and jolt through the recently repopulated student district, and fresh faces scuttle about with fresh overdrafts which they will kindly scatter into the city’s economy, before it is time for them to migrate again and be refuelled.

The edges of some leaves are beckoning autumn with early brown, but otherwise all is lush and green under this beautiful September sunshine.

Blog Silence

2006-09-03T16:49:00.000+01:00

Having come to the end of an intense deadline that has kept me from posting for a while, I am now going on holiday for a week! Sorry about the blog silence then, but you can expect some new stuff in 8 - 10 days. Much love, Geoff.

Transitory Family

2006-08-27T22:55:00.000+01:00

By this bus we are united.
Briefly we are caught up together; our fates are entwined and interdependent.
The bus slows and we all slow,
it clips the curb and we all jolt in our seats,
her phone rings and we all hear it,
his baby screams and we all endure it,
they smile and we all are warmed by it,
he lights up and we all tolerate it,
she sobs on the front seat and we all feel curious pity.

The bus breaks down and we all swarm off.
(But not quite all; one old lady stays behind, too long in years to follow the crowd. She is in no rush, and will try her chances with the mechanics.)
We all avoid saying thank you to the driver as we all leave because we all know it will sound sarcastic. We all appreciate that it’s not his fault, and we all are secretly glad of a break in routine.
We all swarm off our failed 43 and march as one to the next stop where we all wait for the next bus.

(But not quite all; I keep walking to a stop further on and so sever my ties with that transitory family.)

On Interior Lights

2006-08-23T21:56:00.000+01:00

That time of year is here again (already? how fast the summer fades!) when the bus’ interior lights flicker into life sometime during the ride home. On a rainy late afternoon, heavy clouds bring premature dusk.

The light outside reminds me of a solar eclipse I sat out for some years back (a little disappointing, I hoped for dramatic daytime blackness, not a simulation of overcast Manchester.)

Autumn is drawing in, descending with a weight that will brown the leaves, then pluck them from their branches.

And with it the buses become illuminated. While exterior light penetrates walls and breaks boundaries, opens paths and frees us to the world, interior light confirms edges, secures exclusion, enhances boundaries.

So as autumn comes, so does a heightened sense of our spaces, those enclosures we move between, that hold out and keep in.

Java for Students and Delightless Pop

2006-08-21T12:26:00.000+01:00

I am like you.

I feel my journey is being sabotaged by an inescapable impatience; an irrational itch for the unobtainable. Will whitening my knuckles as I grip the dimpled orange bar make the bus move faster? Will my unjustified frustration toward the guy who fumbles in a bag for his bus pass help him in his search?

I want to relax and enjoy the passage through familiar places and fruitful thoughts, but instead I fight a weakness (this irrational impatience) that so rudely pinches and prods me into discomfort.

[That guy across from me is reading Java for Students, and some boy a few seats back has delightless pop music hissing out of his mobile phone]

Who are we to be so controlled by the parts of us we would rather let go of, or excise with a sharp knife? But it is not so simple; we are not the sum of a thousand separate parts that can be popped out like Lego bricks if they don’t suit our tastes.

A single person waves the bus down at every stop, at every five yards. Perhaps if I concentrate hard enough the bus driver will stop picking up and dropping off, and I will get there on time.

On Liking Blue (and Orange).

2006-08-18T12:40:00.000+01:00

I sit, surrounded by blue and orange, the colour scheme of the 43 bus. They’re ‘complementary colours’ I remember from school.

“What a lovely blue this is! And especially when placed next to this delightful orange. I had never known that blue could look so good. Up until now, red has been my favourite colour, but now I think it must be blue. Or perhaps orange, the orange here looks so wonderful; perhaps I will paint my house orange! Sitting here surrounded by such superb colours, I feel happy, and the world is going well for me. I am so glad I got a stagecoach bus today. I will certainly get one tomorrow, and then perhaps become a share holder. How I do love blue and orange.”

I have these thoughts every day.

(It's not the 43)

2006-08-16T09:22:00.000+01:00

I board a bus, it’s not the 43, but it is a bus, a step in the right direction, though it’s not the 43. A bus “that takes you to town!”, as I am reassured seven times by a small boy calling out at the front to a pair of adults who might be his parents.

There’s no top deck (it’s not the 43), and so we make do, huddled up along each bench, while mothers at the front tactfully tessellate their pushchairs.

Did you know that since I’ve been cycling more often, people have been posting me their bus passes and pleading with me to get the bus and blog about it? Seriously, I know, it’s crazy! It’s happened loads of times!

Well, ok, maybe not loads. A few times though. Well, once, for sure. And, I guess, technically speaking, it wasn’t a bus pass in the envelope, but it was money! Or at least, it was a request for money, strictly speaking. And it wasn’t so much from a fan of my blog, as from our gas supplier. But still, pretty cool huh?

Anyway, I’m on the bus (though not the 43) and it keeps stopping every twenty yards to pick up more passengers, more mothers with pushchairs, and I see a beautiful dance, The Pushchair Dance, that I usually miss from sitting on the top deck. Each time a pushchair gets on or off the dance begins as they deftly rearrange themselves in that tiny space.

A brief return.

2006-08-01T09:58:00.000+01:00

And I was back, earlier than expected. It was like the feeling of returning to school after a long break –I was suddenly reminded of how familiar it all was, this experience which had been tidied into the store cupboard of my mind: The glow of the orange ’43’ appearing through the rain; a wobbly walk to the top deck where a I fling my sodden bag on my favourite seat, graciously waiting for my return; the rain running down the window near my head, distorting the outside world into a fluid assortment of shape and muted colour; a not-too-grubby copy of the Metro, which has faithfully continued it’s decline into tabloid in my absence, but which I thumb through nevertheless; a smoker at the back of the bus who waits not a minute after I sit down before adding to the atmosphere.

I sigh and smile and wipe the rain from my face. This is, without a doubt, a bus journey through south Manchester.

Let me tell you story...

2006-07-31T10:22:00.000+01:00

1. I was cycling home on my bike under a warm early evening sun down a wider stretch of Palatine road; wide enough to allow my mind to wander and think less of the passing busses that otherwise rumble by within 12 inches of my elbow. And as my mind was wandering I got to wondering about my long term goals for life and I realised that, for better or worse, I was driven by the ambition to make some kind (I haven’t worked out what kind yet) of positive difference to the world at large. Now this might sound all very noble, but perhaps it would be better described by the fairly firm belief that if my life was to have any value, that if I was to have any value, I had better do something pretty darn good with myslef. The road narrowed; I dodged some drains and wobbled from the wind of a passing car and my mind moved on to the more mundane.

2. That night I lay awake as my wife drifted into sleep beside me, and I became aware that I was anxious. Suddenly I’m high above and looking at the whole of the world and the whole of time, and everything that was and is and will be (pretty low resolution from that height, don’t ask for details) and my small place in all of it. [I usually attribute an episode of this sort to spending too much time thinking and not enough time being specifically task orientated. If I had a job with projects and daily dead lines and practical applications I would probably be fast asleep by now.] Anyway, so I was thinking about life, the Universe and everything, and my place in it, and it became apparent that I was anxious because I was worried that I wouldn’t stand out enough, that I wouldn’t make a difference, that I would screw up, or worse, completely miss out on the opportunities handed to me. I feared my life would drift along in a mist of mediocrity.

3. This story has a happy ending. I have been skimming through Alain De Botton’s Status Anxiety (rather appropriately) and so I lifted it from the bedside table and crept into another room. Part 2 ‘Solutions to Status Anxiety’, Section IV ‘Christianity’, p.248, de Botton is describing the benefits of gazing upon ruins to remind us of the fleeting nature of human achievements. He writes:

‘We may enjoy local victories, a few years in which we are able to impose a degree of order upon the chaos, but everything is ultimately fated to slop back into a primeval soup. If this prospect has the power to console, it is perhaps because the greater part of our anxieties stems from an exaggerated sense of the importance of our projects and concerns. We are tortured by our ideals, and by a punishingly high minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing.’

And perhaps de Botton has a point. There is nothing like ‘an exaggerated sense of the importance of our projects and concerns’ to keep us awake at night. I needed to let go, to relax, and to enjoy the gift of life without worrying, so much, about the bigger picture, because in the end I’m really not that important. And although this is only one small facet on the diamond of life, rather than a truth to live by, it sure helped me to get a good nights sleep.

A letter.

2006-07-28T10:10:00.000+01:00

Dear Geoff,
Firstly, I'd like to say how much I've enjoyed your blog about the 43 bus, it really is the best blog about the 43 bus on the Web, and the Web is a really big place, really big. I mean, the hard drive on my MP3 player is pretty big - but the Web is like even bigger than that. So well done there.
However, let me ask you this, what would be the quickest way to push the self destruct button on this poetical saga of love and hope? A rhetorical question, of course. You well know the answer. Perhaps, say, if you stopped getting the bus in favour of some other form of transport? Like a toy that’s lost its novelty value, you have cast aside the once much loved 43 and began a new affair with your recently fixed mountain bike. Loser.
Now I know what you're going to say: the bike is quicker (for you), more healthy (for you) and cheaper (for who? - for you). It's all about you, isn't it? It hurts.
So what now? Is this the end? There is no WestWing without Jed Bartlet. There is no bus blog without a bus. I suppose you think you can evolve, keep the name perhaps, but vary the inspiration? But what, are you going to write about your BIKE journey? Gee, give me a break. I suppose you think it'll be quirky, people will ask 'Why is this blog called 43?' and 'Why is there a little picture of a bus at the top?' and you will answer 'Well, years ago I used to blog only about the 43 bus, isn't that great?' No, Geoff, it isn't great.
Anyway, soon the rain will come back, and the cold will come back, and you will be remained that you live in Manchester, not Mexico, and you will find yourself crawling back to the 43.
Until then? Perhaps you can pull something out of the bag, something more entertaining than some dumb letter to yourself. We live in hope.

Anyway, lots of love,
Geoff

p.s. say hi to mum and dad for me.

Glimpse

2006-07-11T12:05:00.000+01:00

A glimpse, a glance, lasting a second, or less, and then they're gone, carried away by the earth rolling under the bus. We cut to the next scene, but the residual image remains, pulled off the conveyor belt and fingered by the mind, pressed and prodded and turned:

A middle aged male, in grey pinstripe suit. Hunched slightly as he sits at a bus stop, his melancholy eyes gaze down at a small leafy twig from a privet hedge that he turns in the fingers of both hands. His legs are slumped out before his rounded belly, and a tear roles down his cheek. (I'm aware I may have inadvertently added the tear in post production – I remember what I saw, not necessarily what there was.)

Later, we’re passing through a housing estate, and movement draws my eyes to a garden where a large black dog, perhaps a Labrador, is swinging two feet above the ground, fixed by his teeth to a red rubber hoop, in turn held by a stocky man pivoting on his right foot as he turns. The dog sways up and down around the circular path, legs flailing out behind, and the man catches my eye and grins. Before the dog has completed a full circle they are carried away into the distance.

Boring as a bus ride.

2006-07-10T22:40:00.000+01:00

I sit, uninspired, the bus rolls along but my brain is static. It sluggishly struggles for some cognitive state above that of the free Metro newspaper that had entertained it for longer than usual. I have nothing to say. A boring bus journey, yet no different from any other. The difference is in me, it seems. I do my best to make a choice about how I see the world, but it’s not always possible. Is it friendly, or hostile? Is it inspiring, or depressing? Is it as wide and awesome as the galaxies or as mundane and irritating as the chewing gum on my seat? Today, boring. Now there’s a word I dislike- boring. Someone old and wise used to tell me that only boring people get bored, and there’s some truth to it – though don’t let it give you a complex.

On being alone on a crowded bus.

2006-07-03T00:30:00.000+01:00

It was grey outside, with a light drizzle playing at the window, not too cold. The bus carried a muted odour of chips and fizzy drinks that wasn’t unpleasant, though grew more tiresome as the journey progressed. I looked out as a small boy hurried past on a miniature skateboard, and back inside a girl across from me took a sip out of a bottle as if the most important thing in the world to her was to avoid letting the rim of that bottle touch her lips. Another guy next to me finished a can of beer and wedged it down in the crack between the two seats in front, while a Front Row Foreigner chatted away loudly on his mobile.
So many individuals surrounding me, each with a unique life, a unique view of the world, a unique take on this thing we call existence. So many individuals, each with a self, an identity, like mine, I suppose, yet as different as I care to imagine.

Cine City

2006-06-28T16:30:00.000+01:00

Now is the time, I think, to tell you about Cine City. I could choose any post, I choose this one. It’s always there, a brief but regular part of the journey, and sometimes I don’t even lookup to see it, but today I did. The traffic slowed as we drew alongside this monument to an age of local cinema. An age gone, not long gone, just gone.

Unused for some years, the chipboard over the windows and doors is now covered in posters for local gigs, and the rest is covered in pigeon poo. There is a classic looking sign arching out over the main doors that would once have listed the films showing on each of the three screens, and informs you the Box Office number is (or was) 445 81--.* Now the slots for the film titles lie empty, and the screen numbers are left to forever advertise their solitude. And those lonely screen numbers are the key to the pathos in this story, as they unremittingly remind the world that somewhere within those pigeon poo grey walls sit three forgotten theatres, slipping into disrepair.

It was built in 1912, one of Britain’s first cinemas, and was closed to the public back in 2001. Since then it has avoided being turned into a chain pub, though may well be knocked down to make way for apartments, which would make me sad. If anyone knows any developments on this, do let me know.

* When I got home I phoned the box office, but was thrown somewhat when a lady answered so I hung up. It made me think perhaps I shouldn't put the number up on my blog, even though it's displayed for all to see in Withington.

On Ageing Buses

2006-06-16T21:35:00.000+01:00

I travelled home today on an old model double-decker. Many of the seat cushions had been repaired, and across from me a seat frame had been re-welded and patched up with tape. Old chewing gum had become an integral part of the infrastructure, and I could only guess at the original colour of the floor and walls. (So I guessed brown, because a lot of things were brown back in those days.) Common among the cheaper bus companies - that don’t run a service to where I live - these busses are being phased out of the 43 route, in preference for built in CCTV and bright orange digital displays. And I’m not sad or nostalgic because I’m far too young for that, and I like seeing the bright orange ‘43’ appearing through the fading light and the drizzle, promising a warm and comfortable ride home.

On Discarded Pushchairs

2006-06-12T23:11:00.000+01:00

We passed a cordoned off area where the pavement had been pulled up for some pipe work, or something similar, and among the drinks cans and sweet rappers that had been thrown into that small site, there was now slightly bent and rusty pushchair. Rejected and discarded, it lay with the more common rubbish within those orange plastic barriers. And I began to wonder how it had arrived there, so unwanted and unloved. Perhaps a mum had been pushing her toddler when it suddenly occurred to her that their offspring had grown too large for such a vehicle. “You can walk from now on, Darren” she might have said “and we won’t be needin’ this and more!” as she tossed it into the nearest patch of excavated pavement.

Why is it that we so reliably discard our rubbish into these temporary holes? Is it that a few crisp packets are blown in by the wind, and then the area is repeatedly mistaken for a mini landfill sight? Is it a way of showing contempt for the unsightly roadside obstruction? I suspect it is a combination of opting for the path of least resistance (‘but it’s so much closer than that bin just over there’) and following suit (‘it appears that other people have dumped their rubbish in this hole, so I had better do the same’). Either way, we are a strange people, we who call ourselves civilised.

half-term

2006-06-12T23:02:00.000+01:00

We pulled in to a bus stop graced by a mother attending to three curly haired girls, all younger than 8, I guess. She wiped the mouth of the youngest with a spit-dampened cloth, while the oldest ignored beckons and drifted further from the shelter. A day out with the kids. It was half term, and the bus was teaming with mothers and sons and daughters on their way into the city centre, shopping and ice cream and playing in the Piccadilly water fountains. A guy across from me was reading his Bible. It was one of those red hardback ‘church-pew-standard-issue’ types, although if I had to guess I would have said he didn’t go to a church with pews, but rather to one with a pale blue carpet and lots of stackable chairs.

A few shared words.

2006-06-05T16:00:00.000+01:00

I stroll idly down the pavement, squinting in the comforting sunlight, trying not to stare too obviously into the gardens and houses that I pass, though curious as always about the slow changes that affect this stretch of road: a new driveway laid, a new house for sale, a new car window adorning the edge of the road in a million shiny pieces.

I arrive at the bus stop, it’s been a while. I choose my position in this still life of patient waiters. A couple of Other Buses arrive and leave and all those around me are gone, and I listen to my music and half wonder if they cancelled the 43 while I’ve been away. An elderly lady shuffles towards me with a smile.

“Was that the 43?” she asks, although I don’t hear it because of my headphones. How introverted and anti-social they make me. I lift off those walls to the world and lean closer.

“Was that the 43?” she repeats, referring to the bus that had just deprived me of the last of those waiting with me.

“No, the 44. I haven’t seen the 43 yet and I’ve been here a while.” I reply, returning her kind smile.

“Oh, good. I was worried I’d missed it!”

Together we wait, she and I, brief companions with those few shared words. And then the bus.

Broken Promises

2006-05-31T16:48:00.000+01:00

I promised so much, and what do I do? I fail you, that's what. "It'll be crazy" I said. "You just wait" I said. But May 16th came, and went, and all I offer is one measly post in nearly a whole month. What's worse, I deceived. The previous post implied I had been on The Bus, in the rain, with the blossom. Alas, a lie. It was written from fast fading memories of earlier days.
The truth? I haven't spent time with my muse for weeks now. And what good is a bus blog without a bus? No good, that's what.
But there is hope, though I dare not promise. There is a second chance, though I cannot ask for your trust. There are better days ahead, though I turn to look back.
Time will tell.

On Choice.

2006-05-24T13:19:00.000+01:00

I glance at my fellow passengers set against a backdrop of pink blossom as we wait at a stop for new journeyers to alight. The young and the old, the rough and the smooth, unwittingly haloed by this cerise turn of spring that fills every window on that side of the bus. They can choose how to look, I think to myself, but not how they’ll be seen.

In the rain I watch water droplets chase each other down the glass, zigzagging around microscopic obstacles. They refuse to take the path that seems the most obvious to me, subject instead to unseen forces, as invisible as those that nudge the lives of the pedestrians that shuffle around outside in a blur, out of focus beyond my immediate gaze. They, like me, can choose where to go, but not all of how they’ll get there. They can choose their destination, but not every path they will take.

We are wise to be humbled by those unseen forces that shape our journey and might, even without us knowing, find us momentarily silhouetted against a curtain of pink blossom.

Sadness

2006-05-04T18:45:00.000+01:00

I am sad, because I am enjoying some wonderful bus riding, but I'm too busy to post about them. I'll be too busy until May 16th, after that it'll be crazy, you just wait.
In the mean time, if you're suffering from withdrawal, why not browse through some back posts?

Unashamed.

2006-04-28T08:03:00.000+01:00

Man has tattoos and headphones in, one earring, dozes, coat across his knees. Behind him man reads a newspaper, head tilted, worn leather jacket on his back and cropped hair. Behind him man chews gum, one headphone in, taps his fingers on his knee, leather jacket, arm rests over his bag. Behind him man reads newspaper, big features, like Shrek, looks pensive as he reads, biting his large top lip, squinting in the sun, dirty white trainers. Behind him, an empty seat.

The back bench, a man rises and walks down the aisle. Notices a pretty girl, and looks briefly. Then he turns back and looks for longer, staring, creepy. I can’t see if she’s looking at him. He turns to go downstairs and takes a final look as he leaves. Unashamed.

The bus is crawling along in traffic. The sun is shining outside. I’m still wearing my headphones, but my music stopped twenty minutes ago.

Wish you were here,

Love,

Geoff

A conversation between strangers

2006-04-26T19:43:00.000+01:00

A: ‘What did you say?’

B: ‘huh?’

A: ‘What?’

B: ‘What?’

A: ‘Are you talking to me?’

B: ‘No, I wasn’t’

A: ‘What?’

B: ‘What d’you say?’

(I wondered if I should turn round and translate for them)

A: ‘Are you talking to me?’

B: ‘no’

A: ‘Huh?’

B: ‘never mind’

A: ‘I just wondered if you were talking to me, cos I saw you staring at me.’

A. got up and cautiously walked down the aisle, looking around as if the whole top deck were conspiring against him, then disappeared downstairs.

On Sitting Near the Back

2006-04-24T10:33:00.003+01:00

A mid afternoon journey home. There were a few people scattered towards the front of the top deck, and I decided to sit near the back. It was a foolhardy decision but I was feeling confident, and there was still crisp copy of Metro news on a bench second from the back. I took it up and replaced it with myself, scanning the front cover as I settled. Next stop. A middle aged man was walking down the aisle, eyes fixed on the back row. He had a slightly chubby and scrunched up face, as if someone had reached in like a puppeteer and pulled the bridge of his nose half an inch into his head, drawing the cheek bones and eye sockets with it.
He sat down directly behind me. I knew what was coming. My previous excuses would be no good here. Fate.

A rustle of belongings, and I thought that if I caught him before he lit up I’d stand a better chance. But I couldn’t just accuse him; I needed to be coughing on the smoke to get the sympathy vote. I hesitated and the smoke wafted past. I half turned, and then back, no, yes, no, I would do it.

“Do you mind not smoking, mate?” A quick sideways glance at the no smoking signs.

As I opened my mouth he seemed to know what was coming, and his face dropped into an expression of self pity and sorrow. It was the look a beggar gives to the policeman who tries to move him on, or the drunk gives to the bar tender who refuses to serve him any more.

‘But it’s all I’ve got!’ the look said.

‘But I’ve gotta start ‘nuther shift!’ the man said.

Pause.

And perhaps it was all he had. I had become the policeman, too concerned with rules and regulations and my own comfort to care about the plight of poor stranger trying to keep his head above the water. He got the sympathy vote, I lost it.

I looked at him again, ‘Well…I…’

So I stood up and mover down to the front of the bus. He muttered a few inaudible insults as I left. He had the back row on the bus, and his cigarette, and perhaps not much else, and who was I to take those from him?

43 - The Musical

2006-04-21T19:00:00.000+01:00

I got my preferred seat, behind the stair-well, plenty of leg room. Across form me most of the benches were occupied by people sitting alone against the window. The left hand side of the bus was clearly the more popular side today. However, these lone travellers weren’t all travelling alone, as I realised when a rather overweight woman suddenly reached forward and started vigorously brushing the dense mouse brown hair of the boy in front. He wriggled and wrinkled his nose up with displeasure, but otherwise knew well enough to submit to this brief act of humiliation.

As we pulled in and out of bus-stops, the gaze of this single file of passengers moved as one down to the heads of those waiting to alight, and then back to some distant point a few degrees left of the road. Their synchronisation was such that I half expected them to suddenly burst into the chorus line of a musical number. ‘43 - The Musical’ it would be called. I’d go see it, at least.

Waiting at the bus-stop with me:

2006-04-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

A lady in her early 70’s, grey curly hair and a warm smile on her face as she watches her grandson out of the corner of her eye. The young boy, perhaps 4 years old, sits next to her on the small bus-stop bench. He has a mischievous yet ultimately innocent face, anointed with freckles beneath a side parting of ginger-red hair. She has given up trying to keep his small hands clean of the bus-stop dirt and grime that they are so keen to explore. Now he lies sideways on the bench stomping his miniature Reeboks up the side of the shelter.

An older man, his ears and nose testimony to the rumour that they never stop growing, shelters beneath a Dick Tracy style over-coat. A fairly new flat-cap comfortably covers his white hair. I imagine the grin on his face as he unwrapped it on Christmas day, glad that his daughter-in-law had noticed the old one was wearing thin. A folded newspaper protrudes from his over-coat, stuffed sideways between the buttons, and he watches unswervingly for the arrival of the bus.

On The Power Of Advertising

2006-04-19T13:05:00.000+01:00

“Accessorise your underarms” suggested a deodorant advert on a passing bus. Before I could help myself I had in my head a picture of a chubby European woman with little pink butterfly clips and mini scrunchies dangling from her underarm hair. Thanks for that then.

I get slightly disturbed by the power of bus advertisers: in a newspaper or magazine I can chooses not to turn the pages; with television I can chooses not to turn it on; but there is little I can do about advertisements on passing busses. I am nothing but a pawn in their greed driven game. I know, I can choose not to buy their product, or whatever, but it’s harder to forget their irritating slogans, or avoid being subconsciously influenced by their alluring images. As a passing bus glides by my eyes are dragged with it, and inside I helplessly cry. An advert reaches out with its candy coated steel grip and heartlessly holds my gaze for seconds longer than I would want. The damage is done.

On being alone.

2006-04-17T13:08:00.000+01:00

The top deck was empty, which made me feel strangely liberated. It’s like the feeling you get when you and the people you’re with are the only audience in a cinema – you can get up and do a little dance if you like and no one is there to be bothered by you. Normally when you’re sat on a bus there is bunch of stuff that you just can’t do. I’m not talking about stuff you’d want to do particularly, just dumb stuff like waving your arms around or making strange noises or skipping up the isle. But with no one about on top deck I was free to do these things. For perhaps one stop only I was free to do all sorts of crazy stuff that people just don’t do on public busses.

Of course, I just sat there like normal. But I enjoyed the brief liberty, knowing that if I’d wanted to run round a touch every no-smoking sign, I could have.

At the next stop someone else got on and came upstairs. They sat behind me and once again I was grounded by the ball and chain of social acceptability.

Part 3

2006-04-14T20:50:00.000+01:00

We drove out of the back of the estate and almost immediately arrived at the extended airport – those roads and roundabouts that exist only because of the airport that they guide you around. The bus pulled into the station – the type with large diagonal bays, each with digital displays and sliding doors. No primary colours here.

The airport. I was there to meet family from a long haul flight and help them and their 27 bags onto the train. They could’ve managed without me, but it was nice to see them, and I like the airport. I spent most of the day there in the end, but that’s another story for another time, and another blog. And I didn’t even get the 43 bus home, so even more reason to finish my airport trilogy here.

Part 2

2006-04-12T17:47:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the flower carrying cyclist I was on to a good start to the day, and I was about to do something quite out of the ordinary: as I reached my usual bus-stop I crossed the road. Today I was riding to the airport, the beginning (and end) of the 43 bus route. As any commuter will know, travelling outside of the usual stretch is like stepping outside of yourself, of your boundaries. So often I had watched the bus disappear thorough the rain into this alien place, the bus a constant linking my world with that other world. Boarding the bus to the airport was like breaking the rules of time: going back beyond my birth to explore origins, but also going forwards beyond my death, because when time is a bus route there are two extremes, but both are a beginning, and both are an end.

Anyway, shortly the bus arrived at the local bus depot, where it waited for five minutes before leaving for the airport. The engine chugged away and sounded very much like my boiler. The depot is painted red and yellow, like a nursery, and I was grateful for it. It doesn’t look stylish or trendy, and it’s not ‘artistic’, but it speaks of simple hopes, and a small budget spent as well as it might be. It adds colour to the middle of a grey estate. After pulling away we passed a large brick church, the type with small windows and almost no architectural features. Outside the church was an oversized wooden notice board bearing only one well weathered advertisement that simply read ‘Line Dancing – every Monday and Wednesday’.

We zigzagged slowly through the estates, and it might have been a tour of council housing styles from the last 70 years: ‘If you’d like to look to our left, you’ll see some classic examples of the 1972-78 period, their design famously inspired by the ordinary office hole punch…’

Part 1

2006-04-11T18:57:00.000+01:00

The smell of damp cut grass met me as I left the house, a signpost to spring. A middle aged man cycled past wearing a red woolly hat and carrying a bunch of flowers, and my heart was warmed. He was almost certainly doing something Good, and although these kinds of things happen all the time they’re often done in private, and it’s easy to miss them. There’s such a divide between the private and the public and what is exposed is usually exposed for a reason. We insulate our private lives and hold out only choice parts for the world to see, and in that act of choosing some of the honesty and beauty is lost. And this is one way in which man and nature differ: nature does not care what you think of it, it does not agonise over what to hide and what to show, it just exists, and some is hidden and some can be seen, and the beauty that we see is not tainted by motives.

So perhaps that explains why I was moved by this cyclist with his flowers: it didn’t feel like he wanted particularly to show or to hide his actions, he was there, with his red hat and his bike and his flowers, doing what he was doing, and I was lucky enough to be walking to the 43 bus stop at the right time so see it.

A Bus with a View

2006-04-04T11:36:00.000+01:00

I was Reading an old Bill Bryson book on the way home, and I came across the following passage:
‘There is something awfully exhilarating about riding on the top of a double-decker. You can see into upstairs windows and peer down on the tops of people’s heads at bus stop-stops (and when they come up the stairs a moment later you can look at them with a knowing look that says: ‘I’ve just seen the top of your head’) and there’s the frisson of excitement that come with careering round a corner or roundabout on the brink of catastrophe. You get an entirely fresh perspective on the world’ (Bryson, Notes From A Small Island, 1995)

Well said Bill (except for the ‘frisson of excitement’ bit – that’s just going too far). I too look down on the tops of people’s heads, and we’re not the only ones. When I’m waiting to board I sometimes shoot a quick glace upwards to see four or five pairs of guilty eyes quickly resume more socially acceptable fixings, such as the back of the head in front. They’re surprised when I look up because usually people just stand there like zombies, or hunt for their buss pass, and the top deck observer is free to inspect dandruff and hope that big guy with sweat patches doesn’t come sit next to them.

Dear Stranger

2006-03-29T21:26:00.000+01:00

Dear Stranger,
Sat there, with your black suit and black shirt ‘n’ tie combination from Next Mensware; with that ‘just out of college’ look, and beginning your long journey into world of business; driven at first by reasonable wants though soon to be a slave of desires that you never asked for, but were thrust upon you by a merciless industry; with your lingering acne that makes you feel like you are paying for crimes you never committed, and slicked back hair that shouldn’t be receding yet; with that thin moustache that you stroke, and wispy sideburns that should make you look older; with your JD sports bag at your side and Independent on your knee,

You seem like a nice person, but you’re sat in my favourite seat.

With love,
Geoff

Front Row Foreigners

2006-03-28T16:57:00.000+01:00

I found a seat upstairs on a busy bus, my knees poking into the aisle. A baby was screaming below. Relentless and mind-numbing, it was enough to silence most of the passengers. How do they make such a powerful, aching noise? It’s a wonder of creation, it really is; few other sounds even come close. I’m pretty sure when the baby’s mine I won’t feel quite such a strong desire to put as much distance between me and it as possible, at least I hope.

The front row was occupied by token ‘front-row foreigners’. It is an unmistakable phenomenon of the 43 bus that the front row seats are nearly always occupied by people speaking a language other than English. When they talk, they talk loudly, safely aware of the linguistic ineptitude of their host country. Today’s representatives sat on a double seat each, managing a conversation while they stared out of opposite windows.
Not long ago I had been on a less busy bus, in the second row back, and I was puzzled by a passenger in front of me who appeared to be talking aggressively to himself in a tongue I didn’t recognise. Every few minutes or so he would mumble something, but he never ceased gazing out of the window. I thought perhaps our rainy grey climate had driven him mad. Then, after about 20 minutes, a person I hadn’t even noticed on the other side of the bus mumbled something in the same language and they both laughed. Neither made any physical movements to suggest they were communicating, but the synchronized laugh was unmistakable. Wierd.

Sitting Close

2006-03-25T12:42:00.000Z

I sit diagonally in bus seats, being blessed with above average height, leaning as much against the side of the bus as the back of the seat. This puts my head slightly further forward than the average person, and when someone sat down in front of me today it occurred to me just how close our heads were. There was this complete stranger and her ear was only 40cm from my face. It’s not that this was unusual, it happens all the time, but I had never really noticed it before, and that surprised me. I looked at her ear for a while, then stopped when I realised it was a bit of a weird thing to do. I was breaking one of the Rules of the Bus, albeit an unenforceable one. (In contrast to the ‘No Turning Round and Looking at People Behind You’ rule, which is enforced by the nervous and astonished stares of said people, stares which say, ‘hey, what’s he doing?, he’s breaking the rules, err...please don’t do that’.)

I looked out of the window at the car drivers below me, none less than 2 meters from a stranger, all separated by glass and metal, and I was glad that I could get on a bus and sit this close to someone who’s name I’ll never know, even if they did have ear wax.

On Waiting For The Bus

2006-03-25T12:36:00.000Z

Heavy cloud quickened the onset of dusk while I stood at the bus stop, preparing for my journey home. While I waited I watch the world around me, and I saw the colours and the contrasts, the depth and shadow and lights, a beautiful composition of movement and stillness. For a brief moment I found myself really looking at the world, taking it in like you take in the masterpiece of a great artist. It was pretty cool. I wander if it’s a talent that I can cultivate, seeing the world like this?

It’s usually left to the painter, or photographer to take a piece of reality and present it to us in this way. They say ‘look, here, at this tiny segment of reality, this reality that you exist in every day, which rushes past too fast to see, isn’t it something?’ And yes, it is, it’s awesome. At least, that’s how I felt as I stood there waiting for the 43.

Who , me?

2006-03-23T22:44:00.000Z

My heart started beating faster. I tried to deny it. But there he was, sat at the back of the bus smoking. Oh, why had I been so foolish as to suppose that I would be the one, that I could be the one, to move over to him and ask him if he would kindly put it out? Excuses came flooding in, thick and fast: ‘I suppose I can’t really smell much, it’s not like it’s going to make my clothes stink from that far away…. I’m sat quite near the front, and some windows are open… It would seem pedantic to make the journey all the way to the back of the bus just to ask him to not smoke, perhaps if I was sitting closer… I don’t think he’s on his own, I’d probably be stared down before I even got to him, perhaps if he was on his own… he looks pretty aggressive, what if he’d had a bad day and my polite request pushed him over the edge? It could get messy… Perhaps it would be wise to start with a smaller less aggressive looking person and work up from there… he’ll have finished it soon anyway…’

And so my internal monologue continued, until he finished his cigarette. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d come up with some pretty good excuses, I thought, which proved useful when, 15 minutes later, a second person lit up.

On Toleration

2006-03-22T22:04:00.000Z

I flashed my pass at the driver and trundled upstairs only to be greeted by a strong smell of unwashed person. At least that’s how I describe it, but it’s probably a medical condition or something. It smelt bad, and I felt sorry for who ever it was, stinking like that all day long. That small piece of sympathy somehow made the smell bearable (kind of). I can accept such an experience as just one of the many intricacies of bus travelling; you take the rough with the smooth, and that’s ok. Not so when the rough is a smoky bus.

There are like fifty no smoking signs visible from every seat, yet every now and then someone near the back on the top deck decides that their desire to light up is more important than the comfort of every other non-smoker there. The smell of weed is the worst; it makes me feel a bit sick. I want to get up and say something, not be nasty, just ask them kindly to put it out, please.

But I don’t, I just sit there with everyone else and pretend I haven’t noticed it. I feel so English, and shy, like if the person in question were to walk past me and slap me on the head I’d apologise for being in the way. It’s pathetic. I’m not exactly small, and on a half full bus I needn’t be afraid, yet I am. In fact, I suspect the smoker justifies their decision by telling themselves that if anyone really cared they would say something. So perhaps I will.

On Unrequited Love

2006-03-20T09:23:00.000Z

To pass the time I read the biro scrawl graffiti on the plastic in front of me:

‘I heart Holly’

‘Niall 4 Holly’

‘Holly is 100% fit’

‘Holly is Bad’ (I didn’t know people still said that)

‘Holly is potes’ (What?)

So all the best to Niall and Holly. I hope they have a happy life together, or a least a happy week. Of course, Holly might not even know who Niall is. These may be the only glimpses of expression that Niall's desparate but shy heart will afford itself. Unrequited love is both beautiful and devastating. Beautiful because it capture’s a tiny glint from the many faceted diamond that is love, but devastating because that’s all it captures.

I wondered if unrequited love was a bit of an oxymoron; could there ever be such a thing? Surly it should be called unrequited infatuation, or something. Love is too big and complex a thing to be one sided. To really know what it is to love someone don’t they have to love you back? But then perhaps not. Perhaps a parent can love a child who hates them back, and perhaps a God can love His creation even if they reject Him. Why is our vocabulary so feeble in this area?

A few splatters of rain hit the window, someone on a ladder was cleaning the MacDonald’s sign, and the bus pushed on to Piccadilly.

On Folding Bikes and Humility.

2006-03-20T09:20:00.000Z

A brisk walk to the bus stop, a short wait for the bus, and pretty soon I was reading a not too grubby copy of the Metro News on the top deck. We passed a t-junction and I noticed a little middle aged man pulling out onto the road on one of those fold up bikes with wheels the size of side plates. He wore a white and pink helmet, similar to the kind given to six year olds before six year olds needed to look cool too. Little luminous yellow bike clips held is cords away from the probably rusty chain. It was an endearing sight, but I felt and pang of sorrow for him. It would take a long time to get anywhere with wheels that big, and it was pretty cold out. I hoped that his helmet kept his ears warm, because I couldn’t imagine it being useful for much else. The bus pushed on and the little man went out of sight and out of mind.

A fairly uneventful journey passed; people got on, people got off, doing things that people on busses do. I smiled for the fiftieth time at the shop in Rusholm called ‘Kebabish’, and repeated too myself a few times. What an inspired name for a kebab shop.

I expressed my thanks to the driver and jumped off at the usual place. The story typically ends here, except that after I crossed the road I looked up and who should be two meters ahead of me but the little man with the fold up bike! Not only was he going to the same place as me but he was getting there before me. I was humbled. He looked healthy and invigorated and no number white and pink plastic helmets would damage the self assured manner with which he carried himself. Here was a man who had a lot more than I had credited him with, and I was ashamed at how I had prejudged him and his little bike with wheels the size of side plates.

Of Barbershops and Nodding Dogs

2006-03-20T08:00:00.000Z

I pass a barbershop on my journey each day called ‘The Men’s Room’. It look’s the business, it even has one of those red and white striped twirly things out front, which are there, incidentally, because back in the day the barber would sharpen his razor on a rotating cylinder of stone with a spiral of velvet wound up it so that the blade would be sharpened and polished alternately. (I might have made that up. If you have any idea why that spiral thing is there, do let me know.) Anyway, what I was going to say was, would you really want to have your hair cut in a place that shares its name with a public toilet? Perhaps they have a row of urinals up against the back wall, and, I suppose, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem if they did, because with name like ‘The Men’s Room’ you can be sure there won’t be any women around.

After I’d been thinking about this I looked down at the car next to us. There was a nodding dog on the dashboard, except given the particular vibrations and movements of the car it wasn’t nodding at all, just shaking its head side to side. The occupants of the car were trying to decide which way to go, holding a map and pointing fingers, and the dog just kept on shaking its head. Like a perpetual pessimist it sat there, forever pronouncing negative judgement on their every decision. You can bet I’ll never have a nodding dog at the front of my car.

2006-03-18T11:07:00.000Z

I’m sorry about the downbeat tone of that last entry. When the sun’s out, it’s really not that bad.

Rinsed through by too much rain.

2006-03-16T18:36:00.000Z

The bus stop is on a roundabout next to a church. It’s one of those classic English estate roundabouts as displayed in happy pastel colours in children’s Highway Code books from the 80’s, complete with a pelican crossing. It would be illustrated with a man waking a dog, two children holding hands as they cross the crossing, and a mother with a pram on the pavement, all smiling. And it’s actually like that sometimes, except that everything looks somewhat muted in real life, and the colours have faded, rinsed through by too much rain. It looks like someone has gone into photoshop and reduced the contrast. I think to myself, ‘isn’t the world supposed to be vibrant, full of colour and life?’ And a lot of the world is like that, just not this roundabout on a south Manchester estate on a cloudy weekday morning.

Some developers have been trying to improve matters for the residents of the three high rise blocks that overlook this intersection of roads. Scaffolding goes up, wrapped in opaque plastic sheeting, and for six months the building is shielded from the world. Like a magicians curtain it hides the secrets of the trade, before it is lowered eventually to reveal the transformation. One has been finished, another is having the curtain dropped, and a third remains cocooned in plastic, emitting the noises of industry from within. The redevelopment is certainly making a difference, but it will only be a matter of time before they blend in again with the washed-out grey of their environment, like a chameleon in slow motion.

Boring Fact

2006-03-16T18:25:00.000Z

I was listening to radio news on the bus home and they were kind enough to give me some information about the holes in the road(see previous post). Apparently Thames Water spend £500,000 a day fixing leaks, and some of the pipes are 150 years old. So I guess there’s lots of leaks to fix.

Boring facts 'r' us.

Monday 13th March, 2006. To town.

2006-03-13T20:40:00.000Z

I arrived at the bus stop today and all four people waiting there looked at me as if my flies were undone. I was pretty sure they weren’t because it was windy and I would have been able to feel a draft. So who knows?

I watched the familiar route roll by in the hazy spring light and felt generally positive about the day. This is the time of year for digging up roads and pavements, apparently. Every few hundred yards there was a hole surrounded by orange plastic barriers and a pile of dirt. Occasionally there was a man in a yellow jacket digging, or pointing, or drinking tea, and I was suddenly overcome by a deep desire to know why they were digging each particular hole. I wonder how many holes are dug in error? (‘Really? Oh, you see I was holding the plans like this’).

Fortunately my excavational curiosity passed. It would just have to remain as one of the many things I didn’t know about the world, and I have, at least partially, come to terms with the reality that there will be countless such things. Sometime during my school years, while I was amassing knowledge at an unchecked rate (at least that’s how if felt), this awful truth dawned on me: there will always be a vast, huge, unimaginable plethora of knowledge that I would not only be unsure about (such as the labelling terms used in the cross section of a river bend), but that I would never have the slightest clue about.

Now this wasn’t an epistemological worry, for I’m pretty sure that I had no idea that the word ‘epistemological’ even existed. I wasn’t worried about the frightening limit to what could be known by us as humans. (If no one else can know it either, that’s fine by me.) I was worried by the realisation that there would always be things that other people knew that I didn’t. Early on in school, teachers are reluctant to tell you that the limits of knowledge go beyond the ‘Fun with Physics’ textbook. Once I learnt what electricity is and why something has a colour, I thought I was well on my way. But it was the lowly calculator that broke me. Anyway, such is life, and man is humbled by his own achievements. I pressed the ‘stop’ button and said thanks to the driver. I will never know how to drive a bus like he does.

Phenomenal.

2006-03-12T15:21:00.000Z

I haven't the courage yet to take my camera with me, so I've drawn a picture of the bus instead. It's called '43 no.1 - in the rain'. I couldn't remember how many wheels it has or where exactly they go, so I just guessed. Notice how it appears to be lifting off the road at the front? Phenomenal acceleration.

Wednesday 8th March 2006. Back again.

2006-03-12T15:11:00.000Z

After a partially successful day, during which I fell asleep for 45 minutes, I was waiting patiently for my bus home. Patience is key. Nothing ruins a good bus journey like getting anxious about how long it's taking, or getting upset that every other bus has passed you five times before yours arrives. The waiting is part of the whole experience. At the risk of sounding cliched and 'trendy', I think we can live our Instant McLives in such a hurry all the time that slowing down to wait patiently one in a while is a Very Good Thing.

So I waited and watched some people go by and then the bus came and I jumped on, brandishing my £3 day pass. The driver gave me a barely perceptible indication that he had seen the pass. It might have been a twitch, actually. His expression suggested that I may as well have been brandishing a cheese pasty. But I do generally like 43 bus drivers; I suspect I will have more to say about them in posts to come (see how I keep you eager and hanging on for more?)

The evening bus was bustling and animated compared to the mid morning ride. Some people were even talking. In fact, the journey in the evening is usually so different from that of the morning that my whole trip is rather more circular than linear. It had started raining again during the ride home, so my wife decided to pick me up from the bus stop in the car. She's amazing.

Wednesday 8th March 2006. To town.

2006-03-10T19:59:00.000Z

The number 43 bus runs from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport, and back again. There is nothing particularly exciting about this bus, except that it’s the bus that I get to town (and back again). I suppose it would be fantastic to travel around the world to amazing places and write about it, like a travel writer, but I can’t do that. What I can do is get the 43 bus to town (and back again), and, you know, waste not want not and all that. Moreover, I think getting the 43 bus can be pretty good. Take today for example.

The walk to the bus stop was particularly special this morning. It was raining but it wasn’t too cold. It was the kind of rain that isn’t obviously falling; it just sort of hangs all around, making the world, for a time, a damp place. Damp, but emotive. I past a rusty climbing frame, sitting at the edge of a garden in some overgrown grass, which somehow looked slightly less dejected in the rain than it usually did, perhaps because it could more easily remember, in the glistening wet, the brightness of the primary colours that it once boasted. Gee, what nonsense.

The old men who walk places at 10 am had their big umbrellas up, umbrellas that have things like ‘Legal and General’ written on them. One without an umbrella was walking towards one with, and as I passed they stopped in front of each other, sharing shelter and a few inaudible words. They walked up to each other like you might walk up to someone in the next room to see what they were up to.

I got to the damp bus stop thinking that it would be nice to know enough people when I’m old so that I can always find someone to walk up to on a rainy Wednesday morning. A Day Rider went up to £3 on Sunday, apparently. So that’s still only 1.50 a pop, (for the simple there and back again) and you get a good long ride, especially during rush hour. Can’t complain.

It was perhaps as damp inside the bus as it was outside, but warmer, muggy. I went upstairs, which is where I always sit, if I can. I opened a window to de-mug the air and my shoulder wiped clear a small patch of the steamed up window, heavy with condensation. From this peep hole I watched small patches of the world go by.

About 17 people sat with me on this upper deck, and I was stunned by how everyone there, young and old, managed to hold the same silent expression on their faces. It was kinda weird actually.

An old couple sat behind and across from me. I’m not sure what it is with old people, why I was noticing them particularly on this journey. Perhaps because at 10.15 am it was primetime for old people in public places, or perhaps because they carry that native look on a day like this. They are the natives of this land of mid morning drizzle in a south Manchester estate. He wore a beanie hat that rose to a peak and sat slightly high on his head. His brown corduroys had wriggled up exposing a classic pair of old man socks. They were natives of the mid morning 43, but would be equally at home drinking tea in a Sainsbury’s supermarket café.