The government has promised that all areas of the country will have ‘London style buses’ and has committed funding to support this.
Regional bus nuts are beside themselves. ‘We welcome London style buses,’ said a spokesman, ‘but we hope this is not about insisting that all buses are red.’ He resisted the temptation to say that the new plan was ‘just the ticket’. ‘We must preserve diversity in regional bus colours. And we don’t want those Boris buses. The association is still too painful.’
Homelessness campaigners are looking forward to a comprehensive and countrywide night bus service. This is because the cost of a ‘day-rider’ bus ticket is considerably cheaper than providing a hostel place. Night buses provide homeless people with a great alternative to sleeping in shop doorways, bushes or skips. The buses are warm, fairly quiet (after closing time), and comfortable, although there is a continuing and unresolved issue about toileting facilities.
‘Londoners have it so easy,’ said Jim, a jobbing philosopher who sell his services door to door and who celebrates periods of rough sleeping. ‘There are night buses all through the night. The routes are long and windy and the buses are very slow. You can get on at the start of the route and its two or three hours until you get chucked off. And you can usually get on another bus and keep going. Three bus rides and you’ve had a very solid night’s sleep. When are these new London style buses starting? I bet it’s not for ages.’
image from pixabay
Organisers of next year’s Glastonbury Festival have created a new pre-ticket ordering system in a bid to beat ticket touts and alleviate some of the chaos normally involved with applying to attend.
Anyone wishing to buy a Glasto 2025 package will first have to attend in person at Worthy Farm, and present themselves to one of the kiosks set up in the cow sheds. It is assumed that only seasoned festival goers will be fine with trudging across muddy fields to accomplish this initial task, and that tout bots might struggle.
Once inside the shed they will be photographed, have their personal details recorded and their inside leg measurement taken. Such biometric information will be compared when the jamboree begins. They will also be asked to identify a number of traffic lights, just in case any bots have managed to sneak through. Finally a couple of hoops outside to jump through and they can leave with a registration number for the online booking queue later in the month.
Government ministers will be relieved to hear their tickets will arrive in the normal way via a plain brown envelope.
Image: DanikPrihodko - Pixabay