Reader Mick writes:
It has come to my notice that if one tries to hail the local stage heading for Broadstairs at around 9.00 am in the morning one will find that the trusty steed ignores your hail and serenely cruises by, seemingly oblivious to one's predicament. If by chance it does stop, one sees that it's full up and is merely stopping for the odd passenger to fight their way off. Although of doubtful legality a machete is recommended for this exercise.
The reason for this phenomenon is that it is full of our fellow youthful EU citizens who have invaded it en masse, like the Normans of old. They are, of course, heading to the Isle's renowned seat of learning known as Thanet College (famed as a celebrity chef factory), to learn our great language. Including, of course, the vernacular, no doubt hurled at the stage as it passes by irate Thanet citizens unable to board.
One Thanet resident informed me: 'I had to wait half an hour before I could get on one of these bloody buses. It was much better when transport was by East Kent Road Car Company double decker rather than these cut down charabancs. Ah those were the days!
Ah yes, Mick. Those were the days indeed. I don't remember them personally, but those, as you rightly say, were the days.
Er, has anyone else had trouble getting on a bus recently?
16 comments:
One possible reason why it was better when it was the East Kent Company was that we were still at war and European students did not come here. Probably still thought German was the language of the future then!
Bit of a quite day news-wise ECR?
Part of the problem is that half of the seats have been stripped out to make a space for wheelchairs and pushchairs. Grrr. The good old days when getting on a bus was like climbing up the north face of everest, a little space at the front to leave the folded up pushchair and the shopping so it could be nicked more easily - the bus full of chain smoking navvies and not a wheelchair to be seen!
Whatever happened to the 52?
I used to get off at Ramsgate Harbour
and walk to the Marina Swimming pool past Pleasurama.
Happy Days!
It was much easier when we had the old Routemaster buses without doors (at least in London, did they have them in Thanet?).
I think it's great that the buses are in use. Obviously, it would be nice to see the companies which run them doing better to match capacity with demand. Foreign language students provide one of the most successful businesses in Thanet. I'd wager that far more income and employment is generated by the language schools than will ever be generated by the airport. Perhaps Councillors should be asking what the language schools want? I'm willing to bet that no night-flights would come quite high on their agenda.
Unless of coure, the night flights were bringing in more students!
Buses and night flights?? Incredibly how some subjects reappear. We will have illegal ranges, plod on plod killings and murderous masonic Tories next. Don't you just love cloak and dagger!
Anonymous 4.07 PM: No please don't ask the council to get involved with our language schools. They're a success already, council involvement will probably reverse that phenomena!!
Easy solution- Call a taxi ;-)
TDC is slow off the mark here. Along the coast in Brighton the council is using some of the surplus London bendy busses to run from the town to the university.
Brighton's student transport problem solved.
Could you post the rest of that episode of On The Buses, Dickie?
It looks like it could be quite an interesting one, where the opening gambit is Blakey laying unconscious on the ground, legs wide open, with 'Stan's Room' written across his arse.
Your contributions never cease to leave me chuckling, Lucy old bean (flicker)!
I would never be seen dead on a bus - in Thanet or elsewhere.
Just in a hearse then, 7:10!
7.10, try Gore and Sons Taxi service to the Thanet Crematorium. A bit more expensive than the Loop [which doesn't go there] but they definitely will get you to your destination and the seat[coffin] won't be crowded!
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