the teddy bear

"Oh Andy he's such a lovely bloke, I call him my teddy bear." 

That's nice I thought as I absent mindedly eavesdropped.

"I mean seriously, he is such a lovely bloke." Her friend made a sound like "hmmm"

"He has just got out of prison though". Her friend turned to her.

"Oh yes" she said "What he do?"

"Manslaughter. Although don't know how they got it down to that. He did reverse over the bloke. Twice"

"God!" Said her friend.

"No but seriously he is lovely. You just can't push him or he'll loose it" 

"The thing is" said her friend "There will always be someone to push him"

The woman paused "I hadn't thought of it like that"

Stairs on wheels

The bus was packed. I will never, I thought, get a seat. I will just never get one. I will be standing the whole way, silently hating all these smug strangers with their bums on slightly sticky, uncomfortable seats. 

I stood at the bottom of the staircase, a fat lady and a businessman came down meant  that there would be a seat for me, a place for me to be happy, to silently love all my fellow passengers and wish them well for their days. As I climbed I began wondering, as I often do, about how many people a day fall down the stairs on double decker buses.

I found a seat by a window that was dripping with the heat of the daily commute. Sometimes when I'm feeling woozy on the top deck I fixate on the inevitable and dangerous descent that awaits me when I arrive at my stop.

'Please don't fall' I prey 'It will be painful, but mostly embarrassing and I will have to pretend I did it on purpose' A bit like when you see someone stumble in the street and then the stumble evolves into a small jog as if this was the stumble-ee's intention all along and their stumbling was by way of a small warm up before the real spurt of activity. 

If one was at school and the only way to get to class was to go up and down stairs that were on wheels that stopped abruptly without warning, the parents would have doubts about the education provided and worry about the danger posed by their child's perilous journey to the classroom. The health and safety lobby would be making banners saying "Our children are in danger, ban the mobile staircases. No!". 

But for some reason this insane practise on a bus is ok. I have never seen anyone fall down the stairs, but I think that's by luck, not design. One day 700 people will fall down different staircases across the length and breadth of the bus network and then London transport will have to replace the stairs with elevators. And that would be cool, until people got stuck in them and they would be banned too.

Oranges

I was just sitting on the number 19 going down Blackstock Road. It's Sunday, the bus is quite quiet. Someone rings the bell so the bus pulls over at the next bus stop. Then the driver gets out, blocking the rest of the bus from the front with the door. I think, oh damn he's waiting for the next driver this could take ages and I'm already late. 

But then the driver gets out, looking a bit nervous, as if he is doing something he shouldn't. He runs to the shop and picks up an orange, considers it, places it back and then picks up 5 other oranges. He places these 5 oranges in a plastic bag, looking around swiftly as if he were buying drugs- he pays the shopkeeper and runs back on the bus with the large bag of oranges, he avoids eye contact with the passengers, because to look at them would be to acknowledge what had just happened. He closes the door and starts the engine and I alight at Finsbury Park.