Sunday, December 10, 2006
Bill Cash and the Man on the Omnibus
I am delighted to see that at least some traditions don’t change in the good old Tory Party. I think it was Lord Curzon who was introduced to the delights of public transport in the 1920s for the first time. He was persuaded to take the bus home by his secretary but never having been on one before he rather assumed that a bus was like a taxi. So as he paid his fare he said to the driver of the Number 24, “now, take me to 23 Eaton Square, there’s a good chap.” Following in this fine tradition the resplendent Eurosceptic MP Bill Cash also got on a Number 24 this week and proceeded to ask the driver to wait a couple of minutes for some friends who were having difficulty with the ticket machine outside the Garrick Theatre. My witness to the ensuing events tells me that Mr Cash became more than a little exasperated when the driver of the bus explained that he most certainly could not do as requested and closed the doors. Cash stood in the way but the doors were too strong for him. “I demand you stop this bus now,” spluttered the hapless parliamentarian, but to no avail. Eventually he was let off outside St Martin in the Fields. Whether he was ever reunited with his friends we shall never know.
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4 comments:
Fantastic story ! Although as one seems to have to take a test in being suitably officious, cantankerous, non customer oriented and impatient to get a job as a bus driver, this is only to be expected.
I wonder what the Polish contingent being recruited by First Group make of it all ?
What an arrogant idiot. People like that should be put in the stocks.
Those bloody ticket machines!! I've lost a fortune in them since they were introduced.
And when they're broken the cocking bus drivers still refuse to take cash!
Hilarious! I'm stealing that; it should help my furrin readers understand England a bit better. The only thing I have to match it was when a Shaughnessy matron, resplendent in some truly glorious cosmetic surgery and four inch heels got on a Granville bus and nobody would stand up and give her a seat, although she was clearly well over sixty (but fighting it hard). We all sat there and snickered quietly with confidential smiles; hey, who are we to tell her the youth-giving surgery didn't work? We're far too polite.
There was the story about the woman in New York who got on and said "Oh goodness, I haven't been on one of these in years, not since we got our driver" and the bus driver said, "You've no idea how we missed you, lady."
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