Night Bus Statistics (more amusing than it sounds!)

[baratron]

Number of Night Buses caught: Two. One N235, one N77, as this was all that was actually required for my journey. However, if I had followed the routes given by Transport for London's Journey Planner, I might have taken no less than five! The most amusing route it came up with was to take a bus to "Centrepoint Tottenham Court Road Stop: U", walk to "Tottenham Centrepoint", take the bus from "Tottenham Centrepoint Stop: X" to "Tottenham Court Road Stop: YA", then walk to "Tottenham Court Road Centrepoint" again. Or something. I did the search at ceno's house, and I can't remember the exact terms I used. Clearly, the database was confused about all the different ways that Centrepoint was listed, and thought they were 3 different places. Confusing for tourists, I'd imagine.

Number of Night Buses missed: Zero. A new record for this type of journey! Amazingly, they were running on time - give or take ten minutes, which is good for Night Buses. Normally, they run at least 25 minutes late, so that you're not sure if the bus that arrives is 5 minutes early or the previous one delayed...

Number of Drunken Idiots on Night Buses: Five.

• One Nasty Grik, who spent the journey from Clapton to Manor House lying to his girlfriend on the phone about how he was on the 141, had gone miles past Manor House already, and wasn't going to Tracy's (when he was on the N235, hadn't got to Manor House yet, and was apparently going to Tracy's). This information was repeated over and over again at loud volume, as if that would make it more believable.
  
• Three Horrendous Heterosexuals. One of them got on the bus at Trafalgar Square and stood in the way of the doors yelling to his friends on the phone that they should "fucking hurry up, run down Whitehall", clearly oblivious to the fact that most people run more slowly whilst holding a mobile phone to their ears. When his friends arrived, the first Horrendous Heterosexual moaned incessantly about the fact that they had eaten while he had not, and all three of them made copious loud phone calls to find out where the rest of their friends were, try to find someone with a key to the house they were going to, and try to persuade other people to buy them a kebab. They are to be contrasted with the two Nice Homosexuals, who stood next to them talking quietly whilst being as couply as it was safe to be with three drunken idiots there.
  
• One Caterwawling Woman, who got on the bus demanding that it go to Sutton, and would not believe it was not supposed to go there. "The N77 goes to Sutton!". Er, no - the N44 goes to Sutton (note two sevens rather than two fours), and the N77 goes to Surbiton (note the extra syllable there - Sur-bit-ton rather than Sut-ton. I rest my case).

Number of Minutes for which h-l was Desperate for a Pee: 97. I really must purchase one of those funnel doodads whereby women can pee standing up, so that I too may urinate in alleyways, in the absence of any toilet facilities after 11pm in our benighted city.

Number of Calls to Emergency Services: Two. But only to report one car on fire. The first call got cut off for no apparent reason. This brings the total number of 999 calls I've made in the past few months to a really disturbing number (like 5 in as many months, or something).

If you thought that was boring, think again. I was going to give you my List of Current Woes, but decided moaning about the Night Bus was far more productive. So you know the pleasure you've missed, here is the list in brief: queue at ticket office grrr, missed train annoying, tummy hurts ow, TFL's wap site crap, Jubilee line engineering works, period early icky, ripped paper bag scattering contents all over the floor, wisdom tooth ouch!

Disturbing slogan of the day: "Secure Beneath Watchful Eyes" - done in a 1940s/wartime propaganda poster style. Supposedly to reassure you that British Transport Police and CCTV can be found on buses. I found it rather "1984" and Big Brother-ish, especially with the Mayor of London (or is that Mayor of London?) slogan in the corner. I don't really have any problem with the slogan itself, just the font it's done in. Ah, I can't explain my font "Thing" to other people... Richard at least has a font "Thing" of his own, so we can geek about that together.

Misguided slogan of the day: Seen on an abandoned pub which has become a squat: "The seas are rising. Get rid of fossil fuels." Hrm. I think we're doing a pretty good job of that already, thankyouverymuch.

I'll get my coat?

Comments

[lizw.livejournal.com]

"Secure Beneath Watchful Eyes"

That freaked me out too - made me wonder if the power's finally going to Ken's head, or was someone in PR being malicious? I think that slogan would creep me out in any font, but I admit the one they actually used really doesn't help.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Ah - the font comment was supposed to refer to the Mayor of London bit... for some reason I find that font (block capitals, not quite New Johnston, like a mutation of it) really horrible. My uneasy feelings towards it could well stem from the fact that it is a mutation of New Johnston - I have very Strong Feelings about it. It is a clean font - simple, and yet interesting - which represents London to millions of people. Even people who aren't Tubespotters or fontophiles tend to feel jarred when they see New Johnston used for something that isn't official London Transport purposes, although they might not be able to work out why ("Oh! That's the font used on the Tube Map!").

I also like the original Johnston font, but iirc, without any of the information in front of me, it only defined upper-case letters. And after years of internet training, I do feel that writing everything IN CAPS is shouting. Beautiful font for upper-case, though - probably the only upper-case font I really like apart from Copperplate Gothic.

It makes some sense to base a font for a London slogan on New Johnston, seeing how that is a symbol of London already - but it's a travesty. It's taking something which is elegant and making it ugly - like taking a running wolf, lopping off her legs, and replacing them with those of a bulldog :(

[nmg.livejournal.com]

From what I recall, London Transport used to be quite rigorous about defending their copyright on the New Johnston font.

Also, Johnston was not upper-case only; this font chart shows lower case letters, if the date is correct (the font shown is slightly different to the New Johnston font in current use)

Johnston trivia fact #1: Eric Gill (of Gill Sans fame) collaborated with Johnston on the font.

Police slogans

[ailbhe]

Thames Valley Police are apparently "reducing crime, disorder and fear", which bothers me.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

akicif drew my attention to the existence of this poster here:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=akicif&itemid=10745

Picture here:

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/002285.html#002285

I still can't quite believe it really exists. Wild.

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

It freaks me the fuck out too. I know cctv cameras on buses are sensible, but the eyes! The eyes!

*shudder*

I can't decide

[ailbhe]

whether it's a hilarious tongue-in-cheek way of getting the message across, or a serious attempt at Big Brotherness cunningly disguised as a hilarious tongue-in-cheek way of getting the message across.

My conspiracy theories have conspiracy theories. Odear.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

"caveat emptor"? "caveat lector", surely?

[baratron.livejournal.com]

What? You mean you don't pay to read my journal? Horrified, I am, horrified!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Now I'm confused. I could swear I clicked the smiley face, yet the skull & crossbones got highlighted somehow... hrm.