Saturday, June 30, 2012

Firstbus driver training

While I'm on about Firstbus, I have one of my usual suggested additions to their driver training course...

...If you see someone running diagonally across the road towards your bus in the rain looking like they're going to run right at you, they're probably just a mad person. Who knows what they might be thinking.

Sure it's raining and they're on foot and there isn't another bus even due for half an hour (if it's running at all) but what other explanation could there possibly be for someone running towards your bus like that? They'll be as mad as those people who stand in rows at those metal posts at the side of the road who wave at you after you drive past. There are so many mad people out there.

To be fair, not all Firstbus drivers are like this, just too bleedin' many...

It's them again...

Further to my complaint to Firstbus about their inability to run a bus service resulting in me having to walk home more than 3 miles from town recently...Well, I did get an apology. It kind of read 'driver sick, blah blah, vandalism blah, late running blah blah, roadworks blah blah'.

Here are a couple of things they didn't say but are certainly true - well, they certainly don't seem to be offering me any money back for a start. They blithely say that they 'could not provide any immediate replacement drivers' without saying why. I think I know why, it's because it costs money to provide relief drivers and this might rather thin out their cash cow if they did. They mentioned the Woodpecker junction roadworks which have apparently been 'having a serious affect on our services'. This'll be the junction that the traffic was flowing through easily as I walked it. The same junction that slows the buses going the other way by a couple of minutes in the rush hour and the way I was going not at all so far as I've noticed.

Anyway, if you know anything about Firstbus or use the buses at all you'll know that they're well, a bit rubbish at running a 'service'. This is because they're not really trying to. Running a service (which, incidentally is good for the local economy and all that) costs money but they're profit driven and not service driven. And they charge a lot.

So long as we get the trams at the end of our raod by the end of 2007 as promised I'll be happy...Doh!

Cuddly Cuddly Cuddly

Gogs the Whole Sky Monitor drummer is “the drummer from Cud”! I’d forgotten this reference. It was used in the NME years back to slag off indie-ness and to denote thirdrate-ness of the 'bloke in a band' variety. And now Gogs our drummer (i.e. Whole Sky Monitor's drummer) is that man! He’s been on tour being, er the drummer from Cud!

I should mention that Gogs is not third rate...(insert your own joke here anyone who knows him)

Brest of Bittish

Telling you a bit late now really but I missed the old Jubilee thing (by being out of the country on holiday - best thing to do of course). When I got back in 'the aftermath' everyone in the big supermarket (Tescos since you ask, home of the indestructable cheese) was racing around like idiots buying improbable amounts of ‘stuff’.

The only difference to the ‘normal’ universe I’m used to was that all the stuff they were buying had a Union Jack printed on it (pedants may tell me that it’s the Union flag not the Union Jack or something but who cares really…) How British can all that stuff actually be?

I think the answer is ‘this is the sort of stuff that the British buy, so let’s put a flag on it’. If you thought I was cynical, may I present Capitalism!

Hypno gastric band

I saw an advert for the 'hypno-gastric band' in a free mag today. I'd have been so pleased if it had been a bunch of spooky fat men. But it's clearly not. Thing is that I thought that fitting a gastric band was a major operation involving y'know, hospital and surgeons and whatnot. So how on earth can you fit one by hypnosis!?

I think the answer is that 2 of the 3 words they use to describe their thang are nonsense. You don't. It's not a gastric band at all.

I want a hypno electric drill...

Like, 2 whole hours man!

Hey! I just played for over 2 hours at Kirstall Abbey without repeating myself! Blimey, that looks like a Tweet doesn't it?

I was doing the 'busking' thang (which isn't busking really as I pretty much only do me own stuff and don't do requests of any kind - just so as you know...) I think I played everything off my 'A' list and most things on the 'B' and 'C' lists. The idea is to kind of stay 'match fit' (ish) for future gigs. I did have the crutch of a music stand with some lyrics on though, so I suppose that's a bit of a cheat. I didn't use it for any of the A list though.

Got there a bit late due to a broken door lock and a missing music stand. Anyway...I played songs (2 covers to be fair, actually 3...) for over 2 hours and didn't run out. This isn't much of a big deal for a 'hardworking band' but it's a lot for me. So there! I would have carried on but it rained at the end (heavily) and my gazebo was invaded.