Stabbie thought that today would be a good day to go to Waitrose at Westfield to pick up some stuff for dinner. In, out, maybe have lunch, then back on the 148.
Everything went well until Stabbie got a 148 bus toward the Elephant and Castle at Westfield. The driver did not speak very good English (Stabbie thought he might be Italian) and the announcements on the bus were confined to the mechanical voice announcing the stops. Stabbie settled down for a long but uneventful ride.
Wrong!
At Notting Hill Gate, the bus suddenly took a right turn, without any announcement of a diversion. Stabbie got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but decided to continue on, as he thought, “How bad can it be?”
When the bus got to Kensington Church Street, then turned onto Kensington Road, it just stopped. It lurched, stopped, and started, and stopped again. It took this bus about an hour to travel from Kensington Church Street to Knightsbridge. Thus trip would normally take about 10 minutes. The traffic was dreadful. At one point, the bus stopped and the driver tried to explain to his dispatcher that there was, besides the traffic problems, something wrong with the bus. No luck. The bus soldiered on.
Stabbie has a bad foot, so he tried to get off at Knightsbridge. Other passengers had deserted the bus previously, but they were all sure-footed; Stabbie thought it would be better to wait until Knightsbridge and get off there to take the Tube back to the Elephant and Castle.
The bus driver explained, in broken English, that it was too dangerous to get off the bus there (notwithstanding that he had let people off in places where motorcycles and bicyclists were whooshing by the left-hand side of the bus) and Stabbie would have to wait until Hyde Park Corner to get off. That took an extra 15 minutes.
Finally the bus pulled up at Hyde Park Corner, Stabbie rang the bell, got off, and took a Tube train to Piccadilly Circus, changing for the Bakerloo Line, and getting back to Stabbie Central at 17:15. He had set off around 14:30.
Now Stabbie normally is very polite to bus drivers. They take a lot of abuse from the public, mostly unwarranted. But Stabbie believes that this particular bus driver is an exception. Stabbie likes to be told when the bus is going to be diverted from its normal route. Stabbie would like the opportunity to decide whether to stay with the bus or get off and take another route. Stabbie thinks that bus and train drivers need to give as much information as possible to passengers when traffic is not proceeding as usual.
Thus, Stabbie thinks that this particular bus driver needs a lesson—and the best way to get that is to despatch him forthwith and then deny him directions to St. Peter’s Gate. Instead, he needs to be left at one of those crossroads where both signposts say “This way to the Pearly Gates” and let him figure out that both roads lead downwards.
What’s the latest on the foot?