This is a serious point, and one which always occurs to me when I stand up laden with bags and lurch inelegantly towards the "press" button before skewing off towards the door, or, more probably, an elderly blind lady or a large tattooed ex-con. I've only ever seen one person injure themselves badly on attempting to leave a bus, which is surprising given the number I've travelled on. I was on my way home to Pamber End just north of Basingstoke in lovely North Hampshire when an elderly gentleman stood up to get off the bus. He pressed the button in the usual fashion, and started moving down to the front of the bus. His confident swagger proved to be his undoing however, as I shall relate. The beginning The bus stop he chose to exit at is by far the most dangerously placed bus-stop in the known-world. Placed just after a nasty ninety-degree right hand corner, and on a straight strip of road of the sort of length which for some reason obliges bus drivers to accelerate as hard as possible from a standing start only to come to a sudden halt ten yards past the bus stop, it represents a death-trap to the unsound of foot. On this particular occasion, the driver (who we shall call Cuthbert because I don't think there's ever been a bus-driver called Cuthbert) recorded a personal best time for this eighty yard section of road and was forced to brake even more sharply than usual. The old man, who shall remain nameless to protect his dignity, was caught unawares, sauntering as he was along the aisle. Suddenly he found himself running instead of walking, and then, as he tried to latch onto some kind of rail to act as a brake, spun round and running backwards towards the front of the bus. The bus and the old man stopped at the same time - the bus ten yards past its stop, and the old man in a heap at the front of the bus. Cuthbert leaned out of his booth, his face showing a blank lack of concern for the casualty he had created. A middle-aged lady ran to the victim's aid, and after a moment the bus crawled forwards. The bus took a small diversion before its next scheduled stop, for fortune had been smiling on this poor elderly spinning gentleman, in the shape of the North Hants County Hospital. After a while a wheelchair was brought out and the man was taken into the big white building of health. Cuthbert resumed his mad bus driving behaviour, and I went home and wondered, as I still do, whether he was trying to get to the hospital anyway. Perhaps he was visiting someone, or perhaps he was on his way to receive treatment. It shows the cruelty in me that I even wonder if he might have been on his way to see an ear specialist about the recent deterioration in his sense of balance. The end For those of you still with me - thank you for listening. PS - would being 24 and buying a Bruce Hornsby album for £1.99 in order to recapture the days of youth and "The way it is" be considered a sad thing? I thought so. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+