Sinister: Unit Delta Bus

[robin stout]

Dear Sinister,

My bus journey isn't what it used to be. The Mick Cooke lookalike who used 
to sit at the back has disappeared. The girl who looks like Stuart Murdoch 
has moved away, and the one who looks like Jarvis Cocker catches a different 
bus instead. Even Johnny Cash, the bus driver, is around less often, and I 
think he's cottoned on to me. Instead of appraising me with a warm but 
solemn eye, he just shakes his head like he knows I could never handle a 
gun. Not anymore.

My friend got on and sat just across from me. He spoke to me, but never 
stopped looking straight ahead. After a while, I did the same. It must have 
looked very strange, like we were in a Northern sitcom. This thought, when 
it happened, gave some good vibrations, as New Year's Resolution Number One 
was to pretend that life was a sitcom. It seems that life takes care of this 
itself. The boy sat next to me texted: "I AM ON THE..."

The bus stopped opposite the old Royal Infirmary. For the last few months 
this has been playing the part of the Albion Hospital, where Doctor Who has 
been vanquishing aliens. It's a terrifying building and I suspect it was 
built by ghosts, long ago. The sound of Harry Belafonte warmed up the 
January chill.

While I walked up the hill, I thought of Delia Derbyshire. I'd just been 
reading an interview with her in which she talks about crying into the 
washing up. Then she says, "Those were the days when I used to do 
washing-up. I've perfected my minimalist living technique so it is no longer 
necessary." I gave this some thought. No washing up! That's quite an 
extraordinary claim! In fact, it's my dream of a modern future. But 
impossible, surely? I haven't stopped thinking about this ever since I read 
it. If there was ever a tale of suburban enlightenment, that would be it: No 
washing up! Domestic nirvana!

Robin x


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