Thursday, April 21, 2011

THE 12: AKA THE GREATEST BUS IN THE WORLD

There’s nothing quite like London transport to rectify whatever qualms one may have toward personal space or hygiene. One such significant mode of travel, which has carried me loyally throughout the scum riddled squalor of London, has also brought me some bizarre and wonderful experiences. These experiences are what I like to call the “misadventures of the 12”.


The 12 has featured in many lives and impacted so much so on one London visitor’s life, that they rated it no. 8 in their personal list of 16 Awesome Hidden Gems of London. Indeed the 12 is a diamond in the rough (I mean that quite literally, it frequently likes to deposit its passengers, terminating on High Street Peckham, abandoning them without a leg to stand on because the drunken pervert next them licked his lips and touched their knee, thus revolting them to the extent of the amputation of said knee in favour of remaining STI free).

Upon the 12 I have also enjoyed the epic monologues of the fanatically religious. Some of them murmur with an eerie persistence, other wail and shout because they can see that you are peacefully enjoying your quiet trip home. This peacefulness is often misconstrued as bordem and GOD FORBID should one be board on the 12. It’s not like you are entitled to any privacy or any rights at all for that matter when you’re on the 12 bus. The only right that you can justly exercise is the right to the freedom of speech, at whatever volume you deem it necessary.  You also have the right to stare at someone long enough to make them feel severely uncomfortable, you also have the right to exercise your freedom of speech not only when you are densely inebriated but also when you are clinically insane. (Many of London’s mentally ill enjoy a good old chatter with themselves on our beloved no. 12).

Once I made a friend on the 12. He hopped on shortly after me on Regents Street and declared to the bus’s population that he didn’t give a shit whether we believed in God because it meant that there was more room in Heaven for him (religious nutjob). Although I thoroughly appreciated his commentary seeping through my headphones which were at full volume, I decided to gracefully decline his rantings and hop off at the next stop to catch the following bus (The no.12 is superbly efficient.)  I’m on the next bus and a few stops later who pops on but my old friend from the previous 12! LUCKY ME! So up I leap to get off and he quite generously threatened the bus driver with his own life to allow me off (severe case of lunacy). I thought that was very kind.

The 12 also has the most unique blend of fragrances with a mix of warm body odour, strange unidentifiable ethnic cuisine, alcohol stench, weed stench and interestingly toxic hair/ weave treatment. It’s really very special. Also, if you like to get all up and personal, why not take a trip on the 12, especially when it’s really hot and at peak traffic time. I mean, I managed to have a teenage girl’s vagina rest on my shoulder and a well hung rack of tits graze my cheek several times this evening! A woman bent down to pick up her shopping bags and gave a gentleman a blowjob without either of them noticing. I think it’s fair to say that we all had a spiffing good time on this truly English adventure.

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