As Reno is alight and the Colorado empties out, UK agricultural production fails year on year and Europe burns... spare a thought for London's bus-drivers as all 1500 of them go out on strike today.
They're not allowed to talk about it under Labour's abuse of anyone providing labour but it is all about the fact that legislation forbids carriage of animals in temperatures above 30 degrees centigrade, but not bus-drivers. This has been exacerbated by the fact that there are so few public conveniences left that drivers are effectively denied any means of hydration.
Thatcher would have loved this, and will have been sorry not to have been around in order to send in legions of baton-wielding policemen to beat the shit out of them. She will however be resting peacefully in her grave knowing London Corporation's buses are run by Arriva with focus on shareholder and management remuneration.
But as much as anyone to blame is Thomas Heatherwick's pretty-pretty re-working of the classic Routemaster. Designs are epic when they introduce something new, whereas nowadays as often as not we're happy with re-hashed Minis and Beetles not because we're post-modern so much as the fact we revel in our cultural decline.
Seen side-by-side in this image borrowed from Wikipedia, the older bus was open at the back end, meaning you could get on and off at will. Arriving near school I'd leap from this platform every day wondering how high a speed I could withstand on re-entry. In reverse order, fellow passengers would hold London trains' doors open in an effort to accommodate races between departing trains and tardy commuters.
All that has gone, and Thomas' efforts have concentrated upon three main things:
(a) The elimination of all means of ventilation
(b) A maximum of greenhouse-effect in order to raise temperatures
(c) Windows that can't be opened by anyone anymore
At a stroke, therefore, he's provided any number of bus-drivers with one.
Nonetheless as you see, as with our own efforts foam and plywood are involved in developing even the largest forms of transport.
Ed. Colin is bitter as he wrote Thomas Heatherwick years ago and never got a reply.
