"Offramp" wrote in message

On 24 July, 23:41, Richard

I feel unusually annoyed about this... They are some of the best
buses ever to be used in London or anywhere else, in my controversial
opinion.

I agree entirely. I think it is odd and very wrong that one man's
fatwa could get rid of them.

Well, it was one of his clearest manifesto commitments, so it's fair to
assume at least some of his voters also approved of the idea.

In article
,
John B wrote:

Bloody hell, that's a Boltar post that I completely, 100% agree with.

Me too - strange times indeed.

E,

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, John B wrote:

On Jul 24, 3:34*pm, wrote:
[accurate and correct things]

Bloody hell, that's a Boltar post that I completely, 100% agree with.
Must be the end times...

I chafed a bit at 'idiot cyclists', but if you read that as saying that
cyclists who complain about bendies are idiots, rather than that all
cyclists are idiots and complain about bendies, then it's spot on.

Boltar, have they changed your medication recently?

tom

--
Miscellaneous Terrorists: Ducks | Bird Flu | Avian flu | Jimbo Wales |
Backstreet Boys | The Al Queda Network | Tesco -- Uncyclopedia

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, John B wrote:

On Jul 24, 3:34 pm, wrote:
[accurate and correct things]

Bloody hell, that's a Boltar post that I completely, 100% agree with.
Must be the end times...

I chafed a bit at 'idiot cyclists', but if you read that as saying that
cyclists who complain about bendies are idiots, rather than that all
cyclists are idiots and complain about bendies, then it's spot on.


I read it as being 'zealot cyclists who think the road should be
rearranged for their benefit', which Boris definitely is, leavened by
old-fashioned Tory car-worship*.

Tom (not a cyclist, just a bloke who owns a bike and occasionally
chooses it when it's the best option).

* Like thinking that the car was the single biggest contributor to
women's liberation in the 20th century, a view he's expressed in my hearing.

On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:35:54 +0100, "Recliner"
wrote:

"Offramp" wrote in message

On 24 July, 23:41, Richard

I feel unusually annoyed about this... They are some of the best
buses ever to be used in London or anywhere else, in my controversial
opinion.

I agree entirely. I think it is odd and very wrong that one man's
fatwa could get rid of them.

Well, it was one of his clearest manifesto commitments, so it's fair to
assume at least some of his voters also approved of the idea.


Perhaps the swing voters who gave Boris victory are not bus users?

To be honest, I cannot imagine that many bus users would have voted
for him, but many car drivers will have been seduced by his promises
to remove Bendy Buses from London's roads and to abandon the western
extension of the Congestion Charge zone.

On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, Tom Barry wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, John B wrote:

On Jul 24, 3:34 pm, wrote:
[accurate and correct things]

Bloody hell, that's a Boltar post that I completely, 100% agree with.
Must be the end times...

I chafed a bit at 'idiot cyclists', but if you read that as saying that
cyclists who complain about bendies are idiots, rather than that all
cyclists are idiots and complain about bendies, then it's spot on.

I read it as being 'zealot cyclists who think the road should be rearranged
for their benefit',

Add 'and have mistaken ideas about what arrangement would be most to
their benefit'.

which Boris definitely is,

Yup.

leavened by old-fashioned Tory car-worship*.

Are motorismists anti-bendy?

Tom (not a cyclist, just a bloke who owns a bike and occasionally
chooses it when it's the best option).

A, a 'person on a bike', we call people like you!

* Like thinking that the car was the single biggest contributor to
women's liberation in the 20th century, a view he's expressed in my
hearing.

Oh what a card he is!

tom

--
Science Never Sleeps

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, Tom Barry wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2009, John B wrote:

On Jul 24, 3:34 pm, wrote:
[accurate and correct things]

Bloody hell, that's a Boltar post that I completely, 100% agree with.
Must be the end times...

I chafed a bit at 'idiot cyclists', but if you read that as saying
that cyclists who complain about bendies are idiots, rather than that
all cyclists are idiots and complain about bendies, then it's spot on.

I read it as being 'zealot cyclists who think the road should be
rearranged for their benefit',

Add 'and have mistaken ideas about what arrangement would be most to
their benefit'.

The dreaded 'common sense' of the selfish individual, as expressed by a)
I don't like waiting at traffic lights b) therefore I should be allowed
to ignore them c) therefore I shall arrive at my destination faster d)
therefore the world is a better place. This is often allied to a hatred
of 'experts', possibly because there's an unconscious fear of being
shown up to be a loud-mouthed know-nothing, possibly because that
implies intellectualism, which is associated with undesirable foreign
things like the French. Boris, famously, got his bottom firmly smacked
by London's businessmen over portraying Ken's spending on overseas
embassies as waste, and still maintains that adding a bend to a Citaro
makes it fit only for 'Scandinavian airports'. As I understand it,
Scandinavian airports work rather well, not that I've ever used one, so
it's just rhetorical xenophobia and wilful refusal to examine how the
modern world works. The candidate for the fearful ignorant who want to
be lied to soothingly, is our Boris.


leavened by old-fashioned Tory car-worship*.

Are motorismists anti-bendy?


Yes, certainly the more militant ones - poking a few random people on
Twitter who were applauding Boris on the bendy issue, it turned out very
quickly that they were basically motorists (or in one case a
motorcyclist) for whom a bendy is an impediment to getting about London
in their tin cans - obviously there's sa strong Clarkson
'why-should-the-poor-get-about-faster-than-me' element to this. What's
notable is that they use the same bendy myths ('not built for London's
roads', 'great in Berlin/Amsterdam/wherever, but not British') when what
they actually mean is 'I don't like 100+ people of lower social class in
a bus getting in my way when I'm driving'. Obviously 72 slow-boarding
double deckers on the 38 from November isn't really going to help them,
but it requires more faith in their self-awareness than I can currently
summon up to suppose they'll actually notice what's holding them up.

On the other hand, perhaps spending millions on bendy replacements every
year helps selfish motorists by drying up funds for the expansion of the
network? Maybe that's the plan?

Tom

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:10:02 +0100, John Ray
wrote:

Jarle H Knudsen wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:02:28 +0100, Recliner wrote:

Buses on Route 507, which travels between Waterloo and Victoria, will be
replaced by a new, more frequent single-decker bus on Saturday.
Why not double-deckers?
Because the roof at Waterloo is too low?

Hardly given the 211 uses the same terminal point and route into and out
of Waterloo Station.

They used to use the taxi road (the one with the glass canopy over it),
with a bus stop right in front of the station concourse. I haven't been
there for some time so maybe this is no longer the case.

--
John Ray

Paul Corfield wrote:

They both use the taxi road and come round under the station roof and
park on the slope by the main entrance just as they always have.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/3749131579/

taken on Thursday last week.

I haven't seen a double decker at that point and did not think that
there was enough clearance for one. Thanks for the photo.

--
John Ray

On 25 July, 15:47, Tom Barry wrote:
Are motorismists anti-bendy?

Yes, certainly the more militant ones - poking a few random people on
Twitter who were applauding Boris on the bendy issue, it turned out very
quickly that they were basically motorists (or in one case a
motorcyclist) for whom a bendy is an impediment to getting about London
in their tin cans - obviously there's sa strong Clarkson
'why-should-the-poor-get-about-faster-than-me' element to this. *What's
notable is that they use the same bendy myths ('not built for London's
roads', 'great in Berlin/Amsterdam/wherever, but not British') when what
they actually mean is 'I don't like 100+ people of lower social class in
a bus getting in my way when I'm driving'.

I will never applaud the idiot Boris, nor the hardline Tories who are
hiding behind him, but the silly characterisation of the objections to
bendy buses is disingenuous.

Never mind class or party politics; what about "I don't like to have a
totally unsuitable vehicle blocking the pedestrian crossings, forcing
me to risk my life to get across the road"?

Surely we can do better than choose between a seventy-year old design
and a design that is only suitable for airports and boulevards?

What about a design of bus suitable for modern-day London? Is that so
bluddy difficult to imagine?