Category Archives: Bus Driving

I’m a Prol, Fol Di Rol

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I will admit to a certain tension in the stomach and sweaty palms as I swung the 52 seater coach through the barbed wire topped rusty gates and out onto the dual carriageway. These are big machines. In recent years I must confess that I have hung out with mainly middle class English folk, none of whom hold large vehicle licenses. I do not know anyone socially who can back up an articulated lorry with a 45 foot trailer (I believe that is a rig and semi-trailer for you guys out there). I’m not a tom-boy – it’s just that I had the chance to get the licenses and improve my chances of work a few years ago. Now, I have some lovely middle class friends who are good people and far kinder and sweeter than I am. However, there is a huge gulf between social classes in the UK. AND THE MAIN DIFFERENCE IS MONEY. These days I swan off to the opera, serve foie gras at dinner parties, gabble in a couple of foreign languages, write (and parody) romance fiction and indulge my love of art at any exhibition I want to see. And it is all because there is enough money to give me the resources and time to do it. Left to myself as a bus driver I would be poor and exhausted. I would be buying the out of date stuff at the discount store and maybe dreaming of a take-out pizza as a treat. If you go to the opera or the ballet – take a look around and tell me there that we do not have social,cultural and income apartheid. 


Now, why is this? If I need a lawyer he/she will cost me about £200 per hour. By driving a bus I will get £5.93p an hour. You can argue that the lawyer had to do more training and is more intelligent. I can assure you that an incompetent lawyer will kill fewer people than an incompetent heavy goods vehicle driver. It is far from certain that a lot of the professional classes could handle heavy trucks and buses. The fact is that the controlling classes have skewed all of the systems to maximize their own take and to minimize wages for the working classes.The Trades Unions have lost both their power and, equally importantly, have lost their articulacy and leadership. Maybe this is the natural law of the Universe and that the poor will always be with us. And they will always have souls just like the rich.


So, I survived the check run and I start Monday morning. I know it is gonna be a bit of a challenge because I’m rather a soft old posh trollop these days. I’ve spotted a greasy spoon burger caravan on the industrial estate so perhaps I can take one home for Gilles as a special treat. I’m not sure where I’ll be driving or in what vehicle. I’m gonna take Sat Naff as my friend. (I know it sounds daft but Sat Naff really seems like a friend when I feel a bit lost and alone.) 


We’ve got some dear friends for dinner tonight – hence all this moules and foie gras discussion. Now that I’ve got a horny handed job and can bang on about the struggle of the proletariat I’ll have to shut up. There’s nothing as tedious as the bloody righteous- particularly when  it’s only essentially a posture.(I mean if I didn’t go to work next week there wouldn’t be debt collectors kicking the door).I wouldn’t die on the barricades or go without proper harissa paste or a decent cut of lamb in my authentic tagine dish. 


 How far away my home seems now. I wonder if there are any late figs and if the neighbours are harvesting them and the apples. As I cycled back through the industrial estate, past the KFC into the swirl of traffic and the fumes of container trucks I had a quick flash back to my other life. A taxi driver gave me the finger for slowing him down in the bus lane. I quickly snapped out of my dream and gave him a gesture concerning his solitary sex life. I’m re-finding my roots.


Still no car. The garage thinks it might be a semi emotional or electrical problem. Gilles keeps telling everyone that it is the torque converter. They say they’ll phone back. They don’t. 


Emma thinx: Is wrongeous or lefteous the opposite of righteous? 

Where next for determinism?

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A gorgeous Autumn day. I am looking out at verdant grass, sparkling with slightly amber dew as the low sun hauls itself above the trees. Oh yes- this is England. Now no church bells mark my hours and once again I will wear a watch. The noose of time tightens. At least I know the words for everything – well almost. I’ve just been phoning around to get some pâté de foie gras. Can you believe that there is none! Whist on the line to the deli I asked a young girl if they stocked moules. She went off to ask the manager and didn’t come back.


Other than imminent economic implosion, the News is filled with uplifting English tales. Eight year old boys apparently put on a cage fight in a social club to entertain the crowd. I suppose I should be shocked – but I’m not. At least there were adults to supervise and I imagine that the parents actually knew where their children were that night. When my brood were adolescents I suggested to various toy companies that they produce inflatable street corners with spittoons so that kids could hang out safely in the warm at home. Since then inflatable friendships and hostilities have been developed by social media and most kids are too badly affected with rickets to go out.


On the subject of pugilism I hear that the boxers of Azerbaijan tried to buy gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics. If you wanna read about this kinda stuff in boxing get my novel “Knockout”. It’s all true. The book is damn near free at 99 cents or 86 pence on Amazon Kindle. There’s SEX too, but I know you wouldn’t read it just for that soppy stuff.


I’m not sure what to make of the discovery by Italian scientists of particles that travel faster than the speed of light. I’ve always known that if you are in a hurry, stockings ladder before you touch them. I’ve also found out that banks put charges on your  account before you perform any transactions. The philosophical implications for fiction writers are massive. Characters will  move ahead of the plot into a kind of uncharted mist without any causal structure. Come to think of it, I might have already written a couple of novels like this.


This afternoon I’m going to the bus depot to sort out my next career move. I’ve spotted quite a few lady bus drivers. Dear old Geoffrey will be there to ease me into the system. Once again I am to be a horny handed daughter of toil. Maybe I won’t drone on about the shortage of foie gras just yet.


Emma thinx: Causality – the next great step for man.

Blue Collar Scholar.

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Well, it had to happen. I’m on the way back to the UK at least until Christmas. Gilles has to work in London for a while. (That’s where I grabbed him in the first place). There is also the very distinct possibility that I will be getting a job. It’s about time! I had enough savings to keep myself propped up during the summer and more or less dedicated myself to writing….and maybe a bit of hedonistic pure idleness. Being able to write in tranquillity without all the jingle jangle has been wonderful. The fruits of these labours should surface over the next couple of months. In the mean time I hope to take the kind of job suited to a Romantic novelist, poet and philosopher. Yes, you’ve guessed it – I’m gonna be a bus driver. Well, not a really real one. My friend Geoffrey Phillips who did the narration on “Sub Prime” works for a school bus operator and there is vacancy for ME. You may wonder why I have a bus driver’s license? Well, I’ll leave that question hanging just to excite you. But all this proves exactly what I said yesterday. All those top jobs and inside information never come out to the masses. So, even a minimum wage, no contract, casual job gets sorted out under the radar because you know someone. I am a pluto-rat and a self seeker. I am ashamed. In the case of a bus driving job this is known as Depotism. 

But, I’m putting my shoulders back and breathing that pure air of the proletariat. The British climate is often horrid. I am anticipating cold wet darkness. I will be one of my own people, sharing their struggle, mashing my potatoes into their gravy, voting on X factor, building the barricades, frying my fish fingers, preparing Findus savoury pancakes. The serious issue here is that once again I will be able to comment on the national politics. In France I have always kept quiet because it is not my country and not my place to opine. I have loved my home in Charente Maritime and soon enough I will be back. Maybe the next book will be mega and I can once again think of writing full time. For now I just have a couple of issues on which to concentrate. Remember to drive on the left. Recover my proper accent! 


Emma thinx: One door closes. A trap door opens.