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From: Eva Category: Life Date: 11 October 2006 Time: 01:56 PM Review: Having only lived 14 years in London I’m still not used to how bad public transport is here. Okay, I mostly don’t use it, I cycle instead because I’m lazy and impatient and I want to get across London faster than I can walk the distance Regrettably, for reasons of health and large objects, I have had to take public transport two days in a row. People sometimes use the term ‘soul destroying’ without really deliberating on what it means or whether it’s aptly applied. If it means the removal of all freshness, hope and desire to live, all regard for other people and self-identification within a greater scheme of things and the replacing of these with body odour, frustration, depression and selfishness, then London transport is a candidate for the Olympic Soul-Destroying section. Especially the number 436 bendy bus. One interesting aspect of all (four) of this year’s public transport journeys is that remarkably I’m always sat near enough to hear a 30 minute fragment of a teenage girl’s rant to one of her sisters in arms “…and I’m like, ‘why you fuckin’ fonin’ my fone for’? and he’s like…”. I can see how for regular bus pundits it can get annoying but today I greatly admired the prowess with which she’s first able to dial using fingers severely disabled by long diamante nails (with horizontal sticky-outey bits, now that’s new) and then the verbal dexterity with which she immediately snatches the conversation and manages to avoid giving away any pause that might give her interlocutor the chance to take over. I am so not being sarcy, I’d have her on my team. Together we could beat up the Transport for London people. Yeah, yeah, if we could get across London to do it.