Today I'm going to have a real Old Farts moan about the buses. This has happened in our area but I bet my readers from further afield might recognise some of it.
I got the bus into Norwich. So far so good and no problems. I had lunch with a friend and did some window shopping. By that I mean I sourced some Christmas presents without buying any. I always do this. I have a couple of visits where I look for stuff and then I return and buy it all on the same day - usually when the pre Christmas panic is really underway.
But back to the buses. It was some time after 2 pm and I had had enough and decided to get the bus home.
People love buzz phrases. We have "let the train take the strain" and I'm sure there should be one that says "let the bus take the fuss."
So as I got towards Castle Meadow where the buses pass through and so called because Norwich Castle is slap bang in front of you, I saw a number 15 which is my bus for home. I ran across the road. It's only for buses, taxis and bikes so there wasn't much traffic. Got to the bus to be told by a very rude driver "This bus isn't goin nowhere." I held off from pointing out that meant it was going somewhere as I didn't feel it prudent to do so. There were a couple of people sitting on the bus who obviously thought it was going somewhere as well.
But no need to panic because a few yards further up was another number 15. So I walked to that. It was in darkness with no driver. Meanwhile the electronic noticeboard told us that a 15 was due and was on time. But no we stood there for 20 minutes. The passengers on the first bus eventually got off. No signs of any drivers.
I can also catch a 13 and two of them came at the same time. One was on time and the other was half an hour late. The one that was half an hour late came first and drove straight past without stopping. The second did stop and eventually I got home.
This is typical of what is happening at the moment. The buses don't run and nobody seems bothered. In the words of Shakespeare "Now is the Winter of our discontent."
* * *
OK I know that I shouldn't but I can't help it.
I refer to my attempts to kill off the High Street.
Yesterday I did some Christmas shopping and it's not yet Christmas Eve! I went into Waterstones book shop with the idea of buying two or three books. I sourced them all in Waterstones and then walked to Norwich Central Library and ordered them all on Amazon.
And why did I do this. Well
1/ By ordering on Amazon I saved myself about £15 which isn't to be sniffed at in these difficult times and
2/ The queue to pay for books snaked round the shop and I would have been standing there for many minutes when I had other things to get. I really resent standing in queues when there is another option.
Had to go to the supermarket as well and had to laugh at the same sign dotted around on displays throughout the store.
"When it's gone it's gone"
Apart from really stating the bindingly obvious, this sign always makes me smirk. Each display had so many goods on it that I doubt they will go any time in the next millennium.
I get the same feeling with pieces of art. You know the ones where it is declared. "Part of an exclusive limited edition of just 500." What they often don't say is that only 10 have been sold so that it might be a limited edition but there just aren't that many people who want to own one.
* * *
I am currently reading an excellent book on the Holocaust by historian Laurence Rees. It's probably the third or fourth time I have started it but this time I'm determined to keep going. My problem is it's all part of my butterfly brain. I start a book with great enthusiasm and then see another and start reading that and then I see a third and so on. I end up with about six on the go and then forget some of them and never finish them. I'm also reading the latest J K Rowling detective story The Ink Black Heart. She has written it under her pen name of Robert Galbraith. I'm not sure why she has chosen a pen name unless it's because she wants to distance the books from the Harry Potter series and the other books she has written. I understand why the Bronte sisters pretended that they were men because in those long gone days women just didn't write books did they? But Rowling has sold so many millions that I'm sure readers would have bought the detective novels had they been written under her real name. But I guess that sometimes it's good to re-invent yourself.
I always dreamed of writing under a pen name and chose Scott Willoughby. It's actually the name of a village in Lincolnshire. I have a friend who occasionally writes under the name Brant Broughton which just happens to be another village in Lincolnshire.
When I do go into a bookshop like Waterstones I am gobsmacked by the thousands of titles on display and also the number of copies of each book. And every time you go in the displays have been changed and a massive number of new books are there being promoted. In many ways I find it all confusing.
I have never really understood where Hitler's hatred of the Jewish people came from, what fuelled it and what was behind it. Rees' book does help in a small way and there is a link between the place where I live and Hitler's anti sematism as I will explain tomorrow.