tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post5708387270426366121..comments2022-03-02T14:58:50.045-08:00Comments on Joe Treasure: Why T.S. Eliot didn't write poems about busesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-21135642160825001582013-06-25T09:43:58.834-07:002013-06-25T09:43:58.834-07:00I really enjoyed this Joe. Oooh the 'dangerous...I really enjoyed this Joe. Oooh the 'dangerous classes'. I think it was Engels who said, the poor “robbed of all humanity are a race wholly apart.” Not a bus user himself.Vichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01143437703582673932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-56736950701893344652013-06-25T02:31:12.658-07:002013-06-25T02:31:12.658-07:00Sorry: 'travel writers'.Sorry: 'travel writers'. Philip Wilkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04893714514416441572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-1271551619963448562013-06-25T02:30:15.735-07:002013-06-25T02:30:15.735-07:00...and now I've just found this, from an essay......and now I've just found this, from an essay on Rebecca West in Geoff Dyer's collection <i>Working the Room</i>: 'The best ravel writers may be of only limited reliability when it comes to bus times but they express timeless truths about the buses of a given country - or at least about their relationship with those buses.'Philip Wilkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04893714514416441572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-84969450087677464832013-06-12T02:50:54.836-07:002013-06-12T02:50:54.836-07:00Thanks, Phil, for pointing out the number 11, whic...Thanks, Phil, for pointing out the number 11, which still takes in the major tourist sites between Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s. <br /><br />I’m with you on earwigging, Richard. It helps that everyone faces the same way and there’s a passing scene to look at. People on the tube are usually too busy avoiding eye-contact to be quite so unguarded. <br /> <br />I haven’t read Doctorow on trolleybuses, Dick. But on the subject of New York transport, I just heard from my brother Tom, who had arrived, car-less, on Long Island for a wedding. He was enthusing about the easy rail and ferry link from JFK. <br /><br />I’d forgotten ‘The Celestial Omnibus’, Adrian. Forster was the most socially inclusive of the Bloomsbury set. ‘Only connect’ could be painted on the side of the number 12, which connects Downing Street to Peckham. <br />Joe Treasurehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452665782271458318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-8487381674964327252013-06-12T02:13:56.995-07:002013-06-12T02:13:56.995-07:00I hesitate to say '...the route is immaterial&...I hesitate to say '...the route is immaterial' because certain journies will trigger my fondest memories of London. However, of equal importance is the opportunity to 'earwig' on the lives of others - the verbal equivalent of the uncurtained, lit basement window. Where would Alan Bennett be without the bus?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03577947969798710228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-26124348607798839982013-06-12T00:30:08.477-07:002013-06-12T00:30:08.477-07:00E.M. Forster's short story 'The Celestial ...E.M. Forster's short story 'The Celestial Omnibus' is an interesting counterpoint to your excellent blog: the bus driver speaks Latin.Adrian Barlowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-22657299814465484012013-06-11T12:47:44.050-07:002013-06-11T12:47:44.050-07:00Seeing the sights, by the way, can be done well fr...Seeing the sights, by the way, can be done well from the top of a regular London bus - one doesn't need the purpose-built sightseeing variety - number 11 used to be my own favourite, but I don't know if the route is still the same. I've not been on a Boris bus yet. The health and safety conductors sound amusing.Philip Wilkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04893714514416441572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-33329495391328321162013-06-11T12:42:42.610-07:002013-06-11T12:42:42.610-07:00I remember the Routemaster buses fondly, and enjoy...I remember the Routemaster buses fondly, and enjoyed jumping on and off number 9s in Barnes, number 159s in St John's Wood, and number 36Bs in Catford when I lived in these socially diverse places. The lovely fabrics of their seat covers (by Enid Marx, I think) are a kind of design counterpart to the tube map, Routemaster chic meets modernist graphics, but literature indeed seems mostly to ignore buses. Perhaps they order these matters better in France. Simenon's Maigret likes to ride on old-fashioned Parisian buses so that he can smoke his pipe and the incident told and retold umpteen times in Raymond Queneau's Exercises du Style takes place on a bus (route S, I seem to remember). <br /><br />The reassuring parallel between the name of a bus stop and where it is located is not always reliably upheld. There is a bus stop in Cheltenham called 'Calcutta'.Philip Wilkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04893714514416441572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-37767558442273484942013-06-11T11:00:01.610-07:002013-06-11T11:00:01.610-07:00For a member of the masses this is a remarkably er...For a member of the masses this is a remarkably erudite and perceptive essay. There is a Doctorow novel which features the fact that one could take a series of trolleys from NY to Boston. Nothing like that is now possible.<br />Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07000147057848365359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-48449239751331804542013-06-11T03:43:56.506-07:002013-06-11T03:43:56.506-07:00Yes, bus poetry would probably be in short supply....Yes, bus poetry would probably be in short supply. Wendy Cope's 'Bloody men are like bloody buses' comes to mind, but there's not much romance there. I can imagine an essay on the Greyhound bus in American film. I'm sure you're familiar with Lawrence's wonderful story 'Tickets, Please!' that describes a Nottinghamshire tram ride as a wild adventure. But among buses, it's the London Routemaster that stirs the most nostalgia, because of the freedom symbolised by that open platform. The new Boris Bus, a neo-Routemaster, reflects that nostalgia, running a single route from the East End to Victoria, taking in the City, Bloomsbury and Hyde Park Corner. The conductors don't collect fares. Their only job is to see people safely on and off. I caught it once, by chance. I said to the conductor, 'You're a rare breed.' He said, 'I'm a driver normally. I love this, seeing all the sights. I feel like Charlie in the chocolate factory.' Joe Treasurehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452665782271458318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2262139109574458128.post-70402920397032702052013-06-11T02:32:21.965-07:002013-06-11T02:32:21.965-07:00Joe: This is fascinating, on many levels. There...Joe: This is fascinating, on many levels. There's a whole literature of 1920s and 1930s commentary about the encroaching suburbs (and accompanying factories, billboards, shacks, and other mass-architecture), and how all this building was threatening cities, civilization, and all that entails. I can't remember how much of this material (produced mainly by country writers, architectural commentators, social critics et al) Carey refers to in his book - whether he sticks mainly to the more canonical works of poets and novelists. It forms part of several oppositions (urban/suburban, intellectuals/others, modernists/traditionalists). And the way in which planners and architects responded to the need for mass housing, mass employment, and so on, was diverse, and too complex to get into here.<br /><br />All of this is a world away from buses, except that I seem to remember that for the protesting country writers and preservationists, the charabanc was a symbol of the encroaching masses when they invaded the seaside. But the masses loom larger than their conveyance: a friend of mine edited a small anthology of railway poetry: I couldn't imagine the same thing being done for buses. Philip Wilkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04893714514416441572noreply@blogger.com