Bus shelters and their discontents

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OK so how and why does stuff end up on the bus shelter roof? Who puts it there and why? Is it YOU? (Emma and anthony I'm looking at you... ) When there's a shoe, why's there ever only one?

― mark s, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(On Essex Road this morning, southward travelling side, this shelter from Islington Green, a small blue rubber DINOSAUR hurrah!! Actually since blue with two heads a dragon chiz or poss a pokémon wahoo hmmm – but still someone's bright day has been wrecked...)

― mark s, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

second this = third

― mark s, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Blimey I have never looked up on the bus shelter roof. There is a whole world I am missing, clearly.

I too have never understood how you lose a shoe and not notice. Socks I guess fall out of bags on the way back from the launderette.

― Tom, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You look doww on them from the top deck obviously, where I always travel (at the front) as I am eight and just now new in London.

― mark s, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Pair of trousers on a shelter on the Cally. Been there for about two years. SHould be mouldy. Aren't.

― Pete, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Essex road bus shelter has (at least until recently) had a collection of stuff including a leather bag, a Tracy Chapman cassette inlay and a pint of milk that must be going through some extraordinary molecular changes. I always assume it's bag snatchers unwanted booty.

― Nick, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think those magic trousers should be rescued from their bus shelter hell and donated to science. Who knows what secrets they might yield up under scientific scrutiny?

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"bag snatchers unwanted booty": yes who will explain the shoes, the SHOES, sir, the SHOES!!??

Or actually shoe, since there are never two...

― mark s, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I myself have, on one occasion, arrived home scarred and shoeless. I am reluctant to go into detail, but I sympathise with the shoe-losers of the world.

I was told a story yesterday about a fellow from Leeds who took an early train down to London for a job interview. His new interview shoes were painful, so he took them off and promptly went to sleep. He was woken on arrival in London, and was distressed to find his shoes had been half-inched. He was forced to walk from Kings Cross in his stockinged feet and find the nearest shoe shop. (Imagine the commission-salespeople lining up to take *that* customer on, eh?)

I suspect his shoes ended up on the top of a bus stop somewhere. I never worked out where mine ended up.

― Tim, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am a girl, no way could I aim well enough to throw something onto a bus stop! There was a Drifter wrapper on a bus stop on the Cally Road for ages and ages, it never got blown away by the wind although it was a little faded by the sun. It made me happy to see it there.

― Emma, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There might well be an equivalent to this situation in the US, but the bus shelter roofs in my neck of the woods are gently curved, and thus anything tossed up there would merely tumble back down. We have to make do with sneakers tied together and tossed up on telephone wires.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

when i took a bus to work last year someone had left a big bag of chips on top of a bus shelter roof and they were very mouldy indeed, and despite fairly constant rain didn't seem to disintegrate at all over the course of the 3 months i took that route. they're probably still there.

― katie, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In the 70s assorted hippies used to believe that putting things under pyramids had a preservative effect. Will the trend of the 01s be building bus shelters in back gardens for their magic non-decay powers?

― Tom, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If Elizabeth Bishop was alive today then surely, surely she would be writing poems comparing herself to bags of chips and drifter wrappers that got stuck on the top of bus shelters and never disintegrated. The brazen jezebel..........

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Fame! I'm going to live forever, I'm going to sleep on a bus shelter!

High! People will see me and cry, "Get off that bus shelter you twat!".

― Martin, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

well i certainly would Martin. unfortunately i think that's the kind of thing you're likely to do :)

ronan what is it with you and brazen jezebels??

― katie, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

He is young and Irish, ergo full of passion and desire, and yet has no- one to share this passion with, as noted in the thread below about the girl who likes Weezer. So wouldn't we all want some brazen Jezebels if we were him?

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd like to agree with you Katie and say there was something between me and brazen jezebels, chance would be a fine thing

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm suprised that some clever advertising creative hasn't gotten the idea to put add's on the top for the double-decker-top-floor-bus-riders to see as they go along. They could have really witty text: "Enjoy being on Top? Shop at TopShop!" and "LOOK DOWN ON DRUGS!"

― marianna, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's a great idea! Apparently Brentford football 'stadium' has ads on it's roof for the Heathrow-bound planes. Never been over it myself (just on the terraces). Probably an urban myth, but could be true.

― Petit Oiseau, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

IRELAND IN OUTSMARTING THE WORLD SHOCKER We have ads on the top of bus shelters

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, but do you have double decker buses as without them it's all a bit pointless?

― Emma, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

As the resident Brentford fan I would like to confirm the above tale of Ads on our terrace roofs. One said "FLY KLM". It's usually too late to change your mind mid-air if you didn't.

― Martin, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No we have swift and able pigs Emma, of course we have Double deckers, next you'll be saying our huts don't have roofs or something.

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"swift and able pigs" = phrase of the day so far

― mark s, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

oh, the exciting sophistication of city life

― Lyra, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh you can scoff, but when the wind hits your face as you cruise majestically atop a galloping pig, truly you shall know what is civilised and what is savagery.

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

for that brief second I was pocohontas

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Once again I feel bound to register a remarkable fact:

TOESCANTALK, on the basis of his Quality-Not-Quantity approach, is one of the Wittiest IL* Posters Ever - despite the fact that in real life he spends his time sleeping, petting baby animals and throwing darts at walls.

― the pinefox, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I initially read that as 'petting darts and throwing baby animals at walls.' I like to think of this as a healthy pursuit for the deranged mind.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

but does he sometimes get confused and throw baby animals at dartboards and pet darts? I've got this wonderful imagine of him running through the streets of sarf London displaying the stigmata whilst pursued by assorted members of the Animal Liberation Front.

― MarkH, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Throwing dartboards at darts would be good too

― Ronan, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ukrainina bus shelters: http://www.brama.com/travel/busstop.html

― ambrose, Monday, 3 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two weeks pass...

The milk and Tracy Chapman tape box have now gone. Council, heavy rain or students?

― Nick, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Surely getting rid of Tracy Chapman is beyond the powers of even God.........she just keeps on RE FUCKING RELEASING THE SAME CD......MUHAHAHAHAHAHAH. sorry.

― Ronan, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Seen atop a shelter today from the top deck of the 122 in Brockley: a single house brick. Now, if you were just going to *throw away* an unwanted house brick*, you'd probably just put it on top of a low wall, right? With all the other bricks, it'd feel right at home. Not chuck it 9 feet into the air. Must be a murder weapon. I have informed the authorities (LT).

(* - obviously, you should find a fucking BIN)

― Michael Jones, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

c'mon this thread is crying out for revival - what have y'all seen atop bus shelters over the past one and a half years?

Some Oxford bus shelters have curved roofs. Very few of our buses are double deckers. Someone's conspiring to ensure I never find out what's on top of the local shelters...

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 2 May 2003 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

My sister saw a couple having sex on top of a bus stop on New Year's Eve.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 2 May 2003 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is magnificent.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 2 May 2003 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

My sister saw a couple having sex on top of a bus stop on New Year's Eve
if it was a film, they'd fall through and land on someone waiting beneath.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 2 May 2003 12:59 (twenty-two years ago)

ukrainian bus shelters

― ambrose (ambrose), Friday, 2 May 2003 13:07 (twenty-two years ago)

oh my god! i just saw that i loinked to that 2 years ago!!! sorry , i must the most fucking dull unimaginative poerson ever....anyway those ukrainian bus shelters are pretty cool. maybe y'all should take another look

― ambrose (ambrose), Friday, 2 May 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

five months pass...

This thread is witty and clever.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 12 October 2003 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

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