Boris on the Buses - a pictorial tour (with words)!

Now what funky policy can I come up with to beat that dastardly Red Kenneth of Livingstone? He's a tricky character










"I know, I'll start a campaign to bring back those lovely old London buses that I used to see from the Bentley when Daddy brought me up to London"
















"Only trouble is they are a bit cramped and uncomfy and there's no first class lounge or stewardess service"













"Even those horrible bendy buses have more legroom"









"And you have to wait at one of those horrible bus stop thingy's with all sorts of undesirables" "Erm, this is a bus stop isn't it"






"Well we'll promise them this, the bus of the future, no expense spared"












"But if they end up with this, they'll be lucky, after all, her highness Lady T said any man over 25 years of age on a bus is a failure"

Looking forward to the Boris Bus

I'm not English, even though I cheer on the footie and cricket teams. I don't consider myself British, even though I cheer on the Olympic team. What I am and will always be is a Londoner. London is the worlds greatest city and yes I've spent a fair bit of time in most of the other candidates. I wouldn't live anywhere else. Having spent a week in North Yorkshire, only reemphasised how much I love London.

When I was a kid there were three things that set London apart. Our Taxis were different, not just cars with a lamp on top. Our tube trains were different (tube shaped, not just rail carriages that happened to be underground). Most of all though our buses were different. When my brother moved to Chelmsford, I can remember the horror of seeing an Eastern Counties bus. It was the wrong shape and the wrong colour. It was UGLY. As I travelled more, the pattern was repeated. Whenever I returned to London, there was no greater satisfaction than being in a taxi, a tube train or a London Bus. I've no great interest in them, they just felt right.

The last time I travelled on a Routemaster bus was the no 13 from Swiss Cottage to Golders Greer. This was on the day of the 7/7 bombings as I struggled to get home from a business meeting at Debenhams in Oxford Street. At the time they were being phased out and it seemed a rather poignant way to travel home on that awful day.

When Boris announced that he'd bring the Routemaster back, I thought it was a gimmick, to be quietly shelved after the election with a "we costed it and its too expensive". It has struck me that Boris has different ideas. He wants a visible lasting legacy. I saw the plans and I was impressed. London needs Icons. If we fade into the grey of all the other cities in the world, identikit lookalikes with a couple of keynote buildings, we've lost it. We invented public transport. The word "Metro" used around the world for underground railways comes from Londons "Metropolitan Railway". The word in Russian for a station is "Vauxhall" after the Tsar visited the newly opened Vauxhall Bridge station.

As an artist and an engineer, I think that the idea for the new bus is great. I'm the last person to praise Boris, I think he's hopeless, but I believe everyone has 1 great idea and his is the new bus.

You won't find God on a London Bus (probably)

Some stories are truly bizarre. There is a report on the BBC website that the British Humanist Society are placing adverts on the side of bendy buses proclaiming "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The report says the BHS has £27,500 to spend on this message. My first thought was that this story was a wind up. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd had a nice big donation from Heineken for the advert. Maybe a byline "Humanism, probably the best religion in the world".

Now I'm not one for censorship. If the BHS thinks this is the best way to get it's message over, that's fine by me. Like many things, some people get hot under the collar when people challenge their beliefs. I disagree, it is healthy to examine your beliefs periodically. The thing is though, if you look at their message scientifically, their proposition is unsustainable. As the existence of God is unproveable, Humanism is just one of many religions, beliefs or viewpoints. As we cannot know which of these is right, statistically they are all probably wrong. In statistics, you have something called sample theory. The bigger the sample, the more likely you are to get a correct answer. Now on this basis, God wins as there are more believers than humanists. That clearly is a pretty dodgy basis for believing, so why use a scientific principle - probability - in the context of something that is outside the realms of current scientific knowledge. Until someone actually produces a valid scientific basis for showing God probably doesn't exist, then the statement is just a belief, the thing Humanists claim to despise.

As to the other part of the statement "Now stop worrying and enjoy life". I don't know about you, but my worries at the moment are nothing to do with God. I must admit that if the BHS had given me the £27,500 instead of giving it to TFL, I'd be worrying much less. I'd probably buy a few cases of Heineken and be much happier. The implication of the advert is that all religious people are neurotic misery guts's whilst Humanists are fun loving party people. Now in the article well known Atheist Professor Richard Dawkins says "Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children." "Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side." "This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion." Well he sounds like a fun guy to get stuck on a bus next to. One of the most boring programs I watched was the one he put together about what a load of tosh religion was. Give me a Pogues gig full of drunken Irish Catholics any day! The best party I've been to this year was my best mates son's Bahmitzvah. I can also honestly say that I heard more jokes and laughed more at the wake for my Mother, following a good old Roman Catholic funeral than anything on the telly for the last 30 years.

Now I don't mind what people say, but come on. The suggestion that people of faith are all miserable sods is unsustainable. If the BHS wants to plaster buses with these messages, thats fine. If they want to give a misleading impression, which is so obviously a load of nonsense, that is up to them, but I think it makes them look rather silly. Being a Good Catholic boy, I'm now going to sit back, crack open a Heineken and hope Celtic give Manchester United a good stuffing in the Champions League. I can assure you if they win I'll not be worried at all and I'll really be enjoying life!