Of Bus Screens and Wandering Thoughts

A Lazy Saturday's Prelude

Through Saturday, I vegetated at home as I began to binge-watch the second series of Bull, a television programme about trial science which I find quite fascinating, whilst also putting me at risk of learning things that might make me more forthright and less personable.

At the back of my mind, I agonised about getting some shopping done. This involved catching a bus to the ethnic grocer's first, then walking up to the affordable supermarket, before returning home.

As the ethnic grocer closed at 9:00 PM and the supermarket an hour later, I could spare a few more hours of lazing about until I really had to get out; otherwise, the shopping would have to wait for another day, an idea that held no appeal.

Setting Off at Last

When I did eventually leave home with barely 90 minutes to go before the first shop closed, the nearest bus stop, just half a kilometre up the street, was closed, so I had to walk further down to the next one. On another day, with enough strength and the leeway of sufficient time, I would have walked the whole way and clocked up a few thousand steps in the process.

The Bee Network buses on the Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) enterprise are part of a modern integrated service under the mayoralty of Greater Manchester. There is an app to check routes and timetables, along with the current status of buses at specific stops.

The Trouble with the Screens

On the buses themselves, the contactless payment method is a convenience, but it is the screens showing the route and next stops that I find most useful for keeping my bearings. Unfortunately, on the bus I boarded, the screen was stuck on stopping information from well before I got on, and that was annoying.

I thought it was a case of broken windows syndrome, with such a minor detail of keeping passengers apprised of the journey and the next stop not being attended to as part of a pre-flight checklist for bus transport. I was remonstrating quite vehemently in my mind, with a view to writing to TfGM about the malfunctioning information screens. I had seen this many times before.

A Curious Coincidence

I had barely put together the words and suggested tone of my missive when, four bus stops after I boarded, the screens seemed to catch up and start working. That was uncanny, as it had me wondering if I now had the means to project my thoughts, not just for registering a complaint, but for the remediation and resolution of an issue to a satisfactory standard.

By extension, this would also suggest that I ought to guard my thoughts and arrest those straying out of the bounds of reason into the outlandish.

Others might put this down to coincidence, when it seems propinquitous enough to aspire to the causative. I do not know, but I was glad the screens got fixed, and I allowed myself the wry thought of levitating my shopping bags home instead of carrying them.

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