Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXVIII

A spectacle of living

Manchester Presents would be a fitting title for a programme that highlights the intriguing peculiarities of this city, demonstrated through its residents and their way of life and pursuits.

I generally consider myself more of an observer than a participant. Usually, I find out about events in my city long after they happen. If I happen to learn about something before it occurs, I might make a mental note, but due to disinterest or lethargy, it often slips my mind.

However, whenever I step out for something as mundane as shopping for essentials, these encounters make me wonder if there’s more to the beating heart of Manchester—something I have yet to fully grasp after nearly 12 years of living here.

But a polemicist

For example, I was on a bus returning from the shops when a lady of South Asian origin boarded. Stylish and quite sophisticated, her makeup stood out—her eyes accentuated with black markings resembling the upper rim of large, rectangular spectacles.

That alone would have been an interesting story. Then she started to speak—at first I thought she was on a phone call until I realised she was addressing us, the passengers on the lower deck. She wasn’t a preacher, a few of whom I’ve seen, but not in Manchester.

When I understood what she was saying—her somewhat coherent remarks—it was polemical, with references to government involvement in fraud, with the citing of sections and paragraphs too. If I had been paying closer attention earlier, I might have laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Achievement without recognition

If I heard her correctly, she was either a professor of Punjabi literature or a close relative of one, and her father was a renowned professor named Kohli. She even spelt it out. Then she launched into a tirade about prejudice, racism, and not being recognised because she had brown skin.

Despite her accent, she exhibited every sign of a good education, with flawless grammar and a conviction in her delivery that persisted until she disembarked. It seemed she was making a case—perhaps a grievance or an injustice still bothering her.

Upon reflection, I suspected she might have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice influenced by prejudice, racism, workplace harassment, maybe denied promotion—situations often encountered in academia—and this appeared to have affected her mental health, reflected in her behaviour on the bus.

May she find peace

At the very least, she probably needs therapy. I was quite concerned about her, and I’m somewhat relieved that no one tried to silence her. As disturbing as it was, we simply let her vent her spleen, though there was more to it than met the eye. I sincerely hope she receives the help she needs.

For a lady who, by her bearing, could be of a certain age above the golden jubilee, there’s little to distinguish eccentricity from being sectioned. On that spectrum, she seems closer to the latter. I truly hope she finds peace.

Meanwhile, no face masks seen, but some of us are still taking Coronavirus booster jabs.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXV

Shopping around for pricks

At lunchtime today I had been phoning around to find a pharmacy, chemist, apothecary, or even a shamanist grotto offering the NHS Seasonal Vaccination for COVID-19, normally termed the booster shot.

I found a chemist location that did not have a pharmaceutical reference in their name suggesting they could give the shot today when I called yesterday afternoon. As I did not want another wasted journey, I called again this morning and was told, that if I arrived before 5:00PM, I could get the jab.

It would have been a 35-minute walk, but I got on a bus and the area looked familiar enough even as it is miles away from where I live. When I got there, I was asked to sit in a waiting area where I was the only one for the vaccine booster.

Those were big bulging lips

Soon, a young lady, trim and straining to be polite came out and asked for my name and other particulars, I noticed that all my data was presented on the computer she was working from. Her makeup was light, but it appeared she had gone for the prominent lip-boosted look, highly exaggerated and heavy with lip gloss, you could say the lips belonged on a Barbie doll, but what do I know about ladies’ lips?

The section where I was to be given the jab was in the front of the store by the window with a one-way screen, you could see out but those on the street could not see in. Sometimes, you need to be convinced that is really the case. People may not see the way you see things, and that includes lips too.

This would be the 8^th COVID-19-related prophylactic jab, 6 of the Pfizer type and 2 of the Moderna type mRNA injections.

She did not introduce the hypodermic needle with the customary, “Just a scratch,” that you hear nurses say when you are about to take the prick of a needle. It is a thinner needle, and the deed is done before you know it.

It went into my upper left arm, and in the little banter we had after being injected she said people had been coming from far away to get the vaccine. There is an inventory management issue as not all listed chemists have stocks to serve their communities.

A busman living for trouble

Back at the bus stop for my return journey, there was a bus in a minute, and it did arrive as I tried to wave it down to stop. The driver looked in my direction and shrugged, not even slowing down at all. I overlooked the slight as there was another bus scheduled to arrive, but someone standing at the bus stop with me and another walking up to the bus stop who put out his arm to wave it to a stop both said the bus had enough time to stop for me.

Much as I said I was not bothered, they read more into the event, apart from calling the driver unprintable names, they both indicated the driver was racist, these were two white men who had witnessed something probably unfair, cruel, or unjust, and they were quite riled up. The other man who attempted to wave down the bus said he would report the issue.

At which point, I posted a tweet to the Bee Network that runs the bus services in Greater Manchester just as the next and now, double-decker bus arrived and stopped for me to board. The jab seemed to exacerbate a sense of tiredness affecting my concentration, and as that wore off, it is just the slight pain in the area that suggests I had my dermis punctured earlier today.

Thought Picnic: Warding off depression

Not right, no write

In a way, my blog has suffered in this year in many ways that I sometimes do not want to acknowledge. However, I cannot fail to notice that I have hardly written in 10 weeks of this year what I would normally have written in a month.

Yet, it is not for the lack of things to write about, there seems to be a preoccupation with other things and unsettling distractions that divert focus from the essential and the important. I have become a sort of hermit, in a recluse and creating a kind of isolated existence that is broken only when I have to attend appointments.

Typically bussed

One such open appointment was a visit to the hospital yesterday just for a phlebotomy, I would normally have called an Uber ride to the hospital, but a price surge early in the afternoon when I had just received an email about a 14% price cut across the board on all fares left me feeling I did not want to be unnecessarily fleeced.

Many times, I had seen the bus to the hospital on diversion past my apartment block, but the roadworks had finished, I needed to find where to board the bus. On my way to the bus stop, I saw two buses go by, the same number, different routes – just the kind of confusion you need.

On getting to the bus stop that both the double-decker and single-decker bus would ply, the timetable indicated 10 minutes between buses, but the next bus did not arrive for another 18 minutes.

The bus driver had no change for a £20 note and motioned to me to take a seat, giving me a free ride to the hospital.

Pricks and drips

On getting to the blood room as it is called, there was only one other patient waiting, I thought they had closed for the day and it was not yet 2:00 PM. The room at other times usually has over 10 patients waiting as I started a conversation with the lady.

Soon she was called in and then I was where on giving her date of birth, there was no way any of us could believe she was 65. This session only required one vial of blood as opposed to the 9 I had to give just over a month ago.

We were done in minutes and as I stepped out of the hospital, I saw a bus that could take me back into town, only that again, this bus driver on a different bus did not have change either. This meant going to the hospital café to get a drink and with that some change with which I was then still able to catch the same bus and I was soon back at home.

Many other plans are tentative, nothing fixed and not much else followed through, the day passes slowly and almost uneventful, the need for determination, purpose and focus is clear or maybe I am just depressed.

Tax Credits: The Toffs are making it tough

All buses gone

One morning when I was still living in Amsterdam, I walked up to the bus stop one morning to catch a bus to the train station one my way to work.

Until, that morning, we had 5 buses going from that bus stop in different directions going to the train station that no one had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus to come by. However, no bus came, or the only other bus that did was not going to the station.

One cursory view of the bus timetables showed that all buses from that stop to the station had been cancelled. I was later to learn that the buses were cancelled because there was a new tram service going to the train station, only that the said tram service was another 6 months away from coming into service.

This was some sort of forward-planning made without considering the impact and consequence on our community for the 6 intervening months where we had to find alternative convoluted arrangements to get to the train station, we had to wake up earlier and leave home earlier to make our connections because of this.

The travesty of tax credits

This brings me to the issue of the day in UK politics, the review of Tax Credits as proposed by the Chancellor of Exchequer. That Tax Credits exist in and off themselves is a travesty and a failing of the democratic capitalist model we have in the UK.

Tax Credits are neither taxes nor credits but a socialist means of supplementing the incomes of workers who are paid such atrociously low salaries in the public and private sector that they can hardly subsist on their incomes. In a way, our capitalist framework does not pay fully for the employment and utility of labour and the slack is taken up by the public purse in the quest to lift the poorly paid above the poverty line.

There are probably macroeconomic policies that can be put in place to make capitalism pay up in full for the cost of labour and expertise, allowing for a middle-class kind of existence, but no government has had the guts to stand up to business and demand they do the morally and ethically right thing about wages. In most cases, these businesses that leach of us to exist for the primary profit motive will howl about changes that cost them more when they are not even meeting their basic costs.

The truth is, we’re worse off

What the new Conservative government plans to do is to reduce the level of income at which people will qualify for the full in-work benefits over which the payments reduce and to limit the benefits towards children to a maximum of two.

We are told that changes to the living wage, higher tax payment thresholds, more subsidised childcare access and other tax jiggery-pokery will compensate for the loss of Tax Credits. The fact is like the transport situation I described earlier, nothing could be further from the truth.

Independent analysts and institutions have already determined that all taken together, up to 3 million families will be worse off, losing an average of £1,000 a year whilst saving the government up to £4 billion in their ideological quest to plug the deficit brought on by the financial system gone riot and the government using public money to save private financial atrocities for which no significant member of the financial community has been held accountable for.

The toffs are making it tough

In all, it is the poor and the low-income earners that have taken the bigger brunt of the austerity measures put in place to compensate for the ‘crimes’ of the City and rich investors, the squeeze is still on the poor without respite.

This might well be the Conservative government’s Poll Tax moment, but I guess not much can be said for the concern or consideration of a well-heeled governing class who have trust funds to last generations that the cries of anguish of the masses will only be an irritation to be blocked out in the comfort of their gilded and soundproofed castles.

This is not the Great Britain many signed up for, but that is the way things are. My transport situation was resolved in 6 months, the lives of people dependent on Tax Credits will not get better in the long run and that is a shame.

London: Bussed to distraction,

Before it all happened

At the end of our journey, as we thanked the bus driver for the trip, I walked up to the driver to commiserate about the somewhat sordid day he was having. In fact, a good few of us had not enjoyed the bus ride and it was no fault of the driver, but of passengers and schedulers.

This was on one of my unannounced trips to London, I boarded the bus from East Street in South London to Euston, route 68 it was and journey expected to take about 34 minutes. I had the time.

I would normally have taken a Priority Seat, seeing that I use a cane and I was laden with shopping from the Agege Bread shop on East Street having taken a leisurely 1.6 mile walk from Vauxhall rather than use public transport that would have taken just about the same time. [My Blog on Agege Bread]

Disconcerting conversation

The Priority Seats were already occupied by those who did not need them, especially one where a man had his arm comfortably draped over the head of the aisle seat with him sat by the window, making it difficult for me to take the seat behind backing onto the side of the bus. Yet, that was the better seat to take, so I snuggled in.

The man, quite volubly Nigerian and as cantankerously annoying as you can get was ensconced in a mobile phone conversation for the entire length of the journey and I can only imagine where he got on. The volume of his speech in another language I could not care to comprehend him enough to want to call him to order, though I doubt the scene that might have developed afterwards would have been nice. We all endured it.

Pissed off from a screen

The driver, however, had to contend with schedulers who because of certain events in London had the buses running outside schedule that he was advised to slow down to help even out the schedule. In the ensuing conversation, we learnt that we were already going at 10 miles an hour on a 20 miles an hour route causing congestion and inconvenience to others.

The scheduler insisted the more unconvinced of the chaos he might be causing on the roads from the comfort of watching screens and tapping keyboards, that the driver let it be known that he had been a driver for 30 years and that he will not have his intelligence insulted. I raised an eyebrow whilst seemingly agreeing with him. He was doing his best.

Tripping up on London place names

A few stops later, a lady got on with a rather large suitcase and an accent that was caught in the Shibboleth of London place names. She was going to Aldwych, but managed to pronounce it with an ‘s’ replacing the ‘d’ and ‘w’ that is sounded like Alsish. It occurred to me from her accent that she also might be Nigeria and somehow, my ear trained to such accents and having an idea of the route, I surmised she was going to Aldwych.

The driver was none the wiser, she however, got on the bus and made to sit beside the chatterbox man who shifted uneasily to give space without breaking from his conversation. However, she needed help with directions and he was about to give her the wrong information based of apparently knowing assumption.

I intervened, first by letting her know the proper pronunciation of Aldwych and that the stop she wanted was the Aldwych / Kingsway stop where she could board the bus on route 9 to Hammersmith. It transpired that she was really going to Victoria and though it was a circuitously contrived journey to go from where she boarded to Aldwych, to Hammersmith and then to Victoria, she was more comfortable to do that than take the London Underground. I was not going to dissuade her, but she had enough information about what she needed to do.

The power of example

Over the next few stops, people boarded and disembarked some needing directions and asking questions until a point where someone had found to use the bell as some musical instrument. You only have to ring the bell once and the Bus Stopping sign lights up on both decks, it also alerts the bus driver to stop at the next bus stop.

This unnecessary peeling of the bell in the midst of the cacophony of our conversationalist who had hardly paused to take a breath since I got on the bus some 30 minutes before had the driver make an announcement that whoever was ringing the bell should behave.

A mother and child descended from the upper deck and rather than get off she decided to have words with the driver about the fact that she son was under control and that he had every right to ring the bell. Her unladylike manner at the highest volume she could muster and then leaving having been quite abusive to the driver was enough for everyone to conclude her ill-discipline was fully developed in the child. Such is the power of example.

We finally cantered, as it were into Euston, the talkative conscious enough to disembark and give way for me to have a quick chat commiserating with the driver, who had one more trip to Camberwell before playing another route. I was in time to make my train too.

The almost curse of being particularly particular

Penthouse office views

We moved into a brand new office block this week and it was wonderful to move from a cellar to a top floor office.

I have however wondered how we ended up in the 5^th floor and the big-wigs on the 2^nd, hopefully, it not suggesting anything as Machiavellian as being so close to the airport.

In any event, we have the view of the airport, runway and hangars on the one side and a major road sided by a canal and a typical drawbridge for canal traffic on the other side.

It means after getting to Schiphol Airport by train, I have to board another bus; free of charge because an arrangement between the company and the bus company allows for free travel in the environs of the airport.

That seat is reserved – for us

I had kept my peace and even endured the journey standing once, but I decided not to do that again – the buses have upholstered seats with visible repeated signs of the pregnant, the nursing mother and supposedly the infirm – depicted as someone with a cane.

Now, I use a cane and not for the reasons of re-enacting Edwardian England, my back has been a bit troublesome though not as bad as it used to be – as I got on the bus, the able, the young and overly active made for these priority seats; I was having none of it as I pointed out to them – these are priority seats not reserved for you.

None looked pregnant, with suckling infants or with anything to aid their mobility, so before I got to the point of being forceful, a seat was yielded and I had the basic comfort of getting to work.

I do not normally rush for those seats if other seats are available but when every seat is occupied, well those who need them have priority over those who usurp them.

The bane of being particularly particular

What should not happen is the tendency to become particularly particular with an eye out for those who ignore the obvious – one trait in need of amelioration is that feeling of irksomeness when one sees these things.

Bags on seats, rushing in at entry points, bicycles beyond traffic signs, bicycles on footways, people standing in the way ignoring the fact that they are in the way – what a fuss-pot I’ve become.

Loathing and primed to correct, but without horn-rimmed spectacles and shrill voice to boot – I probably need therapy or have to live in a different world – but for now, we’ll just manage as much as possible not to be too aggravated by it all – we can’t all be so proper.

A long and windy road to the bloods

A course of detours

Another free day but not from things that need getting done; I had scheduled going to hospital today to give some blood in advance of my third quarterly check-up with my medical consultant, I also took the opportunity to book a meeting with the Catholic pastor who has so ministered greatly to my psychological and spiritual needs.

A quick chat to the neighbours meant I missed the tram going towards the hospital which includes a 5-minute walk so I thought I’ll take the next bus and sort of jump onto another tram that would put me in from of the hospital.

I was not too sure of the route the bus would take but after a few stops, it appeared to veer off course, I disembarked and walked the road I expected the bus to ply, it had been dug up and the bus had only taken a diversion – as I got to where I expected to get the tram, the bus came hurtling by but not in the direction I wanted – what a diversion that was.

I got to the hospital only to find that the main entrance had been blocked off for some repairs, we all had to go in by the side entrance and I was just in time to meet the pastor first before going for the bloods.

Where my heart is

Over a cup of tea we chatted about the progress I had made since I last saw him, the job, the conditions, the support and other conversations I had had with my relations. As usual, he asks the most searching questions like where my heart was when I think of Nigeria, England and the Netherlands.

I know my heart is not in Nigeria but my mind really is, my blog in a way lives in Nigeria when I review how much I write about her, I feel strongly English but I do not have any inclination of returning to live there, whilst I am in the Netherlands where my home is, I love this country but I have not convinced myself that I would settle here though in May I would have been here 10 years. Something to think about I thought to myself – where is my heart?

The pastor opined my inability to answer directly might well be that I have in a way become a world citizen; I suppose I need to travel a bit more to aspire to that kind of description.

Two pricks for seven vials

The queue for the bloods was short and soon I had registered and noticed they were taking 7 huge vials of my blood, I had to keep myself together thinking of the blood-letting I was about to suffer without swooning.

My body had survived 11 weeks without a pin prick, I was not sure if I was going to be a sissy at the sight of a needle piercing my skin, I was surprised when I watched but it got stuck, there was no blood entering the vials after the second, a few more vials were tried before the nurse decided to give up on tapping that vein.

She dressed that up and rather than trying it again, she got another nurse to try, so I switched arms and had blood drawn into the other 5 vials, watching the action, I realised the vials when attached to the receptacle attached to the inserted needle seem to fill up – what I thought was capillary action was in fact a vacuum-suction process.

Once that was done, I was ready to leave; in three weeks, we should find out about the tale in the bloods again – what a long and windy road it was to get anything done today.

Dogged by Goth prejudice

Knowing nothing about Goths

We have at times found ourselves in the primitive state of allowing our prejudices to becloud our better judgement.

If we are then challenged about those prejudices, we attempt to defend the indefensible whilst successfully making fools of ourselves.

I am not entirely familiar with the Goth sub-culture but I know that they look threatening enough in their black robes, long hair and piercings in all sorts of places – that is their choice of appearance.

At liberty as adults

In fact, I remain a strong advocate of the thought that we should never be embarrassed for doing what we as adults decide to do within the law and with mutual consent of the parties involved.

Some of those activities, many might find reprehensible, but then we have the choice not to countenance the situation or try and think through the matter, just look away.

Some instances might be difficult like the case of a Goth couple, the male, Dani Graves, 25, and his mate (fiancée) Tasha Maltby, 19, had taken to appearing in public with a dog collar on a leash round the neck of the lady.

Unusual as this might seem to the public, there is no law against anyone willing to be restrained in that manner – the fundamentals being willingness and informed consent. The lady prefers to live a dogs life - her prerogative.

Live and let live

Now, being an advocate for personal freedom and the freedom from mental or obvious shackles, I am sorry that anyone would want to adopt such a submissive posture – but each one to his/her own.

I would then hope that people will and can restrain themselves from heaping opprobrium on either party no matter how strongly they feel about this depiction.

It so happens that this couple was ejected from one bus and not granted leave to board another bus both operated Arriva Yorkshire.

Their defence was there were fears for passenger safety especially if the bus were to brake suddenly.

Their advice was that they would only allow the lady to board their buses if she removed her dog lead.

Easy Questions for difficult answers

Two questions arise from this development.

Are dogs allowed on Arriva Yorkshire buses?

It would appear dogs are allowed to travel free of charge on Arriva North West and Wales buses which are part of the Arriva Group. There probably is a similar kind of deal in other regions and maybe the handlers have to pay a fee to travel with their dogs.

Who would be affected if the bus did brake suddenly?

I would suppose everyone would be affected, a real dog on a lead or a person on a dog lead along with every other occupant of the bus.

If this does give that much serious concern I would suggest that seat belts be mandatory to all occupants of a bus sitting down and dogs should be in restraining harnesses rather than mere leads to travel on buses.

In fact, it would be preferable to have no standing in buses; all buses should have all seating carriages.

Prejudice expressed apology extracted

That however is, the objective part of this discourse because the obvious prejudice was expressed in these words as the driver literally manhandled the couple – “We don't let freaks and dogs like you on”. That was in England in 2008.

I rest my case as an apology from Arriva Yorkshire wends its way to the seriously offended couple.

Some video about the issue.

Chatting up more bravado than a drunk

Mind the long bus

I could not help a smirk this morning as I rode on the bus to work. I usually take the backseat in the double-length 18-metre long bus because it gives me a 10-stride advantage of getting off and getting to the office quicker - well, it is a perception.

These long buses which could top 10 tonnes or more can be manoeuvred like snakes as they take corners, but the comfort could almost tempt you into thinking you are in a car.

That false sense of existence leads the absent-minded to expect the bus to stop abruptly if they suddenly realise that the bus is just about nose past their stop - very few drivers risk the act of applying the brakes though the passenger would almost always rain insults on the poor driver for not stopping.

We live in a world where you can never ever be at fault no matter how blatantly obvious it is.

So, today, I could not take the back seat, but the one just before because this voluminous man had splayed himself on the three back seats, well with one occupied by his rucksack.

Yapping like a dog on a phone

Then my peace and tranquillity was assaulted beyond tolerable limits as he mouthed into a phone call that almost lasted the whole journey, my irritation is getting quite palpable.

I suddenly thought, he would miss his stopped because he seemed so engrossed in his talk to be attentive to his surroundings, then he pressed the stop button to alert the driver, by which time it was obvious that driver would drive on to the next stop rather than turn his passengers in crash test dummies.

So, the man ended his conversation on the phone to rail abuse on the driver for not heeding the bell which the driver just ignored.

On reaching the next stop, when for which I think the driver had been alerted, the bus stopped and our man got off - in my mind the 1 kilometre walk back to his original stop and consequent destination would do him well.

However, the point is, I do not need scientific papers to clearly illustrate that there is nothing you can conveniently do with adequate concentration when you are chatting on a mobile phone.

Dangerous as drunks

It has been said car phone users are four times more likely to crash, that could just be as dangerous as drinking under the influence.

I have not just seen this kind of concentration stupor with car drivers, it applies to cyclists who I have see ride their bikes as if they are on a zigzag course and pedestrians who have walked into the path of vehicles all as they chat to their pals on their mobile phones.

To the exclusion of all else

Basically, there are many jobs where one can multi-task but when it comes to speaking on the phone you are trying to block out every kind of interference whilst trying to be completely communicative on the phone - this leads to a loss of awareness - a feature necessary to do this properly, rightly, meticulously, confidently and consciously.

The problem is, many do really think they are both capable and aware such that use of a mobile phone cannot in any way impair judgment - that is same bravado of drunk.

Doing right

I rarely do other things when I am on the phone except if it is related to a support calls - in fact, I just had a 30-minute conversation with an old colleague and left this article unfinished to concentrate on the call - it was social.

If you do have to talk, make safe your situation by aborting everything to concentrate on that call - in a car, hands-free sets are not the answer, rather, park your car and take the call, in other cases where there is risk of collision or accidents whilst walking or riding a bicycle - stop and find a place out of the way to take your call - better still, let your phone take a message and you can deal with it later when you are safe and sure.

Reference

Study: Drivers on Mobile Phones as Impaired as Drunks

Singing in the (d)rain

The joy of commuting

I could not help but notice as a user of public transport the creature comforts put up for the pleasure of commuters to keep them from the elements.

This, in particular pertains to bus shelters, which in some cases are designed by renowned Dutch architects who, for those designs might have won awards.

In fact those bus shelters are aesthetically pleasing, you would immediate seek shelter from the elements if you are in the proximity of one - that is if you are seeking shelter for harsh sunrays.

More sweating for seating

First, it is the seats, which are either too short to accommodate more the 3 backsides, but there is usually someone with a backside meant for at least 2 average people.

In some cases the seats are not so much seats but very much like uneven bars in a gymnasium, only that they are closer together so you are to prop or attach yourself to the thing, well, really, your feet do more work trying to keep your stability on the contraption.

I would not say that the Netherlands is in the middle of some arid desert region where temperatures dare to rise above 32C, it if ever happens, but we can altogether get about 3 to 4 weeks of real summer - a conservative and probably truthful assessment.

Rain drain

Beyond summer days of sunshine those shelters might as well be funnels as you wonder if the appropriate tune to hum is "Raindrops keep falling on my head" or "I'm singing in the (d)rain" - depending on if you checked the weather forecast for the day and if you have not been too miserly in acquiring a decent umbrella that does not blow out at the blast of a yawn.

The shelters have been designed to funnel the water unto the seats and the splash of all that makes the shelters unusable.

Sometimes you wish the chauffeur and Bentley came as part of your lifestyle, good design does not guarantee usefulness or functionality, and I would rescind any awards given for those bus shelter designs.