Thursday 11 October 2007

Around Torbay (Limited addition)

Odd one the other day, gent gets on in Union Street at the top end of Torquay and asks if I go to the Harbour. Me being a truthful chap admit that the bus does indeed go to the Harbour. He produces an Around Torbay free bus pass and I press the right buttons and the ticket machine produces a ticket to the Harbour. When we get there 3 minutes later he comes up and asks if I go to Belgrave Rd which is 3 stops and 2 minutes up the road. Once again I am forced to admit I do. So, new ticket to Belgrave Rd. Well we get to Belgrave Rd and at my left shoulder appears my new best friend. Do I go to the Grand Hotel, one stop further on? I am beginning to see a pattern here and ask the gent exactly where he wants to go. “Paignton.” Which is 3 miles and 13 more stops away. This could take hours!

I explain that I can give him a ticket that will take him all the way to Paignton so he doesn’t have to keep getting a new ticket every time we come to a stop. With a little reluctance he agrees. Two stops down the road the bell goes and you can guess who is come down the bus. He gets off. Perhaps he really didn’t want to go to Paignton after all.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a waste of paper.....
We had some teenage girls once ask if our schoolbus went to Haverhill when it in fact went to Cambridge, and said so on the blind. The driver responded: "I'm not going to that dump, I'm going to Cambridge."

Lord Hutton said...

I went to Paignton from Torquay today, on the 12. I promise it wasnt me;-)

Buncha said...

Ahh, I think he just wanted to be your friend David. You'll probably see this nutter every day this week.

Central User said...

Shouldn't it be possible to program the ticket machine so that you can record the journey, but not print a ticket?

Mr Man should have no need for a paper ticket (he can produce his free pass if required) and the bean counters would have the information that they presumably require from the ticket machine.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Probably will, like the Drivers unwanted contact with the "Electric Scarecrow" in Glasgow on Bloodbus.com

David said...

there is a blog called grockles.blogspot.com but I do warn you there are only two posts since Jan 2007.

Anonymous said...

...please where can I buy a unicorn?