Minority Groups

Posted by dulwichmum on Sat 16 December 2006

I was delighted by the navy blue sky – Christmas lights twinkling overhead, as I stood on Regent Street in my wonderful new ‘Missoni’ coat, black leather gloves and ‘Mulberry Emmy’ dangling from my shoulder. ‘I love London’ I thought to myself. The red number 3 bus pulled up and on I climbed wafting Jo Malone ‘Lime Basil and Mandarin’ all the way up the stairs, to sit beside a stranger on the top floor. My mind started to wander, and there I perched smiling contentedly to myself, until we got as far as Brixton. The bus then filled up, and from behind me I heard a voice, ‘rapping’ loudly and aggressively.

‘Me talk of opression, degradation, dictation, huuuuuuuumiliation, of coming from da spice Island – Granada, me a minority, ground down by years of incarciration’, etc. You get the idea.

I genuinely sympathised. There I sat, feeling less like Audrey Hepburn, and more like Audrey Roberts as the long ‘rap’ continued. I felt ashamed to be white. I glanced carefully around the bus, I was the only white person on board. Oh dear…. I felt very threatened. His voice was full of hate and not another soul on the top deck dared to speak. Complete silence…..

The bus was suddenly at my stop, and I scrambled down the stairs, walked briskly to the cash dispenser and got in the queue behind another customer. I recognised the voice as soon as he answered his mobile phone, it was the opressed gentleman from the bus. He laughed, took his money and walked to an enormous double fronted house nearby, opened the front door and let himself in. In the background I could hear a child loudly playing the piano.

Thanks for that sweetheart, for frightening me out of my skin and terrifying me on the way home from work. Get over yourself. London is a melting pot, we are all different, all members of some minority group. I happen to fancy Gary Barlow.

You have your image of yourself to uphold, and I have mine.

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 More tales from the Number 3 bus

Posted by dulwichmum on Fri 15 December 2006

Please darling, keep the fine detail of your fathers’ probate to yourself. The mobile phone at 7.20 am on the upstairs of the number 3 bus is just a tad too public to discuss such personal matter’s. We really don’t need to know. If that was not poor enough form on this elderly chap’s behalf, my stomach churned when the next hapless idiot joined us on the upper deck and sat a row ahead.

This young man gave a blow by blow run down of his sexual antics from the night before to his listener on the other end of his phone. He said he was trying to find his way to a tube station, so that he could get into work from the poor young Lady’s home. He was in high spirits and brimming with gossip from his office Christmas party.

She was probably still in her bed, or singing in the shower, with a smile on her face, remembering intimacies they had shared the night before and this morning (if what he had to say had any truth in it). And there he was,…. hatchet boy, telling all and sundry at work (and on the bus), betraying her confidence and describing the merits of Brazilian bikini waxing to any colleague who was available to listen at that time of the morning. I wanted to go and punch him on the nose, for all the women on the planet.

How can some men can be such cads? Listening to this was not a good way to start the day. I miss a nice latte. I must be suffering from caffeine withdrawals since my fat free diet commenced. I really could have given him a good talking to.

I took my Parker pen from my bag (don’t you remember the add from the 1970′s?… Perfect for signing cheques “to spend all of daddy’s lovely money?” – I am showing my age now) wrote ‘cad’ (with a capital B) on a Post It note, and stuck it to his jacket, before making my way down the stairs. Juvenile of me? Yes. Deserved on his part? Most definitely.

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