Home | Forum | RSS/XML

Blog Index

At the Drumchapel terminus I sat and watched a murder of crows hopping around on rubble where the council had knocked down some derelict flats. I don't know what they were fighting over but it sure must have been tasty.

A murder of crows. My favourite collective noun.

That got me thinking. What would be the collective nouns for the drunkies, junkies, muppets and neds that I ferry about on my bus every day? Some suggestions:

A spillage of drunks.

A grot of junkies.

A rumple of muppets.

A freak of neds.

Maybe there had been a grot of junkies holed up in those derelict flats when the council's wrecking ball came through the wall. True martyrs to their habit, they decided to go down with their skag. Or, more likely they were just too wasted and kept banging into each other before they got to the door.

But it's all good news for the crows. As far as they're concerned, juicy junkie limbs beat skinny earth worms any day. In Drumchapel, hungry crows follow demolition trucks like seagulls follow fishing boats. Easy pickings.

I left the terminus and immediately came upon a whole freak of young neds playing football in the street. After a bit of "Lets line up in the middle of the road and not let the bus past," they did what every group of young neds does with a football: boot it against the side of the bus.

They ALWAYS do it. It's an in-built reflex, and it's not a little tap either, it's a full force BLAST. Now I know where Barns Wallis got the idea for his "Bouncing Bomb". But even then, he had to fill it up with seven tons of RDX explosive just to get the same effect.

But today, fate decided that I should have the last laugh. Sure enough, one of the little pricks blasted the ball against my bus, but the ball ricocheted off the side panel, hit a fence, bounced back towards the bus, rolled into the gutter under the bus, and, well, I just couldn't help myself! I steered a little bit to the left and...[BANG!]...what a noise a Mitre Mouldmaster makes when it bursts!

The blast made the explosion of Mount Krakatoa seem like a benign caterpillar fart as nearby residents came to their windows to see what was going on. All they saw was a freak of five glum faced neds standing in the street gazing down, misty eyed, at the flaccid remnants of their injection-moulded football of death. Oh! and one laughing bus driver!

Well, that kept a smile on my face all day. Nothing could bring me down after that.

Even when I went for my break and accidentally walked in on Driver Jolly Mop taking a turd in an unlocked toilet cubicle in the depot, I merely nodded and winked as he flailed to keep himself on the bowl.

The day was mine.

But the piece de resistance was still to come...

There was a weeping hag sitting in the bus shelter at Jamaica Street holding on to her stomach. I figured that the fresh Jackson Pollock at her feet was hers, having risen unbidden from her wretched guts. Everyone seemed to be ignoring her and her pathetic moans, but as I came to a halt, a spillage of drunks from the direction of the Crystal Palace bar came to offer assistance.

Despite the hag's hellish disposition I am never one to mock the Lord's work, so I opened the doors to see if she or her new friends wanted on. One of the tubbier members of the spillage was now sitting next to the hag in the bus shelter with his arm around her.

The tragedy of that friendly act was this: the hag may have believed that this cuddly blobster was going out of his way to comfort her in her moment of need. A selfless and sympathetic gesture in our usually "me first" society. But I knew the truth. I know the mind of men and this particular man had the look of a sexual vulture. This was the worst case of beer goggles I had ever seen.

Here was a vulnerable female in a depressed and weakened state, but Mr Blobby was eyeing her with all the compassion of a hyena tracking a wounded gazelle. Granted, the hag was nothing more than walking carrion, but when a sexual scavenger like Mr Blobby is on the prowl, no amount of bile on the pavement could throw him off the scent of a good dead sheep.

Until, of course, I closed the doors. Then he was up and on his feet. [BANG] [BANG] [BANG] "Driver! Let me oan!" I opened the door and Mr Blobby stepped on, but turned round to the hag one last time.

"You gonna be alright?" he asked.

The hag nodded.

"You sure?"

The hag nodded.

"D' you want ma phone number?"

The hag shook her head.

"Can I have your phone number?"

The hag shook her head again. Good thing too. Perhaps within the mind of even this God forsaken shrew was the knowledge that alcohol turns every man into that lusty, evil carnivore, Count Fuckula.

But this oaf had been denied! Turned down by a Glasgow hag! No meat tonight for Mr Blobby! Ha, ha, ha!

A dejected Mr Blobby sat at the very back of the bus amongst a dozen discarded fish and chip wrappers. I saw that he kept leaning over, picking up wrappers and picking through them. What the hell was he up to?

At the bottom of Bath Street the King's Theatre had just belched out the largest rumple of muppets I had ever seen. The whole spectrum of muppetry was represented: from little smiling ballers to tall scowling rakes.

"Baaahhh!" shouted Mr Blobby and threw a rolled up fish and chip wrapper down the bus. He then turned his attention to another wrapper on the floor. I still didn't realise what he was up to, but on the CCTV screen he looked like a pot bellied pig snuffling for truffle.

"Good evening, driver!" said a couple of happy little muppets as they boarded with even happier hats. Wait a minute, no one ever says "Good evening, driver!" These two were obviously still in Polite Society Mode having just been mincing about with respectable people during the show. Unfortunately, Polite Society Mode doesn't work well on a bus at this time of night. Not with my clientele.

"Two to Queen Margaret Drive, please."

I printed their tickets.

"Thank you very much."

But before they could tear the tickets off the ticket machine, Mr Blobby bellowed forth once more: "Baaahhh! NAE FUCKIN' CHIPS IN THAT ONE NEITHER!" and threw another crumpled wrapper down the bus. The paper cauliflower came to rest a short distance away from the muppets' shiny shoes and walking sticks. The expression of shock on their ashen faces was priceless, like someone had scudded each of them in the kisser with a loaded talc puff.

So that's what Mr Blobby was doing all along - looking for left overs! Being denied his prey on Jamaica Street just made him realise the full extent of his voracious appetite.

Oh well, like the crows in Drumchapel always say: If you can't get hot meat, make do with someone else's remains.