Respect Authority

A Bowl of Cheerio is London Correspondent PJ’s regular column about his experiences as a lifelong New Yorker, born and raised on good American values like reality TV, pop music and gin, in jolly ole’ London. PJ isn’t officially our “London Correspondent,” but he’s taken it upon himself to both live among Brits AND attend acting school, thereby ensuring a bounty of witty commentary. A Bowl of Cheerio will appear every Monday, with other contributions in between since we all know the British do whatever they want (just look at Prince Charles.)

Check out my fortress of solitude:

New Hotness

Now check out what I used to take:

Old and Busted?

Between the two, it’s hard to choose which one I prefer, until you put me in the front seat on the second level of a double decker bus. Then it’s a landslide, London wins. If this were Transformers, and they could reassemble their parts to create mega-robots that battle to the death, I think it would be an even draw. But I have yet to witness this.

The double decker London bus is pretty cool in a normal way until I am sitting in my favorite seat. Once there, I’m a gasping mess, clutching my pearls every time a tree branch gets too near to the window, or God forbid, scratches against the side of the bus. I’ve been riding the bus to school for a year now and that seat still brings back memories of that ride in Disney World where they shrink you down to a tiny cell and put you in the human body. It’s fucked up.

Add to that, the journey up the stairs while the bus is in motion.  Most other people seem to have mastered this, including children, but not me. I have yet to fall down the stairs, but that’s only because there is a real risk of death, so even my clumsy brain knows that this is no time to joke around. I’ve skipped steps, slipped, kneed people in the head… I’ve done all sorts of things while climbing up and down the steps of a double decker bus. Inside, I feel like everyone looking at me stumble my way from the second level to the first knows in that exact moment that I am poseur, that I am actually a New Yorker.

But the buses just work better here! I’m assuming that all drivers have had some sort of RAF military aviation training because some of the moves they use on the hard-core streets of London are amazing. Why just the other day, my bus driver was able to maneuver her way between two other buses on one of the smallest streets in London. I wanted to applaud but I just pumped my fist discreetly by my side.

I think back to Will Smith and Harry Connick Jr. in Independence Day; the cocky bravado, the cool nicknames, the friendship that seemed to go much deeper than it should… I imagine London bus training to be full of Wills and Harrys (ha! the princes were named after Independence Day!), because the Top Gun references are old and people have moved on… to Independence Day.

Yes, harmless teasing in the locker rooms, the unspoken tension of competition, and the demand for excellence; London Bus Drivers know what’s what in today’s world.

They’re protected in a little booth so they can’t be attacked, though it has yet to be equipped with oxygen masks, so it’s lacking a bit. The Metrocard equivalent here is the Oyster card. Gross, I know, and pointless. It’s clearly British because there is some sort of allusion to ‘the world is your oyster’ or something like that, whereas in New York we chop words up and splice them together and get “Metrocard”.

As for the other passengers on the bus? You get the same mix of people as you would in NY.  Even the asshole hooligan kids. They suck just as bad here, so that’s a draw. I have yet to see one of them pour a drink over someone’s head like I did in New York, but honestly it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it? The accent makes them WAY more annoying too, to be honest. So, actually now, that’s not a draw: New York wins.

And finally, the second level of the buses here are not conducive to people watching.  All the seats face forward like a 1950s classroom, so mostly when I’m people watching I’m just looking at the back of their heads. Hella boring.

Oh, no, this is my final word, actually. This is what makes the second level of a London Bus such a unique experience. Imagine, if you will, two buses passing each other on the street. You look up and six inches away from your face, which is about twenty five feet off the ground, is another face looking right back at you. And, of course, 90% of the time the face looking back is frightening and for some reason seems totally cool with the fact that if there weren’t two thick layers of glass between the two of you, there could be some serious making out going on right now. That moment is always too much so I pretend to be narcoleptic and immediately fall asleep.

So, reading this Gothamist article a couple weeks back made my day. I think it’s a perfect addition for New York, and for all you thrill-seekers out there, living in New York, I’m telling you. Check. It. Out. What a fucking adventure.