Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

Tonight, after a very long (and rather boring) day in work, I arrived in Aberdare in the midst of a torrential downpour. It was far too wet to walk home, so I took refuge in the pub until the next Rail-Linc [sic] bus, about an hour later. The Rail-Linc service is only open to rail passengers, and you have to produce a valid train ticket in order to travel on it. I've got a monthly ticket, so I knew I could just walk onto the bus. It was worth wasting an hour, just so I could get home without getting soaked through. I returned to the station as the bus pulled in, and a few minutes before the incoming train arrived. A minute later, a young lad dressed in the typical Chav uniform came to the door of the bus. He asked the driver how much it was to travel to his stop. The driver told him it was fifty pence, and the lad called his mates over. Now, there were nine of these Chavs giving various excuses to the driver about 'losing their tickets' and 'missing the bus' and so...

I used to be a prolific letter-writer to the local press. This one was published in the South Wales Echo . It appeared on my day off, so I didn't know it had gone into print until the following day. Apparently the lads in Mulligan's (our lunchtime local, in Cardiff) laughed so loudly when they read it that Jeff and Laurie (my work colleagues) were surprised I didn't hear them from my house, some twenty miles away. Your little jibe (Editorial, September 21) about buses running on time made me wonder about the parallels between UFO sightings and bus non-sightings. Both UFOs and missing buses are frequently reported by a wide cross-section of the public, regardless of their age, gender or religious background. Both phenomena used to excite a great deal of interest by local newspapers and TV stations, but are now largely disregarded. Reliable witness testimony is usually met with disbelief, if not outright scorn, by the bodies concerned with their official investigation. UFO ab...