I'm sure everyone has had their fair share of pointless journeys, but at the same time I'm convinced that no-one else in the world has them quite as often as I do. Ironically enough, writing an article about each of these journeys does in fact give them a purpose, albeit a simple and previously unintended one.

When I first came to live in London, I was amazed at the public transport - you just got on a bus, stared out the window, and then magically arrived at the place you were trying to get to exactly ten minutes late. Back then I was part of an ever-declining minority that thought this was great, but then I was blissfully unaware of the concept that not all buses actually go to the place I want them to and that at least half of them actually go in completely the wrong direction!

One day I found myself waiting at Euston for a bus to go home, holding a newspaper in one hand and my Oyster Card in the other. For the last ten minutes I had been staring at an immobile 253 in the same way that people with nothing better to do stare at the numbers on a lift, and I was getting quite bored, cold, and tired, though not necessarily in that order. You can imagine how excited I was when I saw the 91, the other bus that I can just hurl myself onto without a care in the world, and did just that. Then I sat down and promptly didn't pay attention to where the bus was going.

I sat there in complete obliviousness for a while, reading my newspaper and feeling quite smug that I had got a bus home so soon after leaving my lecture. Perfectly relaxed, I looked out of the window to see Kingsway Underpass go by and found it quite amusing that I hadn't realised that such a large landmark was right next to my bus route home. Then the cogs in my brain started moving and I found myself marching relentlessly towards reality. I started constructing a little map in my head, with Kingsway at one end and my home at the other, with Euston in the middle, which kept me busy for another couple of minutes. Suddenly, I made a mad dash down the stairs, my heart pounding, and managed to hurl myself back off the bus before it carried on to Trafalgar Square.

The situation wasn't really that bad, so I informed myself of this, then swore loudly - I'd left my newspaper on the bus. So I made my way back to Euston via two more buses, only to find another 253 waiting there with its engine turned off. I went to get some chocolate from the shops in Euston station, and when I came back... it had gone. What a day - almost as bad as when I went looking for a southbound bus stop on Tottenham Court Road.

The Most Pointless Journeys of My Life Archive

AlexAshman

22.12.05 Front Page

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