h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry for the interruption to your normal service.

This is the quickest way for me to access my previous journals.

Please ignore.

And this. It's a tedious process, isn't it?

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Okay.

Surely if something says 'this space intentionally left blank', then it isn't actually blank?

Yes, it's one of those 'trees falling in the forest' or the 'sound of one hand clapping' conundrums isn't it

One hand clapping is easy- clap it against your leg.

A few years back, there was a fire in a Glasgow bus depot. Suddenly the city was forced to beg, steal and borrow replacement buses from elswhere. Now, Glasgow buses have a single door at the front. The replacement fleet included a few Dundonian buses with an additional, central, exit door. To prevent passenger confusion, these central doors were labeled with the Magritte-like sign:

'This is not a door.'

Sounds awfully Zen doesn't it?

What if all the passengers have to leave the bus in a hurry, say a fire, wouldn't a door at the middle make sense?

*pointedly ignoring B*

Ah...but Glasgow buses are allegedly non-smoking, hence reducing the fire risk.

This rule, which has been on the books for about 12 years now is observed more in the breach than the enforcement. The bottom deck is OK, but the top deck is akin to a kipper shed.

(All buses have emergency doors, of course. I'm sure that gives them ALARP status).



'This is not a rebel song!'
'I could have figured that out for meself, Bono lad.'

I've never seen a bus without a door in the middle. In fact, most these days have three doors - front, middle and back of the bus. And all buses here (in Seville) are public non-smoking areas.


az

All the buses around here have just one door at the front.

Round here it's one in the front, one in the back.

Smoking? You can't even do that under the busstop shelter while waiting!

Busses in plymouth have one door at the front.

I can't say I've ever used a bus in Brighton, so I don't know.

The Sheffield ones had one in the front.

The Law of Conservation of Energy states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. The Law of Conservation of Mass says the same thing.

However, this thread proves the Fourth Law of Online Conversation, which states that complex conversations can evolve out of absolutely nothing.

Complex conversation?

On a Sheffield bus???

Ah no Pin, that's where you're dead wrong. Conversation on a Sheffield bus can change the way a person looks at the world.

There was this time once back when I was a very young southerner who had been in Sheffield for just a couple of weeks. I was on a number 60 back up to my halls of residence, and I was casually listening in on the conversation between the two people sitting behind me on the bus, when it struck me that they didn't know one another. They were having a conversation purely because they had found themselves sitting next to one another on a form of public transport.

This act, to someone who was used to the custom and practice of South-Eastern commuter trains and to the London underground was quite a mind blowing idea, and has led in no small way to my current devotion to all things South Yorkshire, and the Red and White Wizards in particular

"Smoking? You can't even do that under the busstop shelter while waiting!"

Really? How exactly is one stopped from smoking outside?

CCTV cameras monitoring the bus stops and SWAT teams waiting just around the corner?

Swindon buses have one door at the front, this causes problems in the mornings as even when there are seats available all the students congregate at the front of the bus and don't move to let people on or off unless forced.