Peshwari Naan

The Western Telegraph reports on 10th July 2008...

Crews called after coach doors jam

A fire crew from Pembroke Dock was called to help a passenger alight from the National Express coach.

The coach stopped to drop off the traveller outside the Harlequins Rugby Club. However the doors of the vehicle would not open and the fire service was called.

Fire fighters used a short extension ladder to helped the passenger out of the coach.

Rob in London writes on 9th July 2008...

A friend’s 21st drew a couple of us out of our safe Oyster card zones, bus-bound for Liverpool. With the train lines currently being upgraded for leaf-on-track-resistance, we saved ourselves some quids by plumping for five and half hours of National Express hospitality and luckily, being the most annoying people on the bus ourselves, had a very pleasant journey...

...Where things really got silly concerns our journey home. Not only did we have the privilege of a stop off at Stoke-On-Trent, but we soon wound up stranded in Birmingham following motorway closures and missing drivers. There is little more tedious than middle-aged men swapping motorway horror stories and playing one-upmanship with knowledge of alternative A-roads, so I will keep things brief. But suffice to say, Birmingham bus station was awash with both lashing rain and lost busloads of passengers. We sat twitching nervously on the bus, eager for an explanation, until it transpired that taxis, yes, taxis were being laid on to see us the rest of the way to Birmingham.

We were soon squeezed into vehicle akin to a Scouts minibus with some fellow beleaguered passengers, chuckling along in a Britons-in-the-Blitz spirit as an argument erupted audibly in the next taxi between two equally snooty young ladies. We wanted to stay and watch but were soon on our way… into stationary traffic on the motorway. There we sat and sat while iPod batteries ran out and wills to live expired. It rained, it got dark, we got hungry, tired and bladders swelled for the lavatory. You can’t really fit a commode in an eleven-seater without demanding people do away with certain social mores, such as weeing in private, and so the misery was compounded.

Hours later, we were crawling on the Kilburn High Road into London, not having eaten since breakfast. Fair enough, we were not experiencing famine, but we were being exposed to every international cuisine of delicious food imaginable while trapped in the cramped confines of our taxi: there was Abyssinian, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Bangladeshi, Italian and every type of fried chicken. It was a hellish punishment out of an Alanis Morrissette song or a Greek myth and by the time we had directed our Birmingham-dwelling, non-English-speaking driver to Victoria station, it was past eleven. We had left at three. When you only get two days for a weekend, you can’t help stacking up a bit of resentment at spending a meaty chunk of it in motorway inertia.

Nevertheless, the adventure had its moments, including watching a girl drop her laptop off her seat and seeing the shocked faces of fellow passengers caught mid-fag break as the driver moved the coach along and they thought we were driving off without them.