Peshwari Naan

Hannah writes on 17th February 2009...

so basically my suprise for oli was seeing alkaline trio again in london, we went to get the national express at 9.45, but it was delayed by 2 hours because the brakes werent working... so we got there at about 2.30, and oli was being real weird obviously because i told him we were getting the bus back home at 6.30, so it kinda seemed like a pointless trip to london, especially when he had no money.

barnacle 101 writes on 16th February 2009...

This past weekend I found myself venturing to Bath for a break from the busy city of London, to soak up the culture of the English country side and try to bubble some of the stress away.

Arriving at noon on Friday was exhilarating, finally to be away from the city and finally to get a chance to just enjoy myself without worrying about passport applications, school work or the plague of joblessness. The moment I stepped off the bus, the fresh air of Bath blew across my chest, and the car sickness caused by the rash driving of the polish national express coachman seemed to lessen as we walked to our bed and breakfast.

Bournemouth Echo reports on 14th February 2009...

Passenger's chicken dinner falls ‘fowl’ of coach driver

A NATIONAL Express coach driver has been criticised for refusing to let a couple take food with them on a journey between Ringwood and Bournemouth – even though they wanted it carried in the underfloor luggage area.

Vicki Botto and partner Nabeel Al-Humaidan, both 20, had been given a lift from Vicki’s parents’ home in Alderholt to Ringwood where they caught the 035 National Express to Bournemouth.

They wanted to get off at Bournemouth Travel Interchange before making their way home to Winton.

But before they got on at Ringwood coach station, the driver saw they had a package and asked if it had meat in it.

Vicki told him it was some chicken and tomato sauce. But the driver refused to allow it on board, or even put it in the underfloor luggage space, saying it was against the rules.

“We were going to eat it when we got home,” said Vicki, a nursery nurse.

“But instead we had to give it back to mum.

“When we’ve been on the bus before there have been people eating sandwiches and stuff.

“We were going to put it in the luggage compartment under the coach.

“Then, when we got off the coach the driver said: ‘If you’re asked again if you’ve got meat, just say no’.

“It was so frustrating.”

Vicki’s father Andrew said: “I pity anyone on a long journey who can’t now even take a bag of crisps or a sandwich on a long trip, or a student returning to uni with a bag of goodies from mum and dad to help them out.”

A spokesperson for National Express said: “We have asked the customer to contact us so we can investigate further.

“Our terms and conditions of travel inform customers that they are welcome to bring cold food on board all our coaches.”

The Express and Star - Wolverhampton reports on 11th February 2009...

Coach is halted as driver reaches limit

Coach passengers travelling from the West Midlands to Stansted Airport had to take a 50-minute taxi ride to finish their journey because the driver had reached his allotted time limit for driving says one of the passengers.

Peter Hughes said he almost missed his flight yesterday after a National Express driver parked in a lay-by and refused to move. Mr Hughes, on his way to catch a flight to Grenoble, France, for a snowboarding holiday, says he was told to share a taxi with fellow passengers for the last few miles.

He said that once they were dropped off the taxi driver then picked up people waiting at the airport for the coach back to Birmingham, driving them back to the coach, which was still parked in the lay-by near Luton.

“It was all a bit strange really,” said Mr Hughes, aged 37, of Almond Croft, Great Barr.

“He just pulled up and turfed us out and we had to wait for 15 minutes for this taxi to arrive.

“I think the snow had meant we got stuck in traffic so he ended up driving for five hours, by which time he had to stop.

“No-one looked particularly happy about it.

“We’d got on the coach at Digbeth at 5.30am and I just wanted to sleep.”

European laws regulating hours of work say drivers must have a 45-minute break after driving for four hours and 30 minutes.

Mr Hughes added: “He dropped us in Luton so it was about a 40-mile trip I would say. The the taxi did it back the other way to the coach. It must be costing them a bomb.

“We were meant to arrive at 9.30am but we got there about 11. At least I haven’t missed my flight.”

National Express spokeswoman Carly O’Donnell, said: “Our Stansted service was delayed by adverse weather. Our team arranged for several customers to continue their journey by taxi to help them meet their connecting flights.

“We are committed to delivering the best customer service possible and will always do everything we can to get our customers to their destination.”

NZ Barry writes on 8th February 2009...

So, part of the forward planning I did way back in September was to book a Travelodge in Oxford for a weekend. This involved another tedius bus trip. National Express this time - we stopped for half an hour in Stratford, not to honour Shakespeare, but to let some woman who had a ticket to somewhere north of Birmingham argue her way onto our bus (heading SOUTH from Birmingham). This gave the bus driver and his offsider half an hour's worth of speculation as to what she was up to.

Jen Jen writes on 5th February 2009...

Finally I got on my coach and El could go home. I noticed that a lot of people who didn’t have tickets wanted to get on the coach and were pestering the driver. Apparently the entire national express ticketing service had crashed and thus people were really upset. The driver could only take on people who had the exact money for a ticket since he didn’t have any change, but he had to repeat this fact about 30 times.
He dropped his bag on his drivers seat and exclaimed: “Jesus wept!”
Some people still tried to get on for free whilst he was standing in the isle of the coach (I was sitting just a few seats from the front). He looked at them and then straight at me with a resigned expression. I smiled back at him, attempting to be reassuring.
He nodded at me: “Cover your ears sweetheart, because I’m gonna start swearin’.”
Me: “oh oh.” I covered my ears.

The driver was absolutely hilarious. I loved him to bits. He was a big man with graying hair and reminded me of my dad.

Finally the near anarchy was settled and the people who had money got on the coach. They were all smiling. The mood in the coach was good all around. The driver began his safety talk. He made the people laugh many times while explaining the rules, for example the emergency exits, one being in the ceiling in case the bus were to roll over. I let out a little gasp when he mentioned this. He looked at me and said: “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna roll over today!” People giggled.

When the safety talk was finished, he exclaimed: “Lets get the heck outta here!”, while some of the passengers (including me) let out a little “Yaaay” :D

I think most people were just happy to find a working coach.

And so my journey home began. I slept and coughed most of the way.

Ross Levere writes on 3rd February 2009...

I woke up early, hitched a lift to the station and purchased a ticket to London Victoria where I was to board a coach to Cardiff and then basically get drunk. Simple, easy, I wish. Arriving at Victoria I follow the signs to the coach area and find the National Express no.509 that I need. I stand there in the cold waiting and watching the driver consume a packed lunch of vile looking sandwichs, he saw me shivering and read his paper. With the coach due to leave at 12.30 I was confused as to why I was still not aboard by 12.28 and decided to ask what the plan was. The answer was not what I wanted to hear!!!! I'm told that the departure area is over the road and that I've been waiting in the arrivals park, now had I taken stupid pills or was I misled by the fact that the SIGNS at the station told me this was where I needed to be. Running over the road I find my coach as the bastard starts up and leaves without me. Even my frantic attempt to flag him down and show him my ticket through the large glass door was met with a shake of the head and tough luck expression. Returning to the ticket office I'm then informed that I cannot simply board the next coach, the ticket applies to one coach only. I'm going to have to pay for a new ticket. £36 lighter in the bank account I wait an hour for the next coach and finally get on my way to Wales, a little late but on route. Relaxing a little I listen to the new Ricky Gervais audiobook I downloaded that morning and watch as london passes me by.
After 3 1/2 hours my legs ache but I'm able to stretch them for a few minutes as we arrive in Cardiff and I call Benedict so that he can come pick me up. Wrong again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After 15 minutes he still hasn't found me despite being at the coach station as planned, it turns out the coach had made stop somewhere else and I was miles away from him. Where was I????? I walk into the centre of a town so vile and run down it makes Barking look nice and ask a woman in a newsagent where I am. Confused she (eventually) answers my question - 'Newport'. Luckily there's a train station, not where the sign says but after 5 minutes I find it and have to pay another £3.40 to get to Cardiff.

Liam Mullone writes on 31st January 2009...

Mangabus v Nashanu Esprezamu

It’s the fight of the year! For I have arrived home safely via Megabus: my first Megabus adventure. I am now in a position to compare the relative merits of Megabus with those of National Express. To anyone with a car, or train fare, this will seem like trying to decide between two piles of parrot poo, but for the sake of anyone as poor and as mobility-retarded as me, I’ll go ahead anyway. I’m awarding shite points: the higher the score, the shitter the service:

First, COMFORT:
Filthiness of toilet: Megabus 5 National Express 3
Poo and bogey smeared on seats: Megabus 3 National Expess 2
Degree of overpopulation with maniacs Megabus 4 National Express 2

As you can see, National Express is streaming ahead with only 7 shite points to Megabus’s 12. The sheer cheapness of Megabus has meant that its services are always teeming, meaning a greater number of people wiping their kids’ bums on the seats. And at £3 a ticket, where is Megabus going to find the cash to pay a toilet cleaner? It’s not. Can Megabus catch up? Exciting isn’t it?

Second, SPEED AND ECONOMY
Expense Megabus 1 National Express 2
Pointless stops at revolting shithole towns where nobody even gets on Megabus 1 National Express 4
Pointless one-hour rest stops at service stations that are three minutes from your intended destination Megabus 1 National Express 5
Tendency to stop dead on the motorway and tell the passengers you’ve run out of petrol Megabus 0 National Express 5

Crikey, what a turn-around!Megabus is holding fast at 15, National Express is racking up the shite points at 23. If they cared, National Express management would surely be wondering whether it’s wise for EVERY bus going north to stop at Milton Fucking Keynes, and whether they need that Health and Safety law that requires them to change drivers every 40 miles, or as soon as he runs out of racist comments (whichever is sooner). Moreover, that little trip to Birmingham last year when the passengers had to offer to pay for petrol has really hit the company hard this round. It’s just a mercy that the management don’t actually give a flying fuck about people, or this scoreboard could really sting. Can National Express turn it round in the last chukka? I, for one, simply cannot WAIT to find out!!

Third, DRIVER’S ATTITUDE
Need to tell people about the seatbelt law 40 times in a series of incomprehensible guttural snorts: Megabus 1 National Express 5
Need to talk to bus full of adults as if they are five and behaving naughtily Megabus 0 National Express 5
Need to swagger about bus imposing will on helpless passengers regarding their luggage, hot food, phones or anything else that occurs to them Megabus 0 National Express 4
Need to scrutinise ticket, shake head, say it’s not compatible with me own list, like, make people at front of queue wait til the bus is full, then make them sit near the toilet Megabus 0 National Express 3

FINAL SHITE POINT SCORES: Megabus 16 National Express 40

Fuck me with an over-sixties Funfare, Megabus has walked home. A lifetime of comments such as “A BOTTLE of POP has just flown past my head. This bus is NOT a skip! I will stop it by the roadside and you can all clean it for me if THAT’S going to be your attitude!” have made National Express the company to avoid for any poor traveller with even a microgram of self-respect remaining. The extraordinary behaviour of Megabus drivers - just getting on, closing the door and driving the fucking bus - has pretty much handed them this competition in a hubcap. An extra mention must surely be made for them not demanding that anything larger than a handbag must go in the luggage hold, where it can be stolen by a junkie in Doncaster.
On the whole, I’ll take the crowds and toilet whiff just for the pleasure of being allowed to pretend, for the first hundred miles anyway, that it’s okay to be on a coach in one’s late thirties. That it’s not demeaning and horrible. And that my faith in humankind won’t be whittled down to a bleeding quick before I face 200 strange faces in the glare of an unforgiving spotlight.

NELL FRIZZELL writes on 28th January 2009...

The Megadeath, The Nazi-onal Express, Cagecoach – they’re all hell on wheels.

As if it wasn’t punishment enough to have to spend five-and-a-half hours sitting in a chair designed for a dwarf amputee, with the person in front leaning so far back they might as well be using my cunt for a cushion, while the person next to me munches through a sandwich that smells like putrefying maggots mixed with cheese and onion crisps, I had the misfortune this weekend of being driven by a total psychopath.

Peter, my Neanderthal National Express driver, was covered in home-drawn tattoos (I didn’t get close enough to read them but I imagine they said stuff like “Live by the road, die by the road”), walked with the kind of limp usually reserved for shell shock victims, drove like a blind man and had a voice like a drain full of tar. When he breathed, it was like a hydraulic engine full of soup.

He steered like someone had just poured molten Marmite on his lap. Which was ironic, really, because as soon as the other driver had taken over, Peter promptly spilt his garage-bought coffee all over his legs and spent the rest of the journey loudly and obscenely rubbing his crotch and arse with a tissue right at my eye level, wheezing on about how “everything is sticking to me legs now”.

When the new driver asked Peter why he hadn’t turned his lights on (so we had, in effect, been driving like an invisible 5 tonne stealth juggernaut since Golders Green) he mumbled that he’d spent ages scrabbling around but just couldn’t find the switch. Oh great.

By this point I, and several other passengers, were muttering low, whimpered prayers to the effect that God was indeed great for sparing us a bloody and painful death in the middle lane of the M1.

Now, if this was an isolated event it would be one thing. But the coaches of Britain are, almost universally, like Dante’s lost circle of hell. The toilets never close, so the smell of stagnant piss permeates everywhere, anyone over five foot tall will end up welding their joints together from sitting like Quasimodo, and they are miserably, grindingly slow and you usually get dribbled on by the person sleeping next to you.

I’m not saying murder is right or anything - I’ve never yet had the urge to saw off someone’s head and eat it - but I can sort of see why people are driven to acts of wild and animalistic violence during these journeys (if you never want to sleep happily again, then read this).

And as Britain’s economy sinks and the recession hits Britain, you can be sure many of us will soon be Megabus customers. I’m going to go and write my will.

NELL FRIZZELL