  As promised, here's the next instalment of bus mongs. I bet you've been looking forward to this, haven't you... 2. Bus Monitors Now, in every walk of life, in every profession, in every place where humans exist there are heirachies. I accept these heirachies with varying degrees of grace. But, if there is one thing that makes me want to stick two fingers up to "The Man" and form a rock n' roll band, it's people who assume importance and status without any requirement for them to exist.
I have to be careful here to convey exactly what I mean. I want you to understand. Two elderly women on my bus service have elected themselves bus monitors. As far as I know, there was never any formal nomination. Let's be clear; these people have assumed the position of bus lords. This basically involves: a) Sitting right behind the driver and shouting conversations at him in a "spirit of the blitz" style dialect. Eg: "Ooh 'ello Frank, I 'ope you'll be putting yer foot down today, my Bert's expecting his dinner!". Essentially, mindless, insiduous prattle. The volume at which these conversations take place cow everyone around them into aural submission. No-one can read, listening to music is impossible, and quiet chats with friends are verboten. Essentially, this is an exercise in illustrating that they are friends with the driver, and so assume some of the importance they crave by association.
They rarely look around or even notice other bus people, the bus people they nominally claim to represent. b) Getting on the bus first. This is truly the raison d'etre of the bus monitor. They force themselves, elbows and handbags flailing, onto the buses first for three reasons. Firstly, this (again) gives them the air of importance and status that they crave. Secondly, getting on the bus first gives them first choice of seats - they can then position themselves in prime bus real estate for loud driver conversations.
Thirdly, this allows them to have protracted chats with the driver, and fumble for their tickets whilst a large queue stretches back outside getting drenched in the rain. c) On the rare occasions where a new driver has been in place (I always feel great sympathy for these hapless footsoldiers, thrust naively onto the battlefield), bus monitors enter a state of heightened awareness. Not content with shouting often unnecessary directions into the side of the driver's head, they will also offer information on who normally gets on at those stops, whether to wait for them if they aren't there and other classified, bus-monitor-priveleged information.
MI5 themselves would have dossiers less detailed on members of the Taliban. d) On the rarer still occasions where the bus makes a wrong turning, the bus monitors become a flurry of activity. "Wrong way! " they shout, whilst looking around incredulously at fellow passengers, as if the driver had defaced a war memorial. e) Bus monitors are the guardians of bus protocol. Although they can blatantly disregard other passengers, any kind of ignorance on the part of other passengers is met with disapproving looks.
Any breach of accepted protocol, whether or not you have ever been in this country before, been on a bus before, have the use of your arms and legs etc is met with their clear disgust. Wedged into their seats with their old-woman paraphanelia, these are actually quite sad individuals. I can only imagine the voids in their lives must have become slightly less yawning when they found solace in bossing people about on buses.
In two years of bus usage, I have yet to see them justify their self-appointed positions, and on top of it all, they clearly enjoy this. They act like they are doing me a favour. If getting on my nerves and stinking of Parma Violets is somehow helping me, I can only marvel at what my shortcomings must have been to start with. Perhaps I was too relaxed and the bus didn't smell of Parma Violets enough. We can but wonder. This is just a small sample of the irritations that these people cause, and for once, I am not just saying that because I can't think of anything else. It really is just a small sample. 
