Comfydown Cottage

Address witheld

Carryd uff

Belfast

17/7/2007

Dear Translink

I was travelling into town this morning with my wife Gloria, I’m her husband. Today we used the bus as I’m having my big end repaired. I should maybe clarify it’s the big end bearings in our Austin Maxi. My big end is now fine thanks to the surgery. Anyway I digress.

We found the bus journey to actually be quite infuriating though not as a result of your service. In fact your bus driver was particularly good, whistling (slightly off key) the first four bars of Perry Como’s ‘Catch a Falling Star’ throughout the entire journey. The infuriating aspect was the attitude of car drivers who sneak out into the bus lane and then just sit there blocking the traffic. Our poor driver was getting really angry and even shouting at one driver – “move that bloody Mondeo ya gobshite” had no effect. This give me this idea, I thought wouldn’t it be good if there was some device that aided buses down the road and kept bus lanes clear. And I think this just might be it ! (see below) It’s quite simply a nine foot diamond and tungsten tipped saw blade attached to the front of the bus. I would suggest it’s kept running at all times so if a car is sitting even slightly too far into the bus lane then zzzzzzziiiipppp, off comes its front end and the bus just sails on its journey.

I would suggest that you would only have to use it a few times before these buggers would get the message. You could come up with loads of good slogans to promote this too. Things like ‘Cut a dash into town   with Translink’ or ‘Translink, we ‘saw off’ the opposition’. I can tell already your probably quite excited by the prospects of this idea. Perhaps you could let me know the first route you plan to introduce this so we can go and watch.

Yours Sincerely,

John J Marley