When The Man At The Bus Stop Knows About Wasps
There must hundreds of thousands of bus shelters throughout the UK and the majority are simple yet effective covers from the rain.
They are usually made from galvanised steel or aluminium and have one side with protective toughened glass normally on the road side to prevent puddle splashes from passing traffic and the bus itself.
The better ones also have some, though rarely very much, seating.
In some very rural areas the local Parish may have voted in their own design which is often like a wooden garden shed with one side missing. This is often a mistake as it can become the home of a passing tramp or the urinal of a drunk returning from the pub.
Modern bus stop shelters are deliberately minimalist to prevent litter and the antics of ant-social people ruining it for the rest of us.
Just like the telephone kiosks that used to be fully enclosed red boxes it became necessary to replace them with more open and exposed ones to discourage bad behaviour.
In many parts of the world there are no such things as a bus shelter as the normal practice is to wave down the bus along any part of its route. In the early days of the Wild West this also applied to the railroads although they did travel a lot slower back then.
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In major cities the bus stop can also generate cash for the bus company by allowing advertising cabinets with a built in battery operated page revolving mechanism. With advertising being so expensive in a city like London this can be quite a lucrative money earner.
The British are naturally reticent when it comes to engaging strangers in conversation but the bus stop is one of those places where it sometimes is more likely to happen especially if it is a particularly warm and sunny day.
A few years ago I found myself at a bus stop waiting with one other stranger and when a wasp started to bother me I began trying to swat it. The stranger asked why I should want to kill the wasp and I could not really think of a particularly good answer.
For the next twenty minutes until the bus arrived I received my very own personal lecture about the importance of all living insects on Earth from the most eminent professor of forensic entomology at the local university.
I did not know at the time that the man was an insect expert but out of curiosity I checked out the department of entomology of the local world famous university online and discovered the man's identity.
What I learned changed my whole outlook to all bugs flying or crawling and none of that would have happened without the bus stop shelter.
The bus shelter is like the railway waiting room and you never know who you might be sitting opposite. Sometimes I think the nutters who talk to anyone at all in public might just be picking up huge amounts of good information that the vast majority of us will never learn.
They are usually made from galvanised steel or aluminium and have one side with protective toughened glass normally on the road side to prevent puddle splashes from passing traffic and the bus itself.
The better ones also have some, though rarely very much, seating.
In some very rural areas the local Parish may have voted in their own design which is often like a wooden garden shed with one side missing. This is often a mistake as it can become the home of a passing tramp or the urinal of a drunk returning from the pub.
Modern bus stop shelters are deliberately minimalist to prevent litter and the antics of ant-social people ruining it for the rest of us.
Just like the telephone kiosks that used to be fully enclosed red boxes it became necessary to replace them with more open and exposed ones to discourage bad behaviour.
In many parts of the world there are no such things as a bus shelter as the normal practice is to wave down the bus along any part of its route. In the early days of the Wild West this also applied to the railroads although they did travel a lot slower back then.
In major cities the bus stop can also generate cash for the bus company by allowing advertising cabinets with a built in battery operated page revolving mechanism. With advertising being so expensive in a city like London this can be quite a lucrative money earner.
The British are naturally reticent when it comes to engaging strangers in conversation but the bus stop is one of those places where it sometimes is more likely to happen especially if it is a particularly warm and sunny day.
A few years ago I found myself at a bus stop waiting with one other stranger and when a wasp started to bother me I began trying to swat it. The stranger asked why I should want to kill the wasp and I could not really think of a particularly good answer.
For the next twenty minutes until the bus arrived I received my very own personal lecture about the importance of all living insects on Earth from the most eminent professor of forensic entomology at the local university.
I did not know at the time that the man was an insect expert but out of curiosity I checked out the department of entomology of the local world famous university online and discovered the man's identity.
What I learned changed my whole outlook to all bugs flying or crawling and none of that would have happened without the bus stop shelter.
The bus shelter is like the railway waiting room and you never know who you might be sitting opposite. Sometimes I think the nutters who talk to anyone at all in public might just be picking up huge amounts of good information that the vast majority of us will never learn.
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