Routemasters on Parade

Last week I was sitting in the internet cafe on Bethnal Green Road when George Galloway's Respect tour bus pulled up at the traffic lights, all red and white and blaring tacky music crashing out of the speakers...bam, bam, bam! Like a vision in an acid dream...the bus was suddenly there - in the cafe doorway - in a blurr of colour and cacophonous noise...George and his cronies perching on top, bouncing up and down with enforced glee...in freezing blasts of arctic wind...their faces frozen into rictus grins, tightly belted into their raincoats. How stupid politicians look when puffed up with forced self-preferment and pride....how ridiculous....like wooden puppets on parade.

I was reminded of the last time I'd seen a similar vision in London...many years ago during the seventies, when Arsenal won the FA cup and they went on the customary victory tour of the borough on the celebratory routemaster bus. I was a seven year old child then, playing in our quiet residential street, just off Essex road, when suddenly the Arsenal bus appeared, decked out in red and white flags and crammed with their supporters - the team on top waving to the crowded streets below. For me it was a similar vision...but unlike the forced charade put on by Galloway's crew, this was a genuine procession of London pride....waving rattles, scarves, bunting and flags....it also appeared in a sudden flash..an epiphany in red and white...a .loud whirring of rattles, horns and human cries...and then just as suddenly it was gone, vanished ...and the summer street turned calm and quiet once more.