End of the Brixton Woolworth

It's gone. Totally gone. Even though the company went bankrupt a year ago, I never thought the large red letters atop the Woolworth store in Brixton would be taken down. But they've gone.

The shop had a brief flourishing last year, going back to its roots as selling cheap plastic products, sunglasses for a pound, posters of Bob Marley, pikey fake brass beds, very very cheap women's fashions, all run by Asian traders who know more about the Woolworths five and dime tradition than anyone.

But that got closed down. Someone more upmarket, someone with a brand must have bought. Now Woolworth is closed down and boarded up. We await a boring high street store. Further gentrification. A loss of the essence.

Picture says it all.

No mercy on the bus

X68 bus this morning. Same routine. Nonstop, express, from West Norwood to Waterloo.

As opposed to the 68, which stops. This morning there was no announcement of the X-status of our bus. The notification, for the unaware, came when the bus turns towards Brixton instead of towards Camberwell.

A middle-aged Asian woman was unaware. At Tulse Hill she made enquiries to the chap reading his paper opposite.

‘Doesn’t this stop?’ she asked.
‘Not until Waterloo,’ he said, with a touch of severity. No one likes a novice. He advised her, with a generosity of spirit which eludes me on a morning, to speak with the driver.

She did so, and came back empty handed, and the bus continued to make smooth progress towards Brixton. This was the same driver who let a punter off earlier in the week. When mercy is in your hands, it is not easy to be even-handed. Perhaps the driver was an aesthete and didn’t like a middle-aged woman wearing Nike Air trainers with her winter coat.

The woman tried for information from a couple sat near the exit. ‘Does the bus stop?’
‘At Waterloo.’ At which point she muttered something to herself and gave it up.

I have to report that I was glad at this woman’s misfortune. I objected to the trainer and smart clothes combo, even for commuting on a wintry day. I objected to her not knowing. And I enjoyed the schadenfreude. As I suspect did a few other passengers on our happy, elite, bus service.

Trouble on the x68

Standard incident on the x68 this morning. We get on the bus and start our nonstop journey from West Norwood to Waterloo. After going down Tulse Hill, it becomes clear that one of the passengers realises something is terribly wrong. The 68 doesn’t go this way, it goes down towards Herne Hill.

As we descend into Brixton the man starts dinging the bell. A woman looks up from her and says, brutally, ‘it won’t stop.’ The man, a young foreigner on his way to work, in overalls, becomes anxious, and dings furiously. Everyone ignores him.

He goes to speak to the bus driver. Remonstrates with him. The driver explains: this don’t stop until Waterloo. The man dings the bell again, urgently, thinking the irritation will work better than verbal appeals.

We stop at the Brixton Water Lane lights and the driver shows mercy, and lets the labourer out. There are mutterings, glances. We don’t like that on the x68. We don’t like people being let off before Waterloo. Sets a bad example, and lets the cold air in, besides.

Still, at least the driver didn’t do the unthinkable. He didn’t let someone on. There would have been uproar if that had happened.