Those of you who shun Her Majesty’s public transport don’t know what you’re missing. Especially buses. I tend to skip Bendies mostly because there always seems to be a smell of burning on them (or maybe I’m always having a stroke) and the concertina bit in the middle may be an engineering marvel but it ain’t no big shakes, so it’s Double Ds all the way. My little red number’s the 55, or ‘Jeremy Kyle on Wheels’, and I hand-on-heart love it almost a little bit.

It starts at one of those places where they have holding houses in Spooks, variously known as an ‘up and coming’ area (build a branch of Giraffe, they will come) or ‘a dump’, meanders through somewhere where everyone wears all the right sunglasses, then picks me up in the heart of London’s glittering East End – by which point the clientele is a veritable Liquorice Allsorts of the entertainment world. I should really start giving a percentage to the No. 55, the amount of material it has given me. There could even be a sitcom. I would call it ‘On The Buses’ and it would be the latest smash hit.

This morning, I found myself standing (news flash! Get more buses!) in the mid-to-rear end of the bus in a state of mild euphoria, which seems to be the case every time I get up before 6am (read ‘still drunk’). Anyway, I decided to have myself a little Top 40 so I put my iPod on shuffle because most of this modern stuff’s a pile of shite, and found myself on a merry-go-round of middle-of-the-road/R&B soul sensation ballads, which kick-started with Barbra Streisand’s ‘All In Love Is Fair’, followed by Lisa Stansfield’s ‘All Woman’, followed by Randy Crawford’s ‘Almaz’, interjected with tears (read ‘still drunk’. And ‘gay’).

What I hadn’t also quite realized is that I was singing out loud to all of the above (read ‘still drunk’), but seeing as people who sing on buses tend to be associated with mental instability, that compounded by the fact I was already wearing my gym kit (to save actually having to bother changing when I get there. Clever, eh!) the bottoms of which had the odd melted Cadbury’s Chocolate Button on them, I imagine the general consensus was, ‘Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact.’ But still, I’ve got a nice enough voice (read ‘still drunk’) and I warrant it was better than the sound of a small person in a pram munching loudly on Quavers.

So there I was, lost in music, buffered by euphoria/booze, segueing into the next ditty after little Randy C.

‘La la laaa,’ the song went. So far, so good. Then, a look of cataclysmic horror from the woman standing opposite me.

‘La la laaaaa. I’ll fuck you in the ass, just for a laugh. La la laaa.’

My Hit Parade had moved into more adult territory and, unknowingly, I was serenading the No. 55 with Tricky’s ‘Abbaon Fat Track’ which is (now listen, you may actually learn something) from Maxinquaye which is, like, a really cool album from 199-something that I was obsessed with during my first year at uni. And such is the way of the shuffle, you never know what you’re gonna get.

Well, you would’ve thought I’d asked this complete stranger if I’d like to, well, fuck her up the ass. Just for a laugh. And the look she gave was not dissimilar to the thyroidy eyes ‘n’ tut-tut combo I got a few months back when, upon noticing the woman sat opposite me (again, on the No. 55. That bus is on fire!) was reading the Bible, I whipped out my copy of Christopher Hitchins’s ‘God is Not Great’ which I always carry in case of emergency.

But seriously, what do to in that situation? Carry on as normal whilst positing the notion that the gathereds’ ears were deceiving them, that’s what.

‘La la laaaa. I’ll mop your tiny flat, just ‘cause I’m nice. La la laaa,’ I sang, then pinged the bell to alight.

Stephen Unwin, Showbiz Journalist & Showbiz-i Writer with Sparkles