So there's the resident weirdo/lunatic on my long nightbus home, the only one that goes to my door (I won't tell you what number it is in case s/he is reading this, and decides to lynch me on said bus route). London nightbuses are the true microcosm of the city's shifting population post-club or pub: all human life is here, either engaging with their friends in drug or alcohol-addled narratives that quickly degenerate into nonsensical bravado, or about to get off and throw up in the gutter while the stars shine above.
For a start, I can't really work out whether this person is male or female. I think it's a she, but she has a very deep bloke's voice, and I can't be quite sure. She's always wearing sunglasses - on a bus at night - and always appears to be on the same specific bus as me, right from when it starts at Trafalgar Square. Fate appears to have brought us together. It's a long route to my place, and she's there all the way, always on her mobile. That's an hour on the phone, at 3am or 4am in the morning. How many people do you know have hour long discussions on the phone at that time? Then there's the bizarre snippets of conversation that I can hear, which range from imploring quiet, to rage: "Get out of my life!" She once mounted a tirade because the unnamed people weren't British, then appeared to brag about her Caribbean descent for an innumerable amount of time. A whole hour of conversation.
Who are these people? It never ceases to amaze me how 'they' are oblivious to those around them while carrying out deeply personal conversations. The advent of mobile phones has led to a scenario where people's private lives are paraded for all to hear; the usual response is to turn up your iPod (I once blocked this woman out by playing a fourty-minute Merzbow track, which left me feeling strangely relaxed and clear-thinking). But for want of a better thing to do on the bus now that my iPod has broke, I am becoming bizarrely obsessed with the minutiae of people's lives.