Three hundred and twenty six reasons to despise the 326 (From Times Series)

Three hundred and twenty six reasons to despise the 326

11:08pm Sunday 16th May 2010

• Print
• Email
• Comments(4)

By Mohamed-Zain Dada »

Okay, so perhaps I do not have three hundred and twenty six reasons to complain about the bus I take most mornings to my college in Hendon. But admittedly it sounds good, so I’m sticking to it. Barnet – the spires to Brent Cross, the journey that defies belief. Not in a good way I might add. Its 8:25am, the bus should be here, as I indulge in my chocolate chip tracker bar knowing that any minute now my bus will be here.

8:27am: Buses can be a few minutes late, no need to worry.

8:32am: I’m slightly worried I may miss my lesson at 9am and the middle aged man with a briefcase who has joined me looks worried too.

8:40am: Watching two 326 buses flying past on the opposite side is painful.

8:46am: okay, now this is getting silly, two more people have joined me and the middle aged man. I could have watched GMTV for a full 15 minutes more!

8:48am: finally a 326, as I put my hand out, it doesn’t stop. Instead it flies past. In complete disorientation and anger, I release a plethora of verbal diarrhoea after 23minutes of verbal constipation! I finally engage in conversation with the middle aged man and end up addressing the other two people too, like a rebellious revolutionary speech in Tsarist Russia. I felt like Lenin. Then the bus came almost 30 seconds after the first 326 flew past. My power had been undermined.

Once on the bus, from Barnet, it slowly edges through Finchley central before grounding to a halt at the traffic light queue to try to get through the ‘great’ North Circular road (I added the ‘great’) otherwise known through its codename as the A406. The traffic piles on another 15 minutes to the journey time on some days, the swift change of the traffic lights is excruciatingly slow enough to put someone with a lack of patience into some form of an epileptic fit. The other passengers on the bus stare at the lights in sheer anticipation like an episode of deal or no deal except Noel Edmonds is the bus driver. As the bus peels through, there are clearly internal gasps of relief reminiscent of Gordon Brown’s breathing patterns. It was as if everyone on the bus has just been through an ordeal like the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves being: the bus driver, again. The bus finally pulls up at Hendon quadrant, my stop. Journey and waiting time: 53 minutes.

The above routine happened quite regularly over the past year. The bus made me late countless times, teachers assume I overslept. Now, in the exam season, I feel like writing extenuating circumstances all over my exam papers. Despite all of this, the 326 has given me some memorable melancholy moments over the past year. I’m struggling to think of any memories at the moment but when I do remember (or rip it out of any fictional book associated with buses) I will duly post it in the comments section.

Not quite three hundred and twenty six reasons, but enough to use as political ammunition to start a revolution in Barnet. I urge someone to sort this important issue out. Even though the bus cuts through the Finchley and Golders Green constituency and the Hendon constituency, I hope both MP’s can work together in some sort of coalition that would change the face of politics. I hope Mike Freer and Mr Dismore, woops, typo, I mean Mathew Offord can work to change this miserable state of Barnet’s premier bus, and retain it to the giddy heights of whenever it completed a journey in less then 30 minutes.