Sir, – I think it’s a good thing that Grace Egan is going to give up public transport and take her bicycle out of storage (January 28th), since she seems to dislike her fellow human beings, with their annoying propensity to cough, sleep, eat, have babies and otherwise make nuisances of themselves.
Seriously, isn’t our society privatised enough? Why do we seem to resent every intrusion of a common life, from political posters to the broadcasting of the Angelus bells to the agony of hearing somebody talk on the mobile phone, or even having to listen to a taxi-driver’s or a barber’s conversation?
I have been travelling on public transport all my life, and personally I love the daily drama and spectacle that it affords me. I like seeing what people are reading, hearing what people are talking about, and savouring the eccentricities and oddities that are often on show. Where Ms Egan seems to find the sight of a woman applying make-up on the bus “embarrassing”, I think it’s about the sweetest and most endearing thing imaginable.
And the conversations you hear on the bus are priceless. I remember hearing one couple speculating about a lurid-sounding movie called “Adopted to Die”, a poster for which they had spotted out the bus window, and which they assumed was a thriller about a child adopted by murderous parents – until they realised that the title was actually Addicted to Love, and that they had brainstormed a blockbuster together in a matter of seconds. Only on the bus. – Yours, etc,