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In the evening, I would sit on the bus, hatching plans with Jo who would patiently sit throughout my show before unleashing some surprise tap-dancing. It was a small room and I chose to have the shutters and window open which helped elevate the sense of informality, while not removing the intensity of certain moments.
Fifteen minutes before the end of the show, the audience would start to hear a rhythm. Could this be heckling in Morse code? As I continued, blithely ignoring the noise, it built and it built, until Jo paraded to the front in a full American tap mode. It delighted me every evening. Then, we would perform percussive poems together. As I would sometimes tell the audience, “I am so sorry, but I still treat The Fringe as if it were a fringe.”
The buses, the politeness of the queuing, the necessity of saying “thank you, driver”. Such things too reminded me of why I love Scotland.
Here is a poem for Margaret Thatcher.
You might say that only losers take the bus
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But if you are one of us
You’ll know we are victorious
Because we are courteous
“Thank you, driver” is a little sign
Of how we must ensure
That we are kind
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Smile at shop assistants, open doors.
So, Margaret, we might not have a car
But we have something far, far better.
Unlike you, Nigel, Kemi, Keir
Our “land of strangers” sits side by side
May even chat to each other on our ride
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We are bus sister and bus brother
Though there may be a family dispute
When it becomes a night bus route.
Robin Ince is a comedian, poet and broadcaster.
Ice Cream for a Broken Tooth: Poems about life, death, and the odd bits in between by Robin Ince is out now (Flapjack Press, £12). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.
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