Why do Some Christians Object to Homosexuality?

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Adam Randall
This question is something which I generally fail to understand. I do know that the Bible does speak out against homosexuality, for those who don’t know, this is what it says:

Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a man as a woman, that is an abomination.”
Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
Romans 1:26 – 1:27 “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men,and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

    So that’s only three times when you’re told in The Bible that homosexual inclinations are immoral. Now, the majority of Christians living today do not follow every single rule in The Bible, their viewpoint is, I imagine (I don’t know all that much about it), that there are several true and important moral laws given by God in the Bible, but that they’re lost amongst some laws of ancient peoples which no longer apply. Since the Leviticus quotes come from so close to one another, you could easily count them as being a single thing, you basically only have two points where it is suggested homosexuality is wrong. Two references hardly seems enough for this rule to have any significance. If two references was the amount needed for something to be identified as ture moral laws, eating figs would be even more immoral:

Romans 1:26 – 1:27 “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.”
Jeremiah 29:17 – “yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten.”
Matthew 21:18 and 21:20 – “Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.” 

    I wish I could say I’d made this observation myself, but this point is not my own. Another thing which is definitely not widely accepted by Christianity is God’s lack of omnipotence, though following the idea that two mentions means it’s true, God certainly does have one very big weakness:

Judges 1:19 “And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
Joshua 17:17 – 17:18 “. But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.” (which isn’t explicitly saying that God cannot defeat them, but Joshua seems to be mentioning the fact that God had previously had a problem with iron chariots).

    So, as you can see, it’s rather hard to understand why some Christians have an issue with homosexuality. This seems especially true when you consider that God seems to condemn all kinds of sexual activities that do not directly produce babies, which the majority of heterosexual intercourse does not, yet there isn’t such large objections to any of that. Indeed the Bible even features the characters David and Jonathan, two people who’re very close indeed, often telling each other how much they love each other, kissing, hugging etc, and several people believe that these people are supposed to be gay, but there relationship is not once condemned. So if God’s hate of figs, God’s iron chariot weakness, the command to kill all people who do not worship God and to kill those who work on Sunday (I apologise for not quoting these, but this is already a fairly long entry and the quotes are hard to find) are all ancient laws which no longer apply, why is God’s hatred of homosexuality still believed today? It seems to me that The Bible seems to reveal things about those who read it, a good person might read it and become very kind, charitable and try and follow all the rules for loving other people, while a bad person might read it and harass all the groups of people The Bible disagrees with.

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Trusty Water Staff

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Adam Randall
It’s very nice to carry a Trusty Water Bottle with you at all times, but occasionally 500ml isn’t quite enough. You’ll be merrily strolling through the woods when you decide to reach for your bottle so that you can have a drink, but, annoyingly, it’ll be empty and there’ll be nowhere near by for you to fill it up. In this unhappy situation, you have to go thirsty. As such, I’d like to suggest a Trusty Water Staff, a very practical item which could help you immensely. Here’s an illustration:
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Richard III by William Shakespeare

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Adam Randall

Richard IIIUnfortunately, it seems that Shakespeare’s plays all have the reputation to being uninteresting to anybody who isn’t a scholar, but this is definitely not the case with Richard III. The story features easily understood humour and is an enjoyable read.

The story is mainly just the true story of Richard’s rise to the throne and then what he did during his reign as king. While this may not be the most historically accurate piece of writing, it still gives you a rough view of Richard’s life (or, at least, a rough view of the main events in his life). The character Richard is definitely the main appeal of this play, while all the other characters are rather unintelligent and worrisome; Richard is portrayed as somewhere between the lines of an evil villain and an anti-hero, loosely similar to Blackadder in a way. While the morals of the historical Richard are somewhat ambiguous at best, the way he is portrayed here is very amusing; his rude remarks to people he dislikes are really quite funny. There’s also a touch of paranormal thrown into the play, something which, obviously, there is no evidence of occurring in real life, but this should be read as something to be enjoyed first and something to learn from second.

On the whole, this was a good read. Although, a couple of times, the archaic language did make a couple of the events hard to understand and mean that a couple of pages had to be reread (which is never very fun) it’s mostly easy to understand with humour throughout… despite being a historical tragedy.

I give it an 8/10.

Buy it here.

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200th Post! A Big Thank You

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Adam Randall
So with today’s post, I’ve now written two-hundred entries! A few months ago I was thinking of ending this blog, but now I’m constantly thinking of fresh things to write on here and I’ll continue updating it for as long as I can. I think I should stop celebrating meaningless milestones with this blog, I guess I won’t do it again until the hypothetical day when I reach my 1000th post; I really hope that happens someday. But anyway, since my 100th post was a bit of a disappointment for some people, I hope this one will be more well received, so here’s a personal thank you to everybody that I know reads this blog (in alphabetical order, by first name if I don’t have their surname):

Alex
He’s my pen pal from China. This may seem bad, but I don’t actually know his last name and hence he’s only listed here as Alex. The first male on Omegle to keep in contact with me who wasn’t some raging pervert and somebody who I can always be sure to have a nice interesting conversation with. I also get to learn about something about life in China which I’d otherwise never know. Despite not being totally fluent in English, he’s still taken the time to read this blog, which is very kind indeed.

Naomi Brennan
Initially somebody I would call a ‘friend of a friend’ at university, but now I’d quite happily say that they were my friend! She had the quite ingenious idea of creating a private work shopping page for writing on Facebook, a place where several of these blog entries have taken shape! Also always very generously gives useful writing feedback to pretty much anyone and I doubt that many would dispute generosity as a virtue!

Tonicha Cottle
For just over a year, I worked at The Corsham School as an MDSA. Sure, during my time there children took my money, rubbed snotty tissues on me and other such playful pranks, but none of that particularly bothered me. The best thing about working there was that I befriended Tonicha, somebody who’d always stop and have a nice quick little chat with me, something which was greatly appriciated on the busy, less fun, days. The fact that she always seemed so happy was very good too; it’s always great to talk with a jolly person! Thanks to the internet, I still get to talk with Tonicha from time to time and she very generously takes the time to read some of my short stories every now and then.

Devna Desai
One of the few females I met on Omegle who was kind enough not to take off all her clothes. Always seems to be full of a very bubbly optimism, something which I think is a very good trait! I get to learn more about the average teenager’s lifestyle in America from her, and also several facts about Hinduism (she’s a Hindu) and since I’m very interested in religion, I’m also rather interested in what she has to say. I’m also quite amused that my somewhat bizarre blog appeals to a perfectly normal American teenager who doesn’t know me in real life.

Elti
My first pen pal, and the person who introduced me to the Baha’i Faith, a religion which I’d never even heard of before and one which I’m finding very interesting each time she gives me a little nugget of information about it! Other than that, I think all I can say is that she seems to be a very kind person, since my first email to her, she’s always given me long and interesting things to read, and always very enthusiastically too, So it’s always a pleasure to see a message from her sitting in my inbox!

Elliott Egan
A good friend of mine, somebody who I became especially close to during my time in The Corsham School’s Sixth Form (a pretty wickedsick time altogether actually!). If you regularly read this blog, you might have noticed that he’s the person who I mention the most frequently (he’s in around 1/10 of all my posts on here). He very kindly allows me to write about his drunken antics on here and is just generally a very good humoured and laid back person, both of which are qualities to be praised quite highly!

Davey Hamlen
My oldest friend (not physically, he’s the oldest in the sense that I’ve known him the longest). I’ve known him since around the start of my time in primary school, and I have to say, I’m really very happy that the pair of us have managed to remain friends for such a long time. He’s an intelligent person with a good sense of humour; it’s always nice to see him again during university holidays.

Mairi Mac Arthur
A person who started out as an internet friend and then became a real life friend! Several years ago I joined some website or another where strangers add you and I put in my description that I was only interested in adding people who’d be interested in reading my writing. While Mairi is a very busy person (she’s usually revising for exams, doing charity work, diving or other such self-enriching activities) but from time to time she’s still able to read my stories and blog entries and to give me useful feedback. Plus, she showed this website to her Mum, who also read an entry or two, which is pretty cool. Oh and she’s kind of crazy too, which is nice.

Dalfino Madrigal Keyte
The person responsible for the existence of this blog! I remember the day quite well, I was just sitting next to Dalfino in the school’s computer room and then he said “Hey, you should start a blog” and so I made this right on the spot. After a few days I thought I’d probably give up soon, but that was nearly a year ago! I have to thank Dalfino for asking me to start a blog, without that prompt I never would have, and updating this thing is something I get a lot of joy out of. He’s a kind and artistic person and, like Mairi, he’s also kind of crazy (I sometimes wonder who’s crazier, I can never decide). He’s also the person who’s most consistently kept in touch with me after sixth form finished, which is something I’m very pleased with.

Luke Mallison
Now, I have to say, I don’t really know very much about Luke Mallison (having only spoken to him three times), but I can tell you he’s a polite and funny person. Just the other day he approached me, a virtual stranger, just to compliment my blog writing skills and anybody who’d do that must be nice!

George Moore
My second oldest friend who I’ve also known since primary school. For quite a large number of years he, Davey and I would always hang around in a little team of three and get into all kinds of mischief… Heh heh heh. Well, not mischief, but we’d climb into a bush and other dastardly things. Since most people went away to university he’s one of the few people left in Corsham with me, though I still, unfortunately, don’t get to see him all that often, though I still enjoy the times when I do.

Mum
She’s my Mum, so, she does loads of stuff like cleans my clothes and makes my dinner, things I should always be very thankful for. She’s always very encouraging with my writing, being a fairly regular reader of this blog and even willing to read a 50,000 word story I had, which was very kind! She also introduces me to a lot of television programmes and musical artists which I probably otherwise wouldn’t ever have noticed, most significantly, The Waltons, which otherwise I’d probably not even heard of!

Nozomi
A person I met on ChatRoulette over a year ago and have spoken to fairly regularly since. I must admit, she’s another person I don’t know the last name of, but I still enjoy chatting with her. She’s always interested to hear about the goings on in my life and will always politely listen to what I have to say. She’s another person who kindly reads this blog without being fluent in English.

Mike Riches
He’d been somebody I’d known of for a long time, but I didn’t really befriend him until sixth form history lessons. He, along with my good friend Rory, made the boring hours fly by much faster. He’s a very friendly person, he always seems to chat happily with anybody, always very upbeat and often with a rather humorous story about the latest crazy party he’d been too. A generally all round likeable person who anybody could happily chat with.

Bruna Schmitz
She’s another person I don’t know directly; she’s an internet friend of Elliott Egan’s. She left me a very polite comment on my blog and I was quite surprised that she’d taken the time to read it, but the fact that she did, I think, reflects quite well on her.

Matt Smith
A friend of mine who quite sadly moved away to Saudi Arabia. I think he’s back in England now, but I’m not quite sure where… He always gives me interesting little anecdotes about life in Saudi Arabia which I’m always very happy to hear about. Several years ago the pair of us sat next to each other in science lessons, these were always very fun. We’d spend the time secretly calling our teacher a troll. Well… It wasn’t that secret I suppose (huge pictures of trolls are rather conspicuous) but it was all a lot of fun (even for the teacher) and are times I look back at nostalgically.

Stacey
The first friend I made when I started university. Actually, if it weren’t for this blog, I might never have met Stacey, she first contacted me via a comment on my blog which was a very kind thing to do considering I was a stranger. Since then the pair of us have become very close, she managed to persuade me not to stop writing this blog several months ago (when I was considering doing that) and her own polite behaviour and interesting fictional writing are both inspiring to me.

David Tubb
Holy sheesh, imagine Sherlock Holmes in real life. Now imagine Sherlock Holmes in real life with a great sense of humour, and then you have David Tubb. I think I might go to so far as to say he’s the most intelligent person I know. He can do all kinds of clever magic tricks which I can never figure out and seems to have an almost perfect memory. I’m quite glad to have met him, which was also a day when the pair of us saw a magical lute man.

Ben Wood
A very good friend of mine during the majority of my time in school. He always seems to have a kind of jolly disposition, and is very enthusiastic about the majority of things he does. A very kind person, and somebody who I actually used to do some writing with, it was always very fun to write about the bizarre adventures of a pair of eccentric billionaires… Unfortunately though, he, like many others, is somebody I don’t get to see that often due to university, but it’s always nice to meet up during the holidays. He was one of the few encouraging people during the early days of my blog.

There are actually over 147 people who read this blog, so I have definitely missed some people. If I’ve missed you, please tell me and I’ll update this list so that you’re on it too! I feel terribly bad at the thought of missing people out but I know I will have!

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A Guide to Nightclubs

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Adam Randall

What they are:
Nightclubs are places where lots of people go to have dance parties. They play very loud music there, so you’ll have to be careful not to hurt your ears (guidelines for ear protection will be given shortly.) Usually you have to pay to come in, and sometimes they’re underground.

What People do There:
Like I said before, people like to go to nightclubs in order to have dance parties. Dancing can be a bit embarrassing though, so you might want to try what I call ‘The Gentleman’s All Purpose Dance Procedure’ which goes as follows: first bend your knees so you go down a little bit, and then unbend them so you go up a bit. This will make it look like your dancing and it’s suitable for any type of music that plays in nightclubs, making you look both hip and cool.

Another thing people like to do in nightclubs is to make new friends. With so many people dancing around, it’s very easy to go up to somebody. I’ve not tried it myself, but I think the best thing to do is to go up to a stranger and say “Hello, can we be friends?” some of the lads like to go a step further than this, often hoping to get hugged by some of the girls there.

Finally, people also like to drink a certain kind of drink called ‘alcohol’ they say it makes their visit to the nightclub more enjoyable.

What it’s Like:
Because there are always so many people in a nightclub, it often feels very crowded. If you take a trip to the dance floor, while following through with your dance procedure, the place will become so crowded that you’ll struggle to leave. When there are so many people, it gets very hot in there; you might even have to take off your jacket. Also it is very loud, so maybe bring earplugs or something like a deerstalker cap to cover your ears.

The Risks:
Some people in nightclubs are very dangerous and are not there to make new friends at all. These dangerous individuals at must be avoided at all costs. For example, if you wander out into the middle of the dance floor and start your dance procedure, a strange female might suddenly wrap her arms around you and give you a very tight hug indeed. If this does happen, keep calm and try not to panic. While you’re definitely more scared of her than she is of you, you can still escape this sticky situation. There are two things you can do in this situation. The first is to pretend you didn’t notice her, maybe take a Game Boy out of your pocket and start playing Tetris or something.

Unfortunately, this technique doesn’t always work, if this is the case it’s time to move to step two. In stage two what you have to do is start shaking around like you’re having some kind of seizure and then the female predator will let go of you to see what you’re doing. Once you are free of the female’s grasp you have a brief window of time to escape, the best thing to do is to simply run away as fast as you can to the other side of the club.

But, aside from the predators, another problem can be alcohol consumption by either yourself or your associates. What you may not realise is that alcohol causes a very strange process to happen: Your logical, rational mind is separated from your body, which is then taken over by a destructive, clumsy, fooligan. Once a certain amount of alcohol has been consumed, all you can do is watch through your eyes and despair as your body says and does things you would never naturally do.  This can be very dangerous indeed and many scholars would describe it as something akin to a demonic possession, and unfortunately there is nothing at all you can do. You should perhaps find a friend who doesn’t consume alcohol and politely ask them to restrain you if you happen to lose your mind.

Conclusion:
Nightclubs may occasionally be fun, but they’re also very dangerous. For a more enjoyable evening you might consider inviting some friends to your house so you can watch a Doctor Who DVD.

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New Glasses

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Adam Randall
In October I had a little accident on the bus, my glasses case was in my trouser pocket and it slipped out of it… So today, four months later, I finally got a new pair. When I put them on for the first time, I realised just how bad my vision usually is, everything suddenly looked so nice. As such, I decided to take a little walk through town before coming home.
     took a stroll through a nearby park and enjoyed seeing everything in a much more refined detail, a dog jumping and catching a ball mid-air in the distance, the fine detail on the trees and all of those other nice things I could now see.
    Unfortunately, it wasn’t all nice.
    I realised now that, rather than just being blurry figures, I could quite clearly see people in the distance. However, the unhappy truth is that people don’t always do nice things. I turned around a corner of the path in the park and then saw that there were two teenagers, a male and a female, sitting ahead of me in a kind of out of the way corner of the park. Obviously these two teenagers hadn’t seen me, because the male then stood up, faced the sitting girl and lowered the front of his trousers… It’s hard for me to write what he was doing without being explicit, but it seemed he had something to show her.
    Not wanting to see such a horrifying thing, I decided to take a drink of water and hold my bottle in my mouth so that it stuck outward in a position which blocked the two of them out of my sight. Oddly enough, I totally forgot about the whole thing until only a second ago, I guess I was trying to repress it.
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Goodbye

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Adam Randall
This isn’t the last entry on this blog or anything (well, as far as I know anyway), it’s just one on the subject of saying goodbye.
In a movie and/or a television series, whenever two very close people say goodbye it’s usually a very emotional affair, but, in real life, I don’t things quite happen like that. When you’re used to seeing somebody every single day, when this comes to an end you, more than likely, won’t realise the full implications. You’ll say “Goodbye, I’ll miss you” or something like that, but all the emotion will be on a purely subconscious level, those words won’t mean particularly much to you.
Several months later, your life will have adapted to having been separated from your friend(s) but then you’ll look back to the times when you saw them every day and it’ll cause an emotion which the English language doesn’t really have a word for. You be sad as such, because like I said, you’ll have adapted, gotten used to it and made new friends, but at the same time you still won’t be wholly happy because you’ll miss those who aren’t there. It’s a very hard emotion to describe really, but it’s at these times when you realise really how amazing it was to see those people every single day. Even if your relationship with somebody has been reduced to meeting somebody only every fortnight or something, rather than full-fledged separation, it’s likely to still cause this feeling. No matter how good your friendship may be with people, when you’re separated you’ll really learn to appreciate and love them more. Well, maybe not, but I do anyhow.

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Gay Argument

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Adam Randall
A few does ago I posted an entry talking about my Wonderful Writing Website, which is a website I made for Creative Writing coursework. I post pieces of my own writing on there and pieces by any other writer who’d like to contribute! Here’s ‘Gay Argument’ a non-fiction piece of writing which I posted on there, hopefully this little taster will persuade you to take a visit to the site yourself (here’s a link).

I don’t particularly like the fact that I’m often mistaken for being gay. I have nothing at all against homosexuals, but I don’t want people to think I’m gay. I mean, it’d be like if everybody thought you were a huge fan of a certain TV series and so bought you all of the DVDs, even though there’s another programme you’d much prefer (Or maybe your just more of a book person?).
    Nonetheless, my good friend Elliott Egan was really rather insistent that I was secretly gay. I may not be the epitome of masculinity, but that doesn’t place me in an entirely different sexual orientation. He even decided to explain to me the ‘evidence’ of this claim.
    The fact that I had ‘made out with a guy’ was his strongest point. But to tell it like that is to tell it completely inaccurately. I would tell the story as me being ‘indecently attacked’ by a guy. I suppose I had better give the details.  My good friend Christian Watkins had thrown a house party and had, rather kindly, invited me. He and I had parted ways about a year or so before and during that time he had made some new friends, and these friends were a little crazy if you know what I mean. After a couple of alcoholic beverages one of the females there was ready to take off their clothes and become nude. Luckily though I was able to persuade her to remain clothed (this was also used as ‘evidence’ by Egan). Anywho, the evening went along and I stayed in the garden doing general party things, by which I mean standing around and drinking water. I then overheard a conversation between three of the partygoers who were stood a short distance from me.
    “Ah, go on,” said a male, “you know you want too!”
    “No we don’t!” replied a female. “It’s just gross.”
    “Nah, it’ll be great!” he protested enthusiastically.
    “Don’t be stupid, we’re not going to make out with each other,” said the second female. “You wouldn’t make out with another guy if a girl told you to would you? So why would we?”
    “I’m secure enough with my sexuality that I can happily make out with a guy.”
    “Alright, prove it then,” teased one of them.
    And so he did.
    He then grabbed the guy nearest to him and started making out with him, just to prove his point. Rather unfortunately for me, I happened to be the nearest guy to him. Now, before I go on to explain exactly what happened, let me give you a little description of my male suitor: he was very tall, almost as tall as I am, the difference was he was also rather muscular, he probably was quite a skilled rugby player or something. I, meanwhile, am rather thin and weak, so when this large man grabbed me in his strong arms and proceeded to have his wicked way with me, there wasn’t a particularly large number of things I could do about it. At first, I tried to squirm free of his grasp, but that proved to be entirely futile. Then I thought of something, I would have smiled at the idea of my new escape plan, but, as it was, my mouth was full at that precise moment. I always carry a water bottle with me, if I gave him a quick squirt to the back of the head, this was bound to bring this madness to an end.  Alas, it seemed I was too tightly gripped to grab my plastic companion.  It was with this failed escape plan that I decided to give up and accept my unlucky fate.
    Sometime later he had finished with me, and once he had, he returned to his two female friends (but not before thanking me for “letting”him do that). I think the whole thing had lasted for about ten seconds but it felt as if it lasted an awfully long time to me, I’m sure I could have watched Back to the Future during it. I rinsed my mouth out was some water and that was the end of the situation. This does quite clearly show that I was a strictly neutral party in this endeavour and not, as Egan was insisting, doing anything gay.
    “Yeah maybe,” Egan replied. “But what about that time on ChatRoulette?”
    Now, for those who’re unfamiliar with ChatRoulette, I’ll briefly describe it to you: it’s a website where you’re put into video chats using webcams with total strangers. I’ve made some lovely internet friends through this website so I do occasionally use it. During one particular visit, a couple of females appeared on the screen looking back at me.
    “Hello!” I typed. “How are you?”
    “We’re good… want to play a game? ;)”
    “Yes, of course! What shall we play? Word association? I quite like word association…”
    “Not that kind of game ;)…”
    These two strangers then proceeded to take off all of their clothes.
    “Ah right…” I wrote, feeling rather disappointed.
    “Wanna see us do stuff?” she and her friend had rather mischievous smiles upon their faces.
    I had to handle the situation delicately “Hmm, I don’t mean to sound rude, but would you mind putting your clothes back on? If you do we could have a nice regular chat, and we could play word association!”
    The mischievous grins dropped and frowns formed. A second later the pair of them were gone and the words “Your partner disconnected” had appeared.  A narrow escape there. Now, Egan may use this as evidence for my supposed homosexuality “any guy would love that situation” being his pain point, but I think what he meant to say was “I would love that situation”.
    And so that’s Egan’s argument about me being gay. I’m hoping you’ll have come to a different conclusion than he did after reading it. Luckily, these are the only two major points he has in favour of his argument. However, rather pessimistically I suppose, I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds himself with some more ‘evidence’ sooner or later…

EDIT: The Wonderful Writing Website no longer exists. Sorry.
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10 Accidents Caused by First Buses

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Adam Randall
I have four bus rides almost every day so I have realised that First Buses can be a little clumsy sometimes. Here are ten accidents caused by them which happened over the last six months:

10. I think I’ll start with the least exciting of the accidents. You know how sometimes the bus drivers like to turn the engine off at every bus stop? Well, I guess this isn’t a very clever idea; one day the bus driver pulled into a bus stop the passengers got on and he prepared to drive away again. Unfortunately, when he did try to drive a way the bus engine wouldn’t turn on again… Luckily it did start eventually, but only after about ten to fifteen minutes of futile attempts by the busman.

9. On my commute, I go through several rather countryside-y areas. At night, it’s usually hard to see much through the windows, but one evening I saw something that looked rather odd: One of the buses was crashed into a bush and seemingly waiting for a nearby tow-truck to pull it out.

8. I’m sure you’d know what I meant if I told you that bus riding is a bit ‘wobbly’. One time the driver pressed perhaps a little too hard on the breaks, meaning that, not only did the people standing up fall and have to grab onto something, but the majority of the passengers fell out of their seats too.

7. To get out of Bath Spa University, the long orange buses have to pull out onto a very busy road. Obviously, if you’re going to pull out into a busy road you need, not only, to do it carefully in order to avoid any problems for yourself, but also to avoid causing problems for other traffic. Well, one time the busman simply drove out, barely turning at all, and then ended up stuck in the middle in a position which blocked all other traffic from passing. It took quite some time for the busman to get us out of that sticky situation.

6. Some busmen are quite kind and, even if a bus isn’t due to leave in some time, they’ll let you sit inside the immobile bus in order to keep warm. One time, while sitting in an immobile bus, another busman came in and started chatting to the driver; he told him a story which really makes you wonder how safe bus driving is: apparently a friend of his (also a bus driver) had spoken to a bus mechanic because he was a little concerned that he bus might have a problem with it. The mechanic checked the bus’s engine and all the other parts and then assured him that it was all fine. Then, just as the busman was driving off again, the engine ‘exploded’.

5. This next bus accident links directly to the previous one. Once the two busmen had finished talking about the bus which had ‘exploded’, they moved onto another recent bus related misadventure. One bus driver had been driving along in one of the orange buses (ones which are twice of long, have a bendy bit and also an extra door near the middle) and he inadvertently forgot to close the doors in the middle of the bus. I’m finding it quite hard to imagine, but this is what they said happened: it had been very rainy that day, so when he drove along quite a lot of rain got in through the open door, so much, in fact, that the bus was ‘flooded’ and could no longer be used.

4. Accidents 7, 6 and 5 have all been related to Bath’s double length orange buses, ones which I believe must be hard to drive. Here’s a fourth orange bus accident: The bus driver accidentally steered a little sharply, so he went into a turning at the wrong angle. But that’s not really a problem right? He can just reverse, straighten and go! So he started reversing, but he went a little too far and hit (rather powerfully I might add) the car behind.

3. Still, everyone has minor collisions on the road every now and then right? The busman either didn’t care or didn’t notice, and off he drove, ready to continue to journey… Except that he made another critical error and drove straight onto the pavement, almost hitting the wall. On the bright side, at least that means I get two things for this list out of one bus ride!

2. To get to Bath Spa University you have to drive down a rather long and narrow road and, since there’s a bus stop there, several buses drive down it throughout the day. As you would expect, when two buses heading in opposite directions head down the narrow road, certain problems can arise. Obviously, what they always do is reverse, pull over and give the other bus plenty of room. Heh heh, no, they didn’t do that one time I was on there, instead they just decided to drive past each other very slowly, scraping and tearing at the other’s bodywork as they did. Both of the buses were very badly scraped by this incident, and both busmen were quite angry. So after waiting while the buses rubbed each other, the drivers decided to prolong this inconvenience by going outside an arguing with each other for a while… But they didn’t (as many of the other commuters had hoped) have a fight.

1. When you’re riding on a bus, the main thing you want is to be safe right? Well, rest assured, you will be. While waiting at the bus station one day a bus mechanic was doing some work on a bus (the bus I’d be riding home on to be precise). Obviously the bus was being problematic because, after several minutes of tinkering, the mechanic kicked the bus. This kick triggered the buses defence mechanisms to start up: a large alarm went off along with a loud looping female voice which said “Warning, this bus is under attack, please dial 999”. So now you can be assured that, if an unarmed terrorist tries to destroy society one bus at a time, this handy alarm will go off and a good natured soul will save you from them by phoning the police.

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Pig Picture

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Adam Randall
I had a particularly boring and unimportant lecture the other day, so I decided to do some sketching on Microsoft Paint. This is the result.
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