Route 23? Of course it is!
The news that London has returned oncemore to its iconic double-deckers pleases me no end. Every time I’ve been inthe smoke in the last ten years things have changed, inevitably you’ll say, andyou’d be right, but in little ways. The Shard for example, set up entirely tomake sure the Rockingham Estate is always, even at night, in the shade. Butwith busses I’ve missed them not being there and so with their return I’ll bethankfully saved from missing what replaced them. Bear in mind I still don’tknow what an oyster card does, and somewhere not so very deep inside I’m stillwondering where the smoking carriage went on the tube trains.
Thisall bodes very well for the future. With the Olympics coming to London, and myown part reluctantly agreed to in the opening ceremony. I am assured thatalready people working in the city do so once more in bowler hats (developed toact as a helmet for gamekeepers), pin-stripe trousers and with a furledumbrella balanced by a copy of The Times. Even now I look forward to roaringover Tower Bridge in a nippy little MG painted with the union flag, almostcertainly with a helicopter keeping chase to catch the footage of me, mymightily cheek-bewhiskered driver and a pair of young swingers in the back,ideally ageless Hammer actresses. Young Guards officers will be caught with abit of rough in Green Park. I shall stay in a well-appointed pad where a partyshall always be in full blow and where being middle-aged I will somehow be verygroovy, and probably solve mysteries.
Ah,London. We’ll toast you with Blue Nun, drunk from a shoe, provided by ChristineKieller, on a bet with Terrance Stamp, in Ladbroke Grove, and eat breakfast atthe Mountain Grill, in smart clobber, where Peter Cook will be the devil,incarnate.
Itwill, won’t it?
Yeah,it will. Course it will.