It's a hard life being a bus wanker

I miss my car. I have had a car since I was 17 except for the few years I was living in Australia and then I pretty much walked or got a taxi everywhere. Embracing student life and living in central Brighton meant getting rid of my car and getting on the bus.

After 6 months of it I can honestly say I hate getting the bus. I kind of knew it already but yesterday while on the good old number 25 bus to uni it really hit me. As a student bus user you seem to be a second class citizen. The bus drivers hate us. You can tell. They grunt in reply to anything you say, shout at anyone who dares to enquire beyond the norm and seem to deliberately pull away from the stop just as you get there, even though they can see you running and they can't possibly pull out into the traffic. Mean. For me though, their biggest crime is the refusal to acknowledge my thanks. I'm a polite person. My Nan always taught me that manners cost nothing. I always say please and thank you. So when I get off the bus and say thank you, I expect to receive an answer. Even if it's just a grunt. But no, now that I am a student 8 times out of 10 they say nothing back. So what, are my thanks not worth anything now? Should I not bother? I wish I was rebellious enough not to but I'm not. It seems to come automatically as if I have no control over it. I'm such a good girl (ahem).

I spend about an hour a day on the bus each way to and from uni so it's no small part of my day. The one bonus I can see with the student bus is that it's a lot more interesting than the average bus. The number 25 is a hive of gossip and scandal. I have spent many a journey eavesdropping (although I am not sure it can be called eavesdropping when people are talking so loudly it's impossible not to hear) on people bitching about their flatmates, classmates and lecturers. I'm almost sad when we reach our destination and I have to stop myself chasing after them and asking 'and then what did she say?'. If you miss Jeremy Kyle in the morning just hop on the number 25 for the live show.

For the most part though it's pretty miserable. I don't know who designs buses but they are ridiculously impractical. Particularly those stupid little 4 seats where you sit facing each other. There's nothing like sitting knee to knee and trying to avoid staring at some stranger sitting opposite you for half an hour. What were they thinking when they designed those? That little groups of 4 people like to take bus trips and might want to sit together and chat? I'm sure this happens every now and again but it usually just makes 4 complete strangers really uncomfortable. It's like when you get in a lift with strangers but an extended session. Yesterday, as I sat in one of the aforementioned little 4 seats I looked around me and realised that everyone looked as miserable as I felt. They hate the bus too. They might just be unhappy but I would bet it's the bus. I say everyone, but there were two Japanese girls in the seats opposite that were cheerfully chatting and marking their journey on a London tube map. I hoped it wasn't their current journey for obvious reasons, but felt it best not to enquire as such. That would have meant putting on my loud, patronising voice I seem to acquire when talking to people with limited English and I really don't like to use it too much.

In case I was in any doubt, while standing at the bus stop at uni the other day someone actually drove by and shouted out 'bus stop wankers' at us. To be fair it was more amusing than anything due to the fact that he couldn't even get the line right, which makes him a bit of a wanker himself, but still. I guess there's no avoiding it. My name is Donna Wrightson and I am a bus wanker.

International Women's Day. Be inspired.

'How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!' Maya Angelou

Thursday March 8th was International Women's Day. Pretty cool kind of day and an excuse to appreciate all things female. Actually I don't really need an excuse to do that (not in a lesbian way perverts, unless it's Rihanna of course). I do think my friends are amazing. I know everyone thinks that but mine really are. I'm using this as a chance to honour some of them.

For anyone who thinks teaching is easy, it's really not. One of my best friends is a reception class teacher and she works her arse off. Her typical day, Monday to Friday involves leaving the house around 7am and getting home around 6.30pm. Plus at the weekends she often has prep work to do. Believe me she needs those school holidays when they come! Teaching the future of our country their first lessons is no easy task. Teaching them not to piss in the middle of the classroom is even harder. She does all that and still has time to be an amazing friend.


Danni, whom I met and became close to in Australia but is actually from the good old US of A is a true ball of energy who literally lights up any room she is in. Sadly her aunt was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This is devastating for anyone, we all know people affected by this in some way. But this girl refused to take it sitting down. She rode 160 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge raising over $10,000 for the Dana Farber hospital which gave her aunt pioneering treatment which prolonged her life. She's riding again this year in her aunt's memory with the goal again to raise $10,000. Truly amazing. For anyone who would like to donate the link is: http://www.pmc.org/profile/DW0128.


One of my friends was in an unhappy relationship situation. The decision to leave it wasn't easy and caused her much pain. She did anyway. She picked herself up, ran a half marathon and moved to the other side of the world for a fresh start. She is now with a great guy and I have never seen her so happy. She did that for herself. She's also one of the coolest chicks I know.


One of my best friends has the very important task of keeping my faith in love alive. While I pass the time with an endless string of fuckwits (much to her consternation) she is very happy with one of the nicest guys I have met. They get married this year and I'm so happy and proud. She, in the meantime, doesn't give up hope that one day I will come to my senses and give the nice guy a chance. Who knows? Maybe I will. Until then I know she won't stop trying to persuade me, which feels good.


A fellow traveller I met in Australia is one of the busiest people I know but always has time for her friends. She loves life and gets the most out of it everyday with new challenges she sets herself. She's leaving England in a few days to live in Japan and teach English for a year. On her own. She will be missed but more of the world deserves to experience a little bit of what she has to offer. We will wait to get her back.

Those are just some of my amazing friends. I couldn't fit them all in. I'm going to make the effort to tell them just how great they are more often. Every day they inspire me. I hope they inspire you too. Who are your friends who have done or do something remarkable every day? Remember to tell them how you feel.


So the message here, if you didn't catch it, is to believe in yourself. You can do anything you put your mind to. Sometimes life's not easy. But I guess that's the biggest test, how we deal with the crap that it throws at us sometimes. At the end of the day, it's down to you to make your life something special. Are you up to the challenge?

'I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass' Maya Angelou

Fairy Tales....but not as we know them

It is a common occurrence in society today for single women in their 20s and 30s to lament that their love lives have been spoiled by the fairy tales they read as children (at least it is amongst my friends). We blame our inability to find a sane man willing to commit to us on our unrealistic expectations we learned from fairy tales. As Bonnie Tyler sang 'where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?....Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed, Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need'. Oh dear. I've started quoting Bonnie. Time to move on.

Imagine my delight to find fairy tales the subject of study in my literature module recently. Even better, to be taken by my favourite lecturer who we shall call Richard, because that is his name. A man so charming and charismatic he packs out the lecture hall (even at 9.30am) and has boys and girls alike staring at him in open adulation for the whole one and a half hours. I kid you not. This is a man that makes religious poetry sexy. Imagine what he could do with fairytales. I was not to be disappointed. Except these fairy tales weren't quite how I remembered them.

Take Little Red Riding Hood for example. We all know the story, little red is off to visit granny, wolf tricks her, gets there first, eats granny and then eats her when she arrives (or the huntsman saves her depending on the version you read). Okay, we get the moral; don't talk to strangers and do as your mother tells you. There's nothing sexual about Little Red Riding Hood right? WRONG. In the Charles Perrault story of 1697 (one of the first published versions of the tale) that naughty little red takes her clothes off and climbs into bed with the wolf when he bids her. Unfortunately this gives fresh meaning to the famous 'What big teeth you have Grandmother' 'the better to eat you' exchange. So we already know her to be a silly little fool for being tricked by the wolf but then she goes and jumps into bed with him! Sound familiar? Uh-huh. So dear Charles decided to give us a little moral at the end of the tale, in case we didn't pick up on the message within. To be honest I might not have done but Richard was fortunately on hand to point it out. Nearly 430 years on the moral still rings true so here it is for your benefit:

One sees here that young children,

Especially young girls

Pretty, well brought up, and gentle,

Should never listen to anyone who happens by,

And if this occurs, it is not so strange

When the wolf should eat them.

I say the wolf, for all wolves

Are not of the same kind.

There are some with winning ways,

Not loud, nor bitter, or angry,

Who are tame, good-natured, and pleasant

And follow young ladies

Right into their homes, right into their alcoves.

But alas for those who do not know that of all the wolves

the docile ones are those who are most dangerous.

Hear hear! I've learned my lesson. I shall certainly not be letting any men, I mean wolves, into my alcove. Especially not the quiet ones. Not tonight anyway.

So now that we've learned that Little Red Riding Hood was a bit of a whore, what other fairy tale heroine could we move on to desecrate? How about dear Cinderella? As one of the most popular fairy tales around and the creator of the legendary Prince Charming, that every girl has been waiting for since she heard about him, it's hard to see how this could be so bad. Actually, you will be pleased to know that Cinderella herself remains largely unblemished by digging deeper into the tale. However, just when I thought we were going to leave the lecture just learning that it helps children deal with sibling rivalry, we have a little chat about Prince Charming finding that Cinderella's foot is the perfect fit for the glass slipper. Suddenly Richard breaks in with a little laugh and 'of course, I think that you all know that the foot and slipper is a metaphor for the male and female genitalia'. Um, no. Actually I think we didn't. But we do now, thanks very much.

So the fairy tales had it right all along. Prince Charming wasn't looking for his true love, he was just trying to find the perfect vajayjay for his pee-pee. Some things never change.