Fit to be bussed

I've had a bloody good idea. Well, I think it's good. See, like most people who regularly take a bus, I've been interested to see that a conveyor belt of our much cherished bus-drivers have been getting something of a make-over. They are being dispatched to charm-schools in the UK, in an attempt to transform them into polite, sweet-natured pussycats.

And, like most people who regularly... etc, I haven't yet noticed one scrap of difference in their behaviour. The attitude of the bus drivers, that we all know and love, is still as boorish, devious and offensive as it ever was... Thank God!

I'm sorry, but whoever thought up the idea of couthing-up these guys needs his/her head examined. It's not so much trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear... It's more a matter of trying to make servile skivvy out of a Paceville bouncer. No chance!

And that's just how it should be. How dare they try to change our bus drivers! What right have they got to determine the way we're abused?

Far better, say I, to channel their aggression, greed and downright unpleasantness into something much more refined. I mean, why be merely obnoxious, when with a little more effort you can be utterly repellent?

And that's when I had that good idea I mentioned. Why pay out on air fares, hotels, charm-school tuition fees, etc... to achieve absolutely b****r all? When, for a fraction of the cost, the Sylvanus School of Refinement could do a far better job?

No, I'll admit we have no intention of coaching these drivers in stuff like: How to smirk at a tourist... How to give the correct change... How to make them feel welcome on their bus and in Malta. Oh no! What my staff of expert tutors will be doing is precisely the opposite.

Our bus drivers are unique, and we intend to make them even more so: I have devised a syllabus guaranteed to produce the absolute chinks of cheek... the acmes of abrasiveness... the supremos of surliness... the shahs of short-changing.

For goodness' sake! These guys are a tourist attraction! Where else in the world can you be made to feel like a piece of dog-dos for just 15 cents?

What we, at my school, are doing... is honing their technique to produce the rudest, crudest and shiftiest bus drivers in the world. And before you say they already are, I beg to disagree. They can be much more repugnant.

These are some of the things we're teaching these guys to bring them up to scratch. Obviously I'm not going into detail...

I'm not a charity, the ADT have to pay for my expertise. But here's a flavour of the course:

Vocabulary:

This teaches the driver how to swear at tourists in their own language. How many times do you hear a really inventive outpouring of blasphemous spleen, music to the ears of a Maltese speaker, but totally incomprehensible to your average Franz from Frankfurt or Matt from Manchester? My course empowers the driver to utter profanities in no fewer than 47 languages... from Albanian to Zulu!

Short-changing:

Honestly (perhaps not the best word... but) sometimes I wonder at the intellect of some bus drivers. They are so unsubtle about this. We teach them the art of short-changing the punter... with style.

Just an example: It is simple to pocket 25c for a 15c fare if say... a tourist hands over 50c. Simply give the bastard his change in one-cent pieces. By the time the poor sod has checked it, he'll have reached his destination. Simple little wrinkles like that.

Omnibus clutch control:

Our expert drivers teach their students stuff like: How to execute the perfect unexpected lurch, to left or right. Pulling away from the kerb, just as an elderly tourist is about to step on or off the bus. Hitting the brakes without warning when you've got a bus-ful of standing passengers... etc.

And there's more. We do an intensive course in pure and applied insults. Maximum diesel fume emission... I could go on.

But suffice it to say, I feel that after completing my course, my students are at last discovering true job fulfilment.