This Is This

On the bus this morning, the driver was playing classical music on the way in. I don’t think he realised it was coming in over the PA they normally use for guided tours and emergency announcements. I put up with it for a while, but I was trying to read. I like classical music a bit. I like Mozart and Bach and Aaron Copeland’s Appelation Spring is stunning in it’s depth and simplicity, but when I’m trying to read a book, I don’t like pianos tinkering in the background.

I don’t think the driver realised he had it on, but it was tinkering in the background so you could barely hear it, like it does when a plane is taxiing to its gate after landing. I was working up the gumption to say something and when Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries came on I lept into action. You know the one - it was used in the helicopter attack scene in Apocalypse Now.

I used to work with a guy who said that to hate Wagner was to understand something about humanity. Hitler made Wagner the soundtrack on the Nazi movement in all its pomp and genocide.

As we thundered along at 70mph, I staggered to the front of the bus, steading myself as I made my way up to the driver. Picture if you will the image to the accompaniment to crashing cymbals and thundering horns.

I reached the driver and leant over. The music was even louder up front where it was also coming out of the stereo speakers.

“Could you turn it down please?”

“What?” said the driver, turning around as he did. This troubled me as I stood in the aisle with the forces of friction and a 25mm pane of glass between me and the outside lane of a motorway.

“The music! Think you could turn it down?!”

“Can you hear THIS back THERE?”

“No. It’s just…”

“What?”

“I can’t here THIS back THERE, but you’ve also got it coming out of the PA system!”

“You can’t hear it?!”

“No, I CAN hear it. It’s on the PA.”

He turns it off the volume in the front and it’s still playing on the PA.

“It’s still playing,” he says, “it must be on the PA.”

“I think it might be.”

“Do you want me to turn it off?”

“Yes please.”

I make my way back to my seat.

Also on This Is This
Bored Colleague (Looks around my desk and points to CD): Is that the new Kate Bush?
Me: Yeah.
Bored Colleague: Is she related to George W?
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 16th, 2004 at 11:03 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or leave a comment yourself.