Back Yard of the Universe

Please note the following changes to Oxbury area Tortoise Bus services over the festive period:

• A special Christmas Shopper bus will run on 23rd-24th December every ten minutes from Naysboar to Oxbury City Centre.The smallest, smelliest, oldest, dirtiest bus we can find will be used. Don’t complain: it’s your fault for leaving your Christmas shopping until the last minute.
• The 14 service to Fulton will not run on Christmas Day (25th December) or Boxing Day (26th-26th December). It will operate on 27th December (27th December), but no passengers will be picked up and the driver will ‘cock-a-snoop’ to any person who dares flag him down. You have been warned.
• The 128762147 service from Fisherman Park to Stickles Bridge will operate a reduced service from 23rd-29th December. Buses on this route will be 1/8th actual size.
• The 33 service to Oxbury Infirmary will be replaced on Christmas Day by the 33A. The 33A will make an extra stop in Runcorne Avenue to cover the 33B which will not run. The 33A will be replaced on Boxing Day by the 33C, which will not stop in Runcorne Avenue., the 33B being covered by the 33D. The 33D will also cover the 33B on 27th December, as the 33A will not be running and will be replaced by the 33E. The 33C will be covered by the 33F, which will not be running. On 28th December, the 33F will cover the 33, which will be re-routed to cover the 33D and the 33C, which will cover the 33E (which will be covering the 33B). The 33G will not be affected by these changes, except on Boxing Day when it will be replaced by the 33H (no relation).
• Bus drivers on all routes from Naysboar Depot will be wearing fancy dress on December 23rd. Keith Borrall on the 742 service will be dressed as Father Christmas, Stephanie Lomax on the 289412 route will be wearing a Comic Relief red nose she found down the back of the sofa and pretending to be Rudolph, whilst Cecil Harhouse will be reprising his celebrated role from last year as twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords-a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids-a-milking, seven swans-a-swimming, six geese-a-laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens and two turtle doves. Due to contractual obligations, the partridge in a pear tree will be unable to attend. Last year Tortoise Buses raised a whopping £74 which was mostly donated to some charity to do with kids or something. Since the event is for charity, all passengers will find it amusing and endearing.

Finally, please note that passengers are advised not to travel on any buses on New Year’s Day, as all the drivers will be hung over and we know what happened last year, don’t we?

Very excitingly, Back Yard has teamed up with somehow-still-open higher education institution Oxbury University to provide you with a series of online learning material that is guaranteed to increase your brainpower by 100% or less!

The first module available concerns languages and can be seen here:

Anybody who’s reading this may have noticed the Daily Trivia facts that have been appearing on the site over the last few days. If these are leaving you hungry for more, I’ve added the fantastic QI.com newsfeed to the bottom of the page. This will only show the most recent item due to space restrictions, but you should really subscribe anyway. Everything there is quite interesting (obviously) and usually quite true. Even the thing about the glass piano.

Welcome to the Back Yard of the Universe. Scattered throughout the binary alleyways of the Internet (which are very glittery and green if you believe The Matrix) are many web sites that provide essential information, or an outlet for democratic thought and freedom of speech, or possibly just succour for the needs of the lonely.

This isn’t one of them.

This is a web site full merely of trivial thoughts and random musings that may be entertaining (but probably won’t be), could provoke thoughts (unlikely) and possibly even spur on debate (no chance). Most of the stuff you’ll find here will probably be a little bit geeky, as befits my nature, so you’ll have to forgive me for that. Please. I’ve tried to be cool, hip and ‘down with the kids, daddio’, but in all honesty I’m not very good at it and, besides, it seems an awful lot of effort.

Anyway, I’ll finish this introductory posting here because, let’s face it, the odds of anybody actually reading this are pretty slim indeed. Not that it really matters.  Author David Lodge once wrote that writing that was never read was like masturbation. This was meant to be a bad thing but… well, who doesn’t like masturbation?

Don’t answer that.