Tramps-Elysées

About a year ago, the bus I used to catch home stopped virtually outside my place of employment. It doesn't anymore. It now stops about a ten-minute walk away, on the lovely road known as Digbeth High Street. Think of the Champs-Elysées, now imagine its polar opposite. You are now seeing how Digbeth is. The walk to the bus stop is, most of the time, dull, but every now and again, the traipse chucks up something shocking, like the time I saw a fight involving a broken bottle, and a man taking out his dentures in readiness for the punch-up. There's the woman who uses the same stop, but thankfully, catches a different bus, who carries around childish watercolours under her arm, and keeps asking other patrons of Travel West Midlands their opinions of her work. They're rubbish, but no-one wants to say so, as she is obviously mental.

I only bring all of this up (pardon the pun) because on Monday afternoon, I was trudging towards the bus-stop when I saw an elderly woman at another bus stop. Her head was down, and I thought she was inspecting her ankle, because it looked swollen and was covered in scabs and sores, and must've been giving her gyp. As I walked past her, though, she made a horrible wet retching noise and vomited onto the floor, narrowly missing my shoes. I could see now, that, she wasn't as old as I thought she was, and she was what's known locally as a 'pisshead'. Lovely. I'm sure they breed people who regularly drink in the afternoon in a tank somewhere. They seem to be a different species to everybody else.

When I finally got to my bus stop, I noticed that the phantom scribbler had struck again. Every now and then, the bus stop gets covered in racist graffiti by a kind of gonzo Jim Davidson. He sometimes lists all of the minorities he hates, with 'kill all' on top of the list. Nice. Well, on Monday, he put a speech bubble by one of the silhouettes on an EasyJet advert saying "I hate pakis". This was obvious, because they're included on the list on the reverse of this advertisement hoarding. I was standing by this when two Asian lads came past, read the graffiti, and shouted " You hate pakis? Well fuck your mother up the arse!"at me as they were walking past. This was probably because I was the only caucasian at the bus stop.

I shouted "I didn't fucking write it!!" back at them as they went, but they weren't interested in a debate.

Digbeth is a shithole, and if people come to Brum by National Express, it's the first thing they see of the city, as the bus station is there. (Like New St. Station, another shithole, is the first thing they see if they come by train) It's no wonder people think Birmingham is a dump. Thing is, Digbeth is the site of our annual St. Patrick's Day Parade, which is, apparently, the third biggest in the world, which brings in a lot of visitors, who would be far from impressed if they see the kind of shit I see every day. I believe there are plans to flatten it, and redevelop, and if that's true, the sooner the better. Let's hope they flatten the cunt who keeps writing on the bus stop as well.