Image by asands via Flickr

I’ve never blogged from a bus before but this one’s going so slowly up to Hammersmith from Brentford that I’m blogging to keep myself awake- hope I don’t put you to sleep.

I am sitting at the back of a 267 double decker- it’s probably got a fancy name but it’s not one of those nice old ones you could jump on and jump off again when the conductor tried to get you to pay your fare.

Looking around me I see my friend from Manchester who is looking very wet because a car soaked him when id drove through a puddle adjacent to his bus-stop, We’ve had a nice chat about trams.

Beside him is a man listening to music on his iPhone – make that two.  Ahead of me I can see someone typing into a laptop and a bloke reading an article on his mobile. In fact everyone on this bus is actively engaged in something digital except a lady in a turquoise nylon blouse who is trying to look out of the window(only it’s steamed up).

We’ve got to Turnham Green but it looks like I’m going to be late for my meeting in town- blame the weather!

Nobody really talks to each other on tubes but they do talk a bit on buses even in London. Except on this one which is looking like an internet cafe.

Which brings me onto the point Iwas discussing with QuietRoom last night. Everyone here has got some time- everyone’s got a mobile or laptop or iPad and everyone is making decisions on how they use their time based on the technology available to them.

Dawid or Robert or someone from mallowstreet told me that there is more computing power in an iPhone than there was in a Saturn 5 Rocket. Guess that makes my fellow passengers rocket scientists (not-by the look of them!).

If we have all these choices, why do we spend most of our time playing silly games on our handsets – why don’t we sort out our bank balances, pay our bills, study our pension statement- alter our funds strategy. It’s obvious sitting here that the only thing stopping people doing the things they know they should do is that there is more fun doing the things they shouldn’t.

Apparently the thing we shouldn’t do on line is watch porn- but that’s the most done thing on line. Pensions aren’t porn (we established that in our meeting yesterday) but if they were as fun and interesting as porn, maybe the bloke who has just sat down next to me who is clearly on a porn site, would switch to doing something about sorting his retirement.

A lot of people ask me if I ever do any work. Well here’s the answer, this blog has occupied me from the Chiswick roundabout to Chiswick Lane- I’m about to post it so there you go- Blog from a bus- worth five minutes of your life?.

Related articles

• If you write as good as you talk – no one reads you (henrytapper.com)
• Wave at the Bus Costume Creations (craftzine.com)
• School bus driver honoured at legislature (cbc.ca)
• Another bus-lane crackdown on the WS Bridge (westseattleblog.com)
• Social entrepreneurs and pension leaders ; Robert and Dawid (henrytapper.com)
• Week 41. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cevapcici (riverbankandbadger.wordpress.com)
• Bikers in plea over bus lanes (autonetinsurance.co.uk)
• Zoom! Metro (seelym.wordpress.com)
• Brentford confirm Uwe Rosler appointment (independent.co.uk)
• OneBusAway creator hired by Metro, briefly (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Smooth trip = rough blog – Tacna, Peru (travelpod.com)