KEY POINTS:
A reader reminds us that the admirable concept of "walking buses" arose from a rather unlikely source - BBC comedy television. In 1973, British comics Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacquesplayed a bus driver and his sister in a very funny television show called Sykes and a Bus. By a series of amusing mishaps, Sykes was eventually left without a bus ... so he and his sister (the conductor) invented a walking bus which simply walked the usual bus route, with "passengers" joining the walking group at their usual bus stops. A comedy high point was Miss Jacques announcing to a waiting couple at a bus stop that they couldn't join the walking group, because: "I'm sorry - but we're full." The incongruity of the episode did not mask the possibility of its being valid in real life - hence the growth of the walking bus concept. Parts of Britain and Australia started doing it some time afterwards.
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Last Sunday at Auckland Airport Stewart Germann realised he'd left his mobile at home, and he wasn't the only one: "I had left it at home (never done that before). I arranged for my 16-year-old daughter, still in bed, to put my phone in a taxi at St Heliers and to rush it to me at the airport. Fifteen minutes later I was standing outside waiting by the international terminal (I had been told to look out for Co-Op taxi 111 who would rush it to me before my flight to Sydney). Five minutes later a Co-Op taxi screamed up to the kerb, window went down and the driver handed me a mobile phone. I told him it wasn't mine. Five metres along the road a woman hailed him and took the phone. At that moment another Co-Op taxi raced up, window went down and my phone was handed to me by the driver of another taxi. What are the chances of two strangers waiting outside the international terminal at Auckland Airport for two Co-Op taxis to bring their mobile phones within two minutes of each other? $47 for the experience, but I was so happy."
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On Saturday afternoon at the same time as a group of people were gathering in Aotea Square to draw public awareness to climate change, Kiwibank was choosing to advertise its product by having a procession of seven lime green cars drive round the city centre. How can any company believe that is an effective or acceptable way to promote itself? This sort of mindless stunt would surely be an easy first line of attack in the battle against carbon emissions.
