[minutiae] and the gloom of the bus station

At first glance, waiting for a return bus from a cold and windswept bus station in the town centre, just as the dark had fallen with a thud, did not promise a scintillating time but stranger things have happened.

Having done the doings and thinking I was late, the jacket collar went up, the Thinsulate toque was tugged down, I got to the stand and there we all were, side by side in the gloom, grandmothers, grandpas, mothers with kids and shopping, young spivs, chavs, schoolkids and me. No one spoke; every one of the Pod People sported a blank look.

"N7 been along yet?" I couldn't resist asking the woman standing beside me, all muffled up, at which she showed bewilderment, "Not sure. N4 should have been 'ere at fifteen past. I got 'ere at quarter to and must a' missed it like."

A glance at the watch said 16:20.

"Nah, it never came," piped up a bearded type, front right, wearing a kagoul. "N7 neither."

"It's very late, the N4," spoke up a grandma to my left, sitting bolt upright on the rounded red steel bench, her shopping on the seat beside her. "It's already fifteen past and they're usually so punctual."

"Twenty past," I threw in an unheeded correction.

There were about thirty seconds silence.

"Must have been held up," added an elderly voice from a vaguely visible figure, further along to my right.

"Or roadworks," replied the grandma and everyone else stared fixedly towards where the bus stubbornly refused to come from.

"Oh look," a mother called out, "Is this it coming now?" Everyone peered into the gloom and it was certainly a bus which had swung itself round the corner and into our lane but ... and this was a big but ... it had stopped behind a stationary bus at the stand one up from us and wouldn't show itself.

Someone stepped onto the road and reported back, "Nah, it's the N7." I looked at the woman beside me and felt I needed to say something. "Never mind, the N4'll be along shortly." She smiled that resigned look and clutched her collar even more tightly to her neck.

The long, long queue finally got on, all were seated, the bus was heated and the lights inside meant you couldn't see anything outside, as the hiss near the driver signalled we were off on our grand adventure.

Immediately, behind me, some girl saw it as the cue to start up. "I bought an Advent calendar today, from Marks and Spencers." Silence, then, "I really like that tune, y'know. It's really nice like."

"Oh, I bought that one too," answered her friend. Silence. "I really like that tune too."

More silence. The first girl had obviously been considering this last remark.

"I'm taking it back tomorrow. I'm not havin' soomit wot evera'one else has."

Someone dinged the bell, eight or nine of us got up, the driver swung round the corner and jammed on his brakes, sending us careering towards the exit door. "Cheers," I called back to him, falling off the bus at the same time.

It was a bit chilly outside so I zipped my collar up to the top and pulled the toque down even further over the eyebrows.

[david] makes a comeback, clad in gold

All right, I admit I bottled out on showing those nether regions but if you're desperate to get a gander, here they are.


David's been restored for $255 000 in Firenze:

Museum director Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi said the 15th century statue created by Renaissance artist Donatello was fully restored to its original glory using advanced laser technology ...

That is one question - what to do to restore - but what about the question of embellishing?

[The restoration] included the application of a thin layer of gold to the statue ... intended to add luster to the historic piece ...

This takes it out of the realms of restoration and into someone's modern notion of creativity. And so to another major question - how much money should be devoted to/wasted on restoration of world heritage items?

The "could have been spent on the poor" brigade have a legitimate argument but the opposite argument - that key restoration work preserves the world's treasures, something beyond one day's meal for the city's poor - that is also a powerful point of view.

This view holds that the poor would get value from the work of art anyway - they have little else to do during the day but to appreciate the city's beauty. Unless the work was hidden behind closed doors and was only viewable for an entrance fee.

What percentage of a nation's budget should be devoted to restoration anyway? Difficult to get the percentages for Italy but I found this:

• Article 3 of the Budget Law 662/1996, providing for a portion of the national lottery revenue to be dedicated to the protection and restoration of cultural goods; and

• Article 60 of the Budget Law 289/2002, establishing that 3% of public capital expenditure for "strategic infrastructure" should be assigned to the financing of cultural goods and activities.

It would seem not very much. Plus much cultural funding is expected to come out of national lotteries, which is hardly government allocation of moneys. Then there are the cuts in funding to existing bodies, such as English Heritage.

If one accepts that maintenance and restoration is not a N1 priority, compared to education and social services, then how much, in percentage terms of GNP should be allocated? And how does that compare to the massive wastage at every level, in so many diverse areas the governments administer, for so many years now?

[buskers] city's regulate them and eliminate the talentless

We don't seem to get too many of them where I'm staying - maybe the law is different here, maybe the democraphics.

Julian Lloyd Webber was the first of the "new London Tube buskers" in 2001, when the law was changed to allow a certain amount of it on the Underground:

Buskers are now able to perform legally on certain tube platforms (but not trains). A change in the local by-law came after eight out of ten passengers on the London Underground interviewed said they liked hearing live music as they travelled.

Nobody liked being hassled though, so prospective buskers are vetted and have to audition when they apply for a formal licence. Only two buskers per station are allowed, and they can have up to two hours each.

In Melbourne, the new Lord Mayor wants to "clean up the streets", register and regulate them, to eliminate "untalented buskers". Seems to me that the busking issue is a litmus test of libertarian credentials - does one nod on approvingly as the city officials move through busking ranks, deciding who shall eat and who shall not, the arbiter being the officials' musical taste?

Also, how much can someone earn in two hours?

So what is the reality in the UK as a whole, for buskers? One forum commenter said:

In my experience largely you don't need a license, unless you are on private property then you may need permission. Some city councils have introduced licensing, as a way to control busking but one could argue that this is not law. I have a simple policy— it is easier to say sorry than ask for permission.

What's your attitude to buskers?

[do the right thing] and let us all then move on

Giant blockage on the road to decency over there. Do the right thing, provide closure and then, yes, let us by all means move on.

Because until you do, with that person still subtly wreaking havoc in there, then it matters not what I nor anyone else does - your bona fides as a group is in serious question. So cease with your character assassinations with no evidence and do the right thing instead.

So yes, I move on and await the news that you decided it was better to act after all.

To the other readers - sorry about that and good night, sleep tight.

[thought for the day] sunday evening

It was one of those chilly and empty afternoons in early winter, when the daylight is silver rather than gold and pewter rather than silver. [GK Chesterton]

If the winter solstice is midwinter, then one might be forgiven for thinking of December 1st as the genuine start. The bite of the air, the beauty of the lengthening shadows, the stark silhouettes of leafless trees, the pale glow of a setting sun, mid-afternoon - all these allow one to turn one's thoughts inwards.

I think of my mother and father out there in the bleak and bitter night, when once was a warm fire and good cheer indoors. I think of it now, all gone, as are good friends, close friends, loves in my life, now scattered across the world.

It's a time of quiet and calm solitude, a time to put one's hands in one pockets, muffle up and set ones' face against the icy wind. It's a time of cold feet and hands and somehow it suits the mood.

It's a time of memories, of better days, when it wasn't necessary to think of whether you could afford the following week's food, when you'd be called in for mulled wine and pies, when the soothing lightness of a fall of snow would fill the streets and the yellow sodium lamps would shine dimly through, when there weren't so many cares as people have today.

Winter focuses the mind wonderfully on the long distance journey ahead, down the fading years. It throws regrets into sharp relief but it has its pluses too. Hot food, filling food, e-mailed messages from friends who don't wish you ill, hot cocoa, the warmth of the duvey and the calm - always the calm.

It's December 1st tomorrow.

[odd one out] spot the odd pollie

As usual, who is the odd one out and why? Answer is here.