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Monday: Press day for the Euro Bus Expo review content. Despite Andy, Art Director Ian and I having worked our weekends, it’s a late finish – leave the office at 2100hrs. Zzz... Tuesday: A hectic day writing the Dudley’s Coaches feature for a forthcoming issue. I organise some visits for the weeks ahead, including a vehicle test drive, operator profiles and face to face interviews. Wednesday: A busy day in the office writing. Catch up with a friendly London coach operator. With the help of Andy and Jade, update the content spreadsheet for the weeks ahead. Andy & I are are particularly tired. I tell Andy he looks how I feel. Amy muses: “He always knows how to make you feel better, doesn’t he?!” All good fun. Thursday: Another day in the office writing. A lady calls about our office phone package. She asks: “Just out of interest, what sort of handset have you got?” I can’t resist replying: “Errm.. It’s got buttons.” She doesn’t say anything, so I add: “I guess that wasn’t very helpful?” It gives my colleagues a chuckle or two. Friday: A hectic day trying to get as much material as possible designed and proof read. Keep an eye on several news stories which are in the process of breaking. Catch up with a member of a large operator’s PR team and discuss some feature ideas. With extreme reluctance, decide against going ‘back home’ to visit my parents Welsh borderland as I feel too tired to drive.
NCT donates bendy bus to primary school Nottingham City Transport (NCT) has given its final bendy bus to Alderman Pounder Infant School in Chilwell. NCT Marketing Manager Anthony Carver-Smith took up the story: “We’d seen that the school was looking for a bus and as the bendy bus is a large space all on one level, as opposed to the two floors of a double-deck, we thought it would make a safe and ideal library for primary school children. Everyone at NCT has a soft spot for our bendy bus, so we were only too pleased to see it survive the scrap heap for such a fantastic cause.” Head Teacher Julie Hemsley was delighted with the donation: “We thought we’d be lucky to actually find a bus to buy, but to be offered one for free has totally exceeded our expectations. We cannot thank NCT enough for such a generous donation and the children and their families can’t wait for their new bendy library bus to be on the school grounds and open.” Registered ‘FP51EXN,’ fleet number 702 was withdrawn from the Go2 Uni 4 service at the end of June.
the bus will make an excellent seat of learning, we wondered whether it will it make the children more articulate? One thing’s for sure, there will be no bending the rules...
Futuristic London bus appears in Blizzard game James Day spotted this futuristiclooking London bus in preview footage for an upcoming videogame. Recently, the renowned video game company Blizzard (who James happens to be a big fan of) held its annual convention, Blizzcon, in California, where it launched its first brand new franchise in 17 years. The game is called Overwatch, and is essentially a team-based shootem-up taking place on a near-future earth. It was massive news for the gaming industry, but James spotted something bus-related as he browsed some of the game’s launch footage. One of the characters unveiled was a dual pistol-armed cockney woman who can teleport, and so one of the first in-game arenas shown is a battle on London’s streets. Part of the scenery on this map is a London bus, pictured here.
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The donation means that the £40,000 grant awarded to the school from the Ministry of Defence can now be spent on books and IT equipment. In the CBW office, we felt that while
The vehicle caught James’ eye as it seems to be a futuristic hybrid of a New Routemaster and a BYD eBus. The front looks similar to a double-decker version of the singledecker BYD, while the rear looks almost exactly the same as the New Routemaster. It is interesting that the developers chose to use a vehicle which is strikingly similar to some recently introduced vehicles for their new game, which James felt showed
remarkable attention to detail. By contrast, other games set on London streets have used multiple copies of the same traditional Routemaster, all of which had the exact same number plate. One key difference we should probably note, however, is that the bus doesn’t have any wheels and is actually hovering a short distance above the ground. The next development for London’s buses? You saw it here first.
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17/11/2014 16:53