Paul's posterous

I am furious! My wife called me this afternoon in tears having been verbally abused and treated like dirt by an ARRIVA bus driver in Macclesfield. All this happened in front of a bus full of elderley passengers.

He refused her passage because she had a £5 note to pay for a £2.10 fare. Consequently she had no choice but to walk 1.5 miles home in freezing rain with my 4 year old daughter. My wife suffers terrible Raynards Syndrome so was in considerable pain by the time she arrived home.

The full story

This morning at Macclesfield bus station a group of elderly pensioners, my wife and 4 year old daughter waiting in vain for the Bowers bus to Buxton, which never arrived, we assume, due to adverse conditions. They elected to wait for the Number 1 ARRIVA bus instead, which arrived a couple of minutes after the Buxton bus was due to leave.

The Driver A nonchalantly glanced at the passengers stating "I'm not going", shook his head, bearly making eye contact with a sole.

From 12:25 until 12:55 the passengers waited further. Having watched a Driver B enter the original Number 1, change number to Number 14 and dissapear, Driver A finally appeared to drive a Number 1 bus stating he was "only driving the bus out of the goodness of his heart".

Having already accepted fares of a number of passengers my wife presented her £5 note for her £2.10 fare. The Driver A abruptly said he had no change and refused point blank to accept the money. Considering he had already had several cash paying customers travelling to the same location, this seemed unlikely. Regardless, the rude manner in which Driver A dealt with the situation beggars belief. My wife is a shy, considerate, polite person who does deserves respect not abuse.

The driver continued to fire several disrespectful challenges at my wife, reducing her to tears, in front of a child. By this time several passengers came and offered my wife the money to pay for the journey.

When she quite rightly demanded the bus drivers number and name, he refused, stating these details were on the bus tickets. Of course, my wife could not get this information.

However, due to the bullying and rude nature of the driver, my wife was by now so upset and insulted that she back down off the bus and it left.

What have I done?

This afternoon I phoned ARRIVA but quite frankly I don't anticipate much back apart from a limp apology letter. The fact is the damage has been done and ARRIVA bus drivers are abusive, unreasonable and irresponsible.

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The situation has deteriorated at #OccupyMacc which has attracted a strong following. Mounted Police and evidence gathering officers have been spotted. Parents are attempting to remove the protesters from the dining room table in time for tea. Several innocent meerkats and a donkey were also draw into the unrest.

A spokesman from #OccupyMacc stated "We want to stay here until past our bedtimes!"

Plamobil is a trade mark and we respect that, however this is just a bit off childish fun ;-)

I bought a Mini Sticky Splatter black spider from The Science Museum, London (Supplied by Tobar.co.uk).

My daughter was playing with it for a short while and became covered in nasty black tar like deposits which stuck to her clothes and hands.

Upon attempting to remove with soap and water the horrid material stuck to the sink like bitumen. Virtually impossible to remove. Only with harsh tearful hand washing were my duaghters hands and face cleansed. Subsequently I spent 1 hour cleaning the messy slick from sink with cif cream and a scouring pad. Her clothes are possibly ruined. How can a product like this possibly be safe for sale to children?

I have emailed the Science Museum and Tobar to inform them of the situation.

It's to be expected, a lot changes in 32 years between visits, but I was profoundly taken with a recent visit to The Natural History Museum. The dinosaurs were a massive hit with my 3 year old daughter, particularly the animatrix T-Rex, absolutely spell bound.

What I hadn't expected, and nearly missed was The Darwin Centre, a daring architectural gem encapsulated within the museum looking like a high tech egg. Within this imposing multi-storey structure was a fascinating collection of priceless artefacts and a huge library of life on earth. Whatever you do, don't miss this!

And if that wasn't enough, the humble and very unexpected gardens were a piece of welcome tranquility. Ooh, and fabulous cakes in the cafe.

I've been to a lot of museums, this one is outstanding, multi-faceted and should be celebrated. For a man who can rightly be accused of being critical, I found no floor. The kind of place that makes you very proud to be British.

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