Fuming behind a bus...

I was stuck on my scooter this morning behind a chuffing great Bendy-bus at a famous crossroads. As it happens, I use this landmark junction every week and, as I know to my cost in various ways – it has just been 'improved' at a cost of five million quid. Hoorah! Said a few, as Bold Mayor Boris reopened Oxford Circus – which the re-designers say is a "triumph of British engineering".

However, as it happened this morning, although my enforced stop behind the bus was a relatively brief episode, it was quite long enough to prompt a modicum of rage. Impatience? Perhaps. Bad weather in the dark depths of winter? No. In fact all of us in the jams, on all sides of the crossroads were being washed with crisp cool light and the sharp shadows that can breath sparks of life into London at this time of year. From were I was stuck though, I didn’t see anyone drawing comfort from that. Anyway, my rage was prompted not by what was happening in the middle of the 'momentously improved' crossroads – which was very little – as there were very few pedestrians. It was my recollection that none of us were as jammed in before the 'improvement' – which halved the road width into and out of the crossroads – from two lanes down to one. So, it's all very well for fans of this sort of 'improvement' to crow about it 'doubling the capacity for pedestrians' but nothing is for nothing. And the bottom line cost for all of us at those crossroads – including the pedestrians breathing in more fumes from static traffic and all who try to cut congestion problems by going by bike – is that the capacity for coping with traffic flow, including all the buses, has been halved. You couldn't chuffing-well make it up!

...They say that every picture tells a story and that the camera never lies. Well as a former pro photographer, I can tell you straight that it depends what you choose to take a picture of – and where you point the camera...