Top 5 Langballs on the Cork Bus

2nd May 2013

Travelling back to Cork from ‘Not-Cork’ is always a joy and with fiercely competitive bus fares, on-board toilets and WIFI it often beats driving or taking the train even though you may have to stomach stopping somewhere truly awful like Kilkenny.

Every journey is unique and with the tourist season kicking off passenger numbers are swelling fast so there’s little hope of getting two seats to yourself. Here are the PROC’s top five langballs you are likely to end up sitting near or next to on a bus to Cork…

Shouty Wanda
‘Sorreeee, does this bus go past Mount Joy Prison?’

No but it will if you don’t stop smoking inside the bus love!
 

A over excited passenger in the back row tried to download the entire internet when she discovered there was free WIFI.

Some dose if you get boxed into a window seat with this wan as she spends most of the journey ringing at least twenty people to repeat the same report of how ‘himself’ is getting on above in Mount Joy at ear piercing volume. The calls can be summarised as follows:

(1) Tiz a disgrace dat he can’t get a transfer to Cork Prison.
(2) Tiz a disgrace dat de government won’t pay for me ticket to visit him

(3) He met a load of other prisoners who are doing less time for de same type of stabbing. He only stabbed your man a few times IN THE LEG like, sure there’s no justice like.

Hopefully she won’t bother you and she’ll spend the journey on Scobebook updating her status or arranging a bag of yokes for collection on arrival.

 
Danny from Venezuela
Esskuze me please but how long is dee-seh bus taking to go to-ah Cork, my friend?
C’mere, this fella knows exactly how long the journey is. Our wily mid-twenties traveller from South America has been planning and practicing this sentence since he got on the wooden kayak with his bag of underpants’ at the top of the Amazon to start his journey to Cork.

 

I'm so happy to be in Ireland. Everyone is hungover just like the guidebook said they would be.

He knows Corkonians are the most friendly race on the island and that guidebooks say you miss out if you don’t have a proper chat with one of us. His opening line is the lonely traveller’s equivalent of “so do you come here often?” and you’re obliged to act as a de facto tourist office advising, recommending and warning as well as trying your best to sound interested in his unprovoked and boring life story.

Be wide though: because you’re sound and from Cork he now thinks you’re best friends and will friend you on Facebook if you give your name away or suggest you hook up for a pint. If you’re worried about being stalked then introduce yourself as ‘John Mandeville from The Square in Mitchelstown’ (the famous statue comes complete with it’s own Facebook page). That’ll give him a good grounding in Cork humour.  

Just drive the bus Deccy.

Fat Don from Denver

“Hey I’m Don from Denver, Colarado...looks like we’re gonna be bunkin’ down together for the journey to Cork! It’s my first time in Eye-ur-land and a friend said I should visit Coun-nee Cork ‘cos I have this book full of really neat pictures of the coast line an’ I thought to myself y’know I gotta visit that place! Y’know I think that’s the right thing for me right now because sometimes it’s hard to know whether you should do something or….

It’s going to be a long three hours - especially with Don’s belly rubbing up against you every time he breathes. He’s going to hate Cork’s hills but you won’t get a word in to warn him anyway.  

The Wrong Fella
Corkonians are brilliant at turning on the charm for visitors but when it comes to plamás-ing tourists on buses or flights sometimes the likes of Danny from Venezuela, Fat Don from Denver and other tourists end up sitting next to the Official Worst Person In the World They Could Have Chosen.

You overhear their awful recommendations about what to do in Cork and cringe:

“Well if it’s proper food you’re after you definitely have to try a carvery at [insert the name of some awful bland pub in the city’s suburbs that hasn’t seen a like of paint since they hosted the Stations of the Cross in 1973]…you’ll schmell the roast beef a mile away!”

Some bus drivers will do anything so they don't have to leave Cork

Or instead of sending them to one of the many, many great Cork pubs that are full of friendly craic and character, they recommend some awful dive full of bleary eyed alcoholics roaring abuse at a TV showing overweight Scots throwing darts.  

Do you stage an unprecedented intervention on the basis of a cultural emergency or quietly approach the tourist when you get off the bus and offer some man-of-the-town wisdom? Do it, do something. For Cork.

Retired Farmer with the Flu
You know if you pick this fella’s manky cold up you’re going to be at home up to your tonsils in lemsips instead of playing in the first round of the championship but at the rate he’s spraying all round him every time he sneezes it looks like your season is already over.

Backed up by the evidence of an overwhelming pong of slurry it does cross your mind that his dramatic ailment may have its murky origin in some dying farm animal posing a threat to humanity worth phoning the Department of Agriculture about.

But how do you politely ask someone to cover their mouth when they sneeze in order that you don’t catch the result of foot-and-mouth disease mating with bird flu inside an elderly sheep with rabies without sounding like a complete langer?

At least it isn’t a tourist in your seat though. You’re taking a hit for the team you Cork patriot, you. 

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OVERHEARD ON THE AIRCOACH RECENTLY
Passenger: Sorry, is your WIFI turned on? 
Driver: What?!

Passenger: Your WIFI. Is it available on the bus?
Driver: Why the hell would my WIFE be on the bus?!

Daycint!