Green, double decker, CIE bus complete with conductors platform

Long ago when their parent company was known as Coras Iompar Eireann, or CIE for short, Cork’s busmen, particularly the conductors, were required to pass a rigorous exam on the usage of benevolent irony before they were allowed to stand on their little open platform at the back of the double decker bus a hand nonchalantly resting on the bar.

Constant readers will already be familiar with Milo’s “Smoke Away” story.

Here are two more.

A cyclist was going down Patrick’s Street, close behind a bus when the driver slammed on his brakes to avoid a jay walker. The cyclist crashed into the conductors platform. The conductor looked down with benign pity at the cyclist and said “How d’ye stop normally?”

The second story took place during the petrol shortages in the late seventies.
At this time we were all so frantic for petrol that if a garage looked even vaguely likely to offer a mere ten shillings worth there was an instant mile long queue.
My father-in-law, Con Ronayne, was driving through Blackpool in Cork when he came upon what he assumed was just such a queue totally blocking up the left hand side of the road. Nothing daunted, and not needing petrol, Con proceeded on his way on the right hand side of the road only to discover that it was not a petrol queue, in fact it was a normal traffic jam, and he was now directly blocking the foreward progress of a large, double decker, CIE bus.
The driver, who had passed summa com laude his exam in benign irony, rolled down his window, smiled down on my father-in-law and, indicating the line of traffic on the left hand lane, said;
“I suppose you tink dey’re dare for de good o’ dare helt?”