The woman on the Willich omnibus

I want to be a bus seat cover designer. Really. When you see these you will wonder what the qualification for that particular job is. I can only assume that, actually, the designers of bus seat covers are really employed by the automobile industry in a bid to drive people off public-transport and into car-ownership. (see what I did there?)

I'll ease you in gently with something pretty calm. The front is slightly jazzy, and the back is plain grey. They are made of a different fabric than the train-seat covers, very coarse and itchy. This was the 87B from Anrath station to Anrath church one morning.



The next one defies description, but I'll give it a go. The theme is transport, possibly holidays since, although it looks like something from the fevered imagination of a Jackson Pollock admirer, it is possible to discern an aeroplane and something that could possibly be a beach-ball. Actually, even the bastard lovechild of Stephen Fry and Clive James could not do this seat-cover justice. Prepare to be astounded - and my apologies, probably the general awfulness of this seatcover put me off a little and it's slightly out of focus.



This one could possibly have been inspired by Picasso. Or maybe not.



The next one has too much blue. And possibly too much red. Definitely the overall effect is too much. And didn't really help my bad temper - this bus was ten minutes late and the seat covers contributed to the light raising of my blood pressure. If you look very carefully at the bottom left of the picture you can see a little lad's bike. He was so funny talking to his mum about how he was going to ride round the park that evening that even I managed to have my mind taken off the sheer awfulness of those horrible seat covers.



For the next one all I can say is this: someone got PAID to make this? Really, there is a reason that the bus company name is shown in this design - in mirror image but who on Earth could possibly imagine what it is?



And finally. My favourites. Not only does this mad bus have seats in the front half that can accommodate one person and one extra buttock (because, obviously, there are a lot of people here with three-buttocked bottoms) but the seat cover design is like little planets. Or Smarties. Or M&Ms. Or maybe it's just a load of balls.



(That's quite enough seat covers, now. - Ed.)