An Air BnB Excursion

Raising his mug…

Guy: Here’s to the driver of this trip—me. 

Antonia: Driver? You barely managed to reverse into the driveway without flattening the hydrangeas. 

Guy:  Tactical parking. Hydrangeas are resilient. Anyway, I might not need a conductor on the bus.

Antonia:  It's not a bus thank God. It's only car. You wouldn’t get far. Remember, I’m the navigator right? Without me, you’d be circling the Parnell roundabout forever. 

Guy:  Roundabouts are just polite mazes. I enjoying going round twice. 

Antonia:  I picked this 1950s cottage so you could relive your glory days—when buses had conductors, not contactless cards. 

Guy: Back then, people respected the driver. 

Antonia:  And if I hadn’t collected the victuals, you’d be surviving only on tea and biscuits. 

Guy:  Tea and biscuits are a balanced diet. Biscuit in each hand. 

Antonia:  And how can you drive the car without my managing the cat. She’s eyeing your mug like she wants to drive the bus herself. 

Guy (to Afogato):  Don’t even think about it. You’re too short for the pedals. 

Antonia:  I’ve orchestrated this trip so you can feel special. Though honestly, the cat thinks it’s her birthday. 

Guy: Three cheers for Afogato, the actual passenger of honor. 

___________

Voice-over
It seems Guy wouldn’t make it far without Antonia along as navigator, accommodation organizer, cat controller, historian, chef, memory maker, celebrator… and therapist.

Japanese Charcoal Buses

Times of scarcity…

Stanley: I was watching some U.S. films about Japan made in the 30s and 40s. Some of them propaganda. One described Japanese technology. And one of the features was, get this, buses that ran on charcoal.

Hiroshi: Japanese charcoal buses, yeah, there was one featured in a short story by Ibuse Masuji.

Stanley: I remember reading that story. Noriai Jidosha, I think. Ages ago. The bus was so underpowered passengers had to push it up a hill.

Hiroshi: That’s the one. The buses had a gasifier on the back, that converted charcoal, into producer gaswhich was then used to power the engine of the bus.

Stanley: Quite an innovative way to get around petrol shortages.

__________

Voice-over

Charcoal as a fuel was a temporary solution for running vehicles. Producer gas didn’t yield nearly the same energy as petrol or diesel and the gasifiers needed a lot of maintenance. The buses had lower speeds and limited range. Barely adequate performance. But it was an ingenious fix to a transport problem in resource-scarce times.