Great Western Coffee Shop

My First Mile is a new gimmick to entice people onto the buses in Bristol and is accompanied by a video too.

I'll write this post as if I were the female depicted in the video.


It's so nice to wake up on a beautiful morning, shower, dress, put the make up on and proceed to the kitchen and put the kettle on, pour out the cereals into the beakfast bowl and put the bread in the toaster.

I think to myself that it's time to book a taxi so I phone a special number which will provide a taxi at a specified time to a designated 'loitering point'.

I enjoy my breakfast and now it's time to leave home and make my way to the designated 'loitering point' which is an area of pavement near my residence that is marked out by the application of a clear vinyl 'mat' affixed to the pavement being a white square with rounded corners and the words 'My First Mile' printed within the square.

I join / am joined by another commuter and low and behold a taxi in Bristols regulation blue colour arrives to take us to the nearest bus stop.

Now just a note about taxis, London has its iconic black cabs but here is Bristol they are unique in being the local regulation Bristol Blue colour, they can be from any manufacturer, any model so long as they are coloured 'Bristol Blue'.

Clambering into the taxi with my fellow commuter(s) we are driven to the nearest bus route and stop which is uneventful arriving, better by luck than judgement, just a minute before the next bus into the city centre.

Arriving in the city centre I alight from the bus and stroll to my office, feeling as fresh as a daisy and walk in to the office, take my coat off and say 'good morning' to my boss.

After I've helped my boss up from the floor I say to him, "are you alright". "Yes", he says, "it's you, are you alright, you're not the usual Miss Grump this morning, you spoke before you were spoken to". "Oh, I've discovered a new way to commute in every day" and I explained my new morning commute to him.

Wind the clock on to 5.00pm, just like in the video I phone the special taxi number and book a taxi from the bus stop where I get off the bus from the city and low and behold there will be a connecting taxi to my front door waiting. "Oh", I think, "I want a ready meal for tonight and some milk and bread for tomorrow mornings breakfast, not to worry the taxi will wait while I pop into my local convenience store without the meter running as its all a fixed fare".

With my shopping completed, in the action portrayed in the video it was a CO-OP convenience store which I used, I was then conveyed to as near to my front door as was possible where I alighted and crossed the wonderfully manicured lawn lovingly cared for by the garden contractors used by the management company and paid for out of the exhorbitant fees they charge as a condition of my lease, to enter my home bearing no stress of a home commute in the car, no wondering how was it I missed knocking that cyclist off as he weaved in and out of the traffic in front of me, it's a miracle that I didn't flatten that pedestrian that dashed across the pedestrian crossing in front of me even though I had the right of way.

Don't believe me, then just watch the video and read the sub-titles ;-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKXTTqL1xQ4

I was amused to see that comments are disabled for the video.  Can't imagine why  ::)

Seems to be promoting taxis. Interesting* that her morning bus was on the northbound side of Gloucester Road, I guess her office is in Aztec West** or the Bradleystokegifford area rather than the city centre.

*Not particularly.
**Site of the unbuilt underground station, of course!