Dog gone

You gotta love it! A bloke called Dani Graves leads his girlfriend around on a doggy lead, but that's not the funny bit. The joke is: bus operator Arriva says they can't use the bus 'cos it'd be dangerous. Dangerous!

Apparently, if she wants to ride on their buses, Tasha Maltby (oh, come on, let's call her Bonzo) will have to take the lead off. A corporate spokesperson said (through his nether regions, I think) ...

"Our primary concern is passenger safety and while the couple are very welcome to travel on our buses, we are asking that Miss Maltby remove her dog lead before boarding the bus"

Surely anything that stops her plunging through windows in the event of a crash is a safety enhancement! Anyway, I guess this is great news for Pit Bulls everywhere. But no: Arriva's divine edict only applies to humans on leashes.

So Arriva is discriminating in favour of dogs and against humans. In the event of a sudden application of Arriva brakes, dogs get to stay in the bus whereas women get a free journey through reinforced glass and into rush-hour traffic.

Talk about political correctness and corporate PR gone crazy.

In truth, of course, Arriva is using weasel words to discriminate against this couple because it judges their chosen sub-culture to be undesirable. Cowering behind the mantle of political correctness, it is setting itself up as judge and jury over them.

I agree they look out-of-the-ordinary. I agree the leash may be construed by some as demeaning. But it's no more dangerous than holding hands. So thank you, Dani and Tasha, for giving us a laugh and showing these corporate dipsticks up for a bunch of bigoted busdrivers.