On being Serenaded

The Number 25 route attracts all sorts of people, from different walks of life and different countries. You never really know who will get on. Will it be a granny, will it be a professor, a clerk, a mum and babies?

This time it was a pack of foreign students. You need to understand that my grasp of languages is tenuous at best. I can order pizza in Italian, beer in Spanish, turn anything down in Russian and kiss in French. When people from 'over there' speak their native tongues at native speed, I'm hard pressed to tell whether they're speaking Spanish or Portuguese. This pack of foreign students took over the top deck. They must have been all of 16 if that. They were lively and chatty and laughed often. When they got on they said a barely understandable 'thank you' to the driver. When we got over the St Stephens roundabout and headed up Chapelfield, they all burst into song.

They covered Christina Aguilera, her new single and then they launched into a note and accent perfect rendition of 'Unfaithful' - by a luscious black singer, but buggered if I can remember her name - I was gobsmacked. None of these girls could barely say hello and here they were serenading in British R&B. Amazing. I was really sorry when they got off at Eaton Park.