The familiar red London bus with an open platform (no door) at the rear, a conductor and a charming little bell to signal the driver to go or stop is the Routemaster. Introduced to an post-war 1950s London they were the hight of modernity (automatic gears and hydraulic brakes) and, apparently, designed to be in service for only seventeen years. In 2004 they'll have been in service for fifty years and there will be a party in Finsbury Park in July.

This picture was taken at Piccadilly Circus in London at around 13:35 today. It's a mobile-phone picture so it isn't great but, for some reason, even this blurry shot of a Routemaster bus makes me smile. The route listed down the side (Oxford Street, Selfridges, Marble Arch) evokes a warm and fuzzy feeling about this great city, the kind you had as a child when imaging what London was like to live in. I wonder if there were advertisements on the sides of the original buses and what they were.