It is probably the right or duty of every newcomer to an area to excitedly view his new habitat. What better way to view Liverpool than by mounting one of its fine buses and taking a ride. Ouch, a lot more expensive than London, but not to worry. Taking a window seat I prepared to look out on Liverpool’s suburbs and the route into the centre of the city and soak up everything on offer. Wait a minute! What the Feck? I just could not see out of the window properly. It was all a strange blur. I could see shapes, movement and colours, but it was like somebody had put thick sellotape over my eyes so I couldn’t make out what anything actually was. Had my eyes gone wrong? Was this the end? Was I going blind on my first days in Liverpool? Apparently not. After a panicked investigation I discovered that this was a deliberate act on the part of the contractors of Merseytravel. I can’t quite make out if the purpose is to keep people on buses, confuse them so they have no idea when to get off, overshoot their stop and have to pay more to get a further bus to return them back to their correct stop, or maybe it’s to try to stop them seeing how awful Liverpool actually is. One thing is for sure, there is no way to make out what is outside the bus or where you are, let alone enjoy the scenery. Maybe the purpose is to stop outsiders such as tourists from seeing how awful locals actually look. Well, of course it’s none of these reasons is it? It’s actually all about making money through advertising, whilst not caring about the inconvenience or comfort of the passengers (I for one found not being able to see out of any window launched me into a form of travel sickness I’d not experienced since I was a very young child). Here’s why it’s impossible to see out of the windows: The outside of these buses have a huge mural on them. Typically these include pictures of the Beatles and blurb about Liverpool being the Capital of Culture or one of the football clubs, or, as you can see, an obscure advert for B & Q stores. These ‘murals’ are printed onto a sticky-backed plastic which is then stuck onto the entire bus, including over the windows, isolating those inside from the world they are journeying through. Brilliant! Now I’ll never know what Liverpool actually looks like.