If I’d only publicised this when I received it care of a regular reader, I could’ve been partly responsible for this Arriva advert going viral. The total who’ve watched Arriva Copenhagen’s “Mukhtar’s Birthday” video is now equivalent to one fifth of the population of Denmark.
Watch it for yourself. It’s stage-managed saved for the Arriva driver whose reaction, we are told, is genuine.
This is another idea from Kadaver who brought you the Arriva Copenhagen “love seats” or Kærlighedssæder. They warned us there’d be more! What makes this and the love seats idea work so well, apart from their novelty, is the emotion both generate. We could do with a few positive emotions among our passengers. Let’s face it, the only emotion that a bus usually produces are bad ones, such as anger, uneasiness, misery, resentment and even contempt.
Here are some observations on the video:
- You see a yellow Danish city bus several times but nowhere is there the word “Arriva”, anywhere. There’s something subliminal in that.
- Listen to it more than once and I defy you *not* to hum or whistle what appears to be the Danish equivalent of Happy Birthday.
- The driver has a pretty substantial seat. It’s interesting that unlike your typical English bus seat, his swivels. This no doubt helps in addressing passengers but is this totaly safe?
- Mukhtar seems to suffer from a loss of concentration. Again, perhaps not such a good thing. That’s unsurprising with a live cornet player on his bus, then a soloist, then a small choir, then everyday, regular passengers included, singing for him.
- Mukhtar shows his own emotions, from curiosity, to uncertainty, to surprise, to shock, to bewilderment, to being whelmed and uncomprehending delight. It rather reminded me of the 1960s TV programme Candid Camera.
- One thing seems to get lost in translation. One report refers to the cornet player as a “trumpist”.
- Do all Danish buses have an unfurled flag fluttering on their roofs?
Always one. Not everyone joined in. I suspect he wishes he had
We wonder just how the love seats are doing. And we wonder whether every bus driver in Denmark has his passengers sing to him on his birthday…
7 comments:
"The driver has a pretty substantial seat. It’s interesting that unlike your typical English bus seat, his swivels. This no doubt helps in addressing passengers but is this totaly safe?"
Haven't we had swivelling driver's seats in the UK in the past? Leyland Nationals perhaps, or is my memory failing me this time?
Provided there is some mechanism to hold the seat in position, I don't see why it should be any less safe than one that can be moved forwards/backwards, or up and down.
Ah that's a nice video. Shame on you Omnibuses for deciding to insult the driver's abilities and accuse him of a lack of concentration.
@Anon 13:09
"Ah that's a nice video. Shame on you Omnibuses for deciding to insult the driver's abilities and accuse him of a lack of concentration."
It may be a nice video and it is but remember it's also a cynical advertising ploy designed to generate sales that .
Is the thrust of the post insulting to the driver? I don't think it is. No operator should ever intentionally place a driver in a position where he or she may lose concentration?
no idea whether national seats swivelled, bet they weren't. the diference with moving seats back/foreward/up/down is that they are locked in place, the seat on the video seems it can swivel at anytime, is this safe when driving, has the diver propoer control?
The Leyland National driver's seat did swivel, and this feature was also applied to the Leyland Titan (TN type). This website provided the answer to my own question:-
http://www.brindale.co.uk/ach/prv_site/site_index/prv_site_frames.htm?http://www.brindale.co.uk/ach/prv_site/leyland_titan.htm
We trust readers will understand that we meant no offence whatever to the Arriva Copenhagen driver and apologise if this was interpreted as such.
I used to drive some ex-South Yorkshire Atlanteans which had seats that swivelled. They locked back into the forward facing position when you turned back. They were totally safe.
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