Manchester: The Many Faces of Barbi

I don't know if it was intentional but I find the friendly 'Thomas The Tank Engine Faces' on this generation of the Alexander Dennis Enviro buses a bit freaky. Whilst I have my rant,  the current First livery is a bit insipid and not much improvement on the previous one as it was these similar cold depressing pastel colours that was it's fault, indeed it strikes me as a watered down version of  Barbi but at least it's not as bad as horrible 'Barbi 2'.Nothing was as bad as Barbi 2. The trouble is unlike proper nice red and cream Manchester buses of old these trendy colour schemes might look good on the drawing board but not in practice. Of course it's all a matter of taste as I admit I'm something of a traditionalist. Before someone mentions it, Derby Corporation adopted a similar grey and blue scheme but what was wrong with the olive-green and cream, at least it had a bit of class!