Do Judge A Book By It's Thickness

Is this a good maxim to live by?

Sometimes I have found it to be beneficial, particularly when driving a bus and being shouted at by some irate passenger. It seems to take the wind out of their sales. They adapt and sometimes feel sorry for your status in life if you act like a complete and utter dimwit. It has saved me being punched or strangled on more than one occasion. I don't know why. Maybe it is adherance to the old British saying, 'you can't hit a man when he is down.'

I was thinking of the bus driver made famous this week by getting lost and taking four hours to deliver the athletes to the Olympic Village from the airport. Perhaps he played dumb too, whilst his angry and bemused passengers took out their ire and boredom by sending messages on Twitter.

'Have you driven a bus before?' asked one Trans-Atlantic tourist after I had taken the wrong road and we were hopelessly lost.

'Once,' I replied, 'but that was a very long time ago.' 

A look of horror shot across his face, but he was speechless and returned to his seat, never being rude for the rest of the trip.

Then again, when I bumped into the above sign, I was reminded that there were degrees of thickness and that this might have been taking it a little far.