Jem Giles (photo below) of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posts a photo of a notice at her bus stop and asks: Typical! But, got me wondering: Is there a quantitative measure of how bad is ‘bad’ traffic?

Here are some pretty dull comments:

Simon Taylor: I havant a clue.

Emma Devey: I’m more worried about their spelling.

Nik Tembe: Never mind that. I’m trying to figure out the date.

Tony Ross: I didn’t even know they had buses back in 700. History not my strong point by the looks of it.

Julia Seabrook: Buses in 700 were pulled by oxen, which may account for the bad traffic.

Avi Liveson: For these porpoises, traffic shall be considered “bad” when the average speed of the vehicles driving by the bus stop is less than (12 x pi)/2 kph for at least 45 seconds. You mean something like that?

Michael Smith: The vagueness gives them carte blanche.

Nigel Parsons: No, they won’t ‘cart’ Blanche when they’re not running.

John Gibbens: When traffic is good, it’s very very good, but when it’s bad, it’s horrid.

Nigel Parsons: “There was a little girl, a pretty little girl,
With a curl in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good she was very, very, good
And when she was bad she was horrid.”
(Although I often heard the rhyme with ‘horrid’ replaced by ‘fantastic’!)

Here’s Jem. God I love this club.

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How many famous actors can you name with the initials “DB?” That was the task imposed upon us by the puzzle today. The theme centered on IMDb, which originally stood for the Internet Movie Database but now stands for nothing. For porpoises of the puzzle, it should be parsed as “I am DB.”

So there’s DREW BARRYMORE, of course, and DAVID BOWIE, who was in a few movies. Here’s Drew, falling for some of Phil’s nonsense.

Phil! Is she not dressed? Don’t get us in trouble!! We already have George in jail.

Did you know she just turned 50? Ouch. Has two kids.

The third DB was Delta Burke. Remember her? I did, surprisingly, although I was never fond of her show, “Designing Women.” Delta is her real name; her dad was a pilot (no he wasn’t). She’s 69. She’s been married to actor Gerald McRaney, see below, for 36 years (no kids). She has a gay sister and has been active in support of gay rights. Delta struggles with a hoarding syndrome which she says she inherited from her mom. “She saved the diaper I came home from the hospital in!” Lookin’ good, D.

Who the hell is the fourth DB? DANNY BONADUCE? Well, the clue tells us: Player of the middle son on TV’s “The Partridge Family.” OK, thanks. Never saw it. BTW, the puzzle constructor was Daniel Britt. (Get it?)

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Tonight the All-Star game is being played. I have very little interest in it. Sixty-one years ago, in 1964, I attended the game in the first year Shea Stadium was open. The AL, for whom I was rooting, carried a 4-3 lead into the ninth and turned it over to Boston’s Dick Radatz, their purportedly unhittable closer. But Johnny Callison’s three-run pinch-hit HR gave the game to the Nationals. That was the same season I witnessed Jim Bunning’s perfect game at Shea. It was the first game of a doubleheader. The Mets dropped the second game too. Casey Stengel was managing the Mets. Bunning’s wife Mary and his daughter Barbara (one of his seven children) were in the stands.

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By Ted Kooser, from his Winter Morning Walks.

Sunlight like honey this morning,
and a stiff wind spreading it smoothly
over the bluestem. Two miles down wind
from Hartmann’s quarry, I hear the exuberant
backing-up song of a dump truck,
and directly above me, a red-tailed hawk
responds with its lispy whistle.
Burnt red seed-heads of buckbrush,
green duckweed over the beaver pond,
Todd Halle’s red combine parked on a hilltop
as if to show the sun the way —
the eye contains the world, in a space
no bigger than a baby’s fist.

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See you tomorrow.