Lothian Buses change their livery

[Trapper John]

It's not exactly earth-shattering news, but it's worth mentioning, as it provoked a lot of debate at the time.

Lothian Buses (formerly Lothian Region Transport, and Edinburgh City Transport before that) are changing their livery BACK to Madder and White. The "Harlequin" livery, as Lothian called it (or "Liz Hurley" as the rest of humanity tagged it) was introduced circa 1996 for buses with a low floor. As the fleet was replaced over the years, the Madder and White livery was gradually phased out until about summer 2009, when the last of the Alexander Royale bodied Olympians vanished. This (roughly) coincided with the retirement of Neil Renilson, who introduced the Harlequin in the first place. The story behind it is interesting. Apparently, he saw a picture of Liz Hurley at some BAFTA bash in London (with Hugh Grant in tow), dressed in a Versace creation of red and gold diamonds. This had some sort of effect on Renilson's loins, so he decided to impose his wet dream on the unfortunates of Lothian in the form of a new livery. Apparently, he had a copy of Liz Hurley's picture on his desk at work. Before he was murdered, Gianni Versace threatened to sue Lothian and/or Renilson for breach of copyright, or something like that (I wish he did!)
Anyway, if you go to...

http://www.lothianbuses.co.uk/

You'll see what I'm banging on about. You can even express an opinion!

[G-CPTN]

Can't say that the (current?) checkerboard livery was anything that I noticed!

What was wrong with the original (though I understand it was changed to indicate low-floor variants).