The latest pedicab overcharging incident saw Belgian tourist April Argenau charged £464 for a seven-minute ride from Oxford Street to the Royal Lancaster Hotel. Unlike some of the previous incidents, Argenau did look at the amount she was being charged before she paid, but “the driver refused to back down and was intimidating towards her, demanding immediate payment”.

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: Tottenham Court Road

9 August, 2023 Gibson Square 2 Comments

TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD (n.) King’s throughfare that doth once was the purveyor of electronik goods now is devoid of costermongers.

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon

Thinking allowed

Things I haven’t done in London

8 August, 2023 Gibson Square 5 Comments

I have been a Londoner all my life, and as a cabbie, there aren’t many places in London that I haven’t been to or through. So I thought I’d look at those I’ve missed, either by design or I’ve just overlooked.

Cable Car

With the catchy new name IFS Cloud Cable Car, or Dangleway as diamondgeezer calls it, at £12 to go to the back of beyond and return to civilisation, while watching planes leave City Airport and fly towards you, seems to me a waste of 20 minutes of your life.

The Shard

From the toilet on the 68th floor, you can marvel at London’s landmarks as you gaze across the River Thames, but at £32 it seems a rather expensive way to spend a penny.

Sky Garden

At the top of the Walkie Talkie building, sorry the prosaically named 20 Fenchurch Street, is the Sky Garden and unlike much of London it’s free. If only I could organise my day better I could apply for free tickets, as it’s the only realistic way that you’d visit this gem in the City.

Churchill War Rooms

When the rear of Downing Street was bombed in an air raid which nearly killed Churchill’s cook, the Cabinet moved to this bunker in the basement of the nearby Treasury Building. After the war, this secret underground headquarters was left untouched, until Margaret Thatcher championed the initiative to get the war rooms opened to the public. After visiting Chartwell on numerous occasions, I really should visit.

Jack The Ripper Tours

Why should anyone want to discover more about a misogynistic person who preyed on vulnerable women? If there’s such an appetite for this I’m thinking of starting Dennis Nilsen tours, a necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys in Muswell Hill.

Tour Bus

Designed to allow tourists to experience London’s weather, whilst wearing ponchos advertising the stagecoach’s operator seems, to me, something best left to gullible visitors.

Abbey Road Crossing

Do you really want to annoy London’s cabbies? This can’t be a more positive way to achieve that aim. I’m hardly going to join them.

Sights I’ve seen in London, and wish I hadn’t

Madame Tussauds
London Dungeon
London Eye
Tate Modern (the exhibits, not the building)
Oxford Street

Featured image: By Chiugoran – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

London in Quotations

London in Quotations: Bram Stoker

Quote 7 August, 2023 Gibson Square 3 Comments

I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.