Monthly Musings

3 February, 2026 Gibson Square Leave a comment

January 2026

👍 Buying a black cab as a private car

Last year, CabbieBlog had an unusually popular post. The iconic diesel London cab can be bought for anywhere between £1,000 and £20,000, and curiously, the post featuring the pros and cons of owning such a vehicle has, by some margin, become last year’s most read post. With the push to electric, it would seem many are fighting the trend.

🚦 Per-minute billing on rental bikes

Ask a cab driver their biggest complaint about London, and it’s more likely to be cyclists jumping traffic lights. Recently, I read a post by Matt Taylor who outlined the price difference between hiring a Lime bike where you stop at red lights vs. not stopping at red lights. It seems absurd that we can have a hire bike rental system that actively encourages people to jump red lights because of pay-per-minute pricing. These bikes have built-in GPS, so surely the charge should be calculated based on distance.

🇬🇧 Passport to Romford

The London Borough of Havering is starting to resemble an Ealing Studios comedy. Comparing two pieces of junk mail from Romford MP, Andrew Rosindell, shows how, before moving to Reform UK, the Conservative Party has been ditched; his former political party isn’t featured on the latest:
Andrew is convinced that Romford shouldn’t be in Europe, be a part of London, or within the embrace of the political party he’s been a member of since he was 14. He has proposed that “Havering Belongs in Essex – Not Greater London”. Andrew loves to use the coat of arms of the long-defunct Municipal Borough of Romford, so it appears on his flyer. I suspect soon we’ll have Romford passports.

🚓 In the slow lane

London has been ranked as the world’s slowest capital city for travel time, according to new research from TomTom. Ranking only behind Barranquilla in Colombia, where cocaine gang wars and murders are often blamed for hold-ups. TomTom’s data showed that drivers in London now spend on average 35 minutes and 7 seconds for a 6-mile drive, 38 seconds more than last year.

💬 Made an offer I couldn’t accept

I recently received Lalaine’s email from flippa.com, who claim to be the world’s largest M&A Marketplace, who enquired my willingness to sell cabbieblog.com, claiming to have looked into my niche and traffic ranking, and I have buyers in mind. As it was pointed out to me by a fellow blogger, it could be a scam: by acquiring my domain name and accessing my bank details.