For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Worst face in the world (21.10.11)

The 2012 Olympics have a lot to answer, being told we can’t travel to work next August, cabs banned from Olympic Priority “Zil” Lanes, and Lord Coe’s self-satisfied face on television every night of the week, but its biggest affront is about to be unleashed on Londoners in the next few weeks, namely the worst typeface in the world.

Soon every bus, taxi and billboard will be advertising the 2012 Olympics. Avenues of lampposts will have hanging from them banners written in a font called 2012 Headline, and as if to rub salt into the wound they will also be displayed in . . . French.

Every lamppost in the Capital looks to have hung from it what the International Olympic Committee call pageantry, and because French is the Olympics’ second language expect the “pageantry” to appear in England and French.

Why should we present ourselves in such a fashion? Thirty years ago London was regarded as a culinary desert offering only meat and two veg or fish and chips in most of its restaurants, now because of the brilliance of its chefs London can claim to have some of the finest restaurants in Europe. In the world of fashion – so they tell me – we have surpassed New York and Paris as the place to show the work of cutting-edge clothes designers.

So what have we given the world to advertise London’s Olympics and to place it yet again at the forefront of design? A font that looks like a group of primary schoolchildren designed it during a wet lunch break, but don’t take my word for it. As the world’s worst typeface Simon Garfield in his recent book Just My Type placed it at number one, despite some very strong competition. Simon Garfield claims that the public was so outraged by the London 2012 Olympic logo that the Games typeface will just go unnoticed. At the time of its unveiling some accused the logo of looking like a swastika, unfairly in my opinion, at least the swastika has symmetry, others rather bizarrely saw within its jagged shapes Lisa Simpson having sex.

Some might think that the choice of typeface is unimportant amid the enormity of London’s Olympics, but we identify companies, institutions and events by the advertising used to promote them. If amongst all the other crazy things that Transport for London does they one day should choose to “rebrand” our Underground by getting rid of the familiar roundel and Johnson’s typeface, petitions would be at every station in protest.

I know that the Olympics were started in Greece, but did we have to brand London’s contribution to the Olympic heritage with a typeface that wouldn’t look out of place above a dodgy kebab takeaway down the Mile End Road?

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Spooked on Millbank (14.10.11)

I think I must be getting like my mother, she would only watch a television programme if she could recognise the locations. I now find myself watching Spooks on the BBC trying to guess where it was in London that particular scene was shot. My mother once told me she worked at Thames House during the war as a secretary – she certainly didn’t look like a Mata Hari – and would, as a consequence of the bombing, have to struggle home on a disrupted tube network every night back to north London – a bit like today.

Anyway while watching Spooks they kept showing a front door with the caption Thames House SE1, now I’m pretty certain that the building featured is the headquarters for various news organisations and not our ultra-secret service. I might be wrong, but we didn’t learn on the Knowledge where it was, and they were hardly likely to ask us the location of Smiley’s organisation.

So on impulse, I googled MI5 and they have their own website which shows potential suicide bombers at the front door should they choose to pay MI5 a visit.

Not only that, to my surprise they have a recruitment section giving details of their requirements for a variety of jobs within the service.

They are recruiting what they euphemistically describe as “Mobile Surveillance Officers” that are spies to you and me. Now I’m old enough to remember the Burgess/Phil by/Maclean debacle and rather assumed recruitment was through an old boys’ network with links to an Oxbridge College, and a predilection to, shall we say? – unusual sexual appetites.

There is a great deal on the MI5 site about extended working hours, multitasking, thinking on your feet and the need not to have facial tattoos (they make you too noticeable, apparently!), but nothing about getting shot at, being stabbed with trick umbrellas or being irradiated. Should MI5 not be your cup of tea (or vodka martini), there are links to the sites of MI6 and GCHQ, so surely there is something in there for everyone?

I’m not surprised that they are recruiting if [Spooks] – why is the title always in brackets? – is anything to go by. On six people seem to work out of Thames House and have to do everything: surveillance; computer checks and tracking; chasing around London in a top-of-the-range car (another chance for me to spot the landmark); and be the only person who tails a suspect and finally eliminates him. I’m surprised the series isn’t sponsored by our security services and it all looks like such great fun that I’m thinking of applying myself.

Oh, dear! I think I’ve just blown my chance to have an alternative, if potentially short, new career from being a cabbie. The small print reads: “Owing to the sensitivity of our work, we do not publicly disclose the identities of our staff. Discretion is vital. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member”.

The whole world now knows that I’m considering applying . . . at least the super sleuth in me can track down MI5’s front door.