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.

Being overheard (27.09.11)

Watching the new series of Downton Abbey I’m struck by people’s lack of discretion when within earshot of modern cabbies and the similarities with the butlers of Edwardian England. We may not be as erudite nor have the manners or sartorial elegance of Carson superbly played by Jim Carter but we are just as invisible, for at the dinner table the Granthams discuss the most personal aspects of their lives, quite oblivious that the butler waiting at table can hear their intimate details.

When driving the cab it’s impossible not to hear snatches of conversation and the adage “to keep one’s own council” would seem apposite for the more verbose of my passengers. Some of my colleagues once would brag about making money on the Stock Exchange after overhearing City dealer’s conversations, no doubt they are now losing money by being so indiscreet. While only last week in my cab I had two women and a man discussing their drunken exploits and sexual conquests in graphic detail, and quite frankly I don’t need this during my working day.

It wasn’t so long ago that our vehicles weren’t fitted with internal rear view mirrors preventing the driver from even looking at their passenger, let alone listening in on their conversation by way of the intercom.

An openness to one’s thoughts has now become commonplace with e-mails which are as private as a McGill holiday postcard; Twitter; blogs; and Facebook broadcasting to the entire world a person’s life and innermost thoughts. My father’s generation was told in the war that “careless talk cost lives”, but now anybody who travels on public transport is subject to the minutiae of strangers’ lives as they chatter incessantly on their mobile phones.

Now award-winning poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw has recognised this chatter that surrounds us all in the modern city can give inspiration to writers and has created Audio Obscura a new sound work, conceived for the public spaces of St. Pancras International station. Audio Obscura is an aural version of the camera obscura, giving a heightened reflection of the passing world and its snippets of conversation. The audience can listen to the work on personal headsets while wandering amongst the crowds of the Lower Concourse. Listeners will hear concentrated fragments of interior worlds drawn from monologues that glance off one another, listening to these many different voices it is hoped will enable visitors to engage with the connections, a process that Mark Mason has used with effect in his recently published book Walk the Lines. Audio Obscura is intended to remind people of the potency of the “fragment” and aims to explore our compulsion to construct narratives, to impose meaning, and to seek conclusion; the experience is not one of being told something but of becoming conscious of what we do with what we listen to, a bit like my colleagues who dabble on the Stock Exchange.

We’re surrounded by other people’s conversations and while many of us try to block them out, for CabbieBlog fragments of overheard talk have been a valuable source of material for the blog and have even helped me get over a case of writer’s block.

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.

My fifteen minutes (16.09.11)

Recently I was contacted by the BBC London Arts Unit with a view to my contributing to a documentary they were making to be transmitted in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. Entitled “A Picture of London” the assistant producer/researcher explained to me over the phone that they wanted to feature a number of people who work and live in the capital, who would relate their favourite places in London.

Meeting with the documentary’s producer in of all places the Museum of Childhood – would that be a reflection of childhood memories – he explained over a cup of coffee that they were filming about nine individuals and some would eventually end up on the proverbial cutting room floor.

Filming was scheduled for a Sunday evening a week or so later to rendezvous in a car park near Tower Bridge. My cab had a camera mounted on its bonnet by the grips man Garth (I had always wondered what grips were) and after about half an hour we were driving to Battersea via Tower Bridge.

One of my favourite spots in London is the beautiful Georgian church of St. Mary’s perched above the Thames in Battersea. It is said that Turner painted some of his rivers cape studies of light from the vestry window of the church and was rowed over every day by his servant in order that he might paint.

While taking numerous zoom shots of the cab approaching the water’s edge we were scrutinised by the River Police inquisitive of our intentions. It was explained to me that this was an occupational hazard of film units and they had already been stopped more than once that day.

Next was a drive across the capital with a camera pointing into my left ear with I trying to negotiate London’s traffic while commentating of what life was like for a London cabbie, not as easy as it looks with everybody cutting you up.

On arrival at the London Zoo (where both my father and grandfather worked), it was pitch dark but that didn’t stop them from taking another round of rolling shots of the cab, which again drew the attention of this time the Zoo’s security staff, hardly surprising as the main entrance by now was illuminated by their floodlights. A short piece of commentary by me as an audio recording rounded off the day.

Would I be contacted again by the BBC? Could this mark a career in broadcasting? These thoughts ran through me, by now, exhausted head.

Two weeks later I picked up a copy of our trade’s newspaper, there inside was a full-page article written by the doyen of cabbie journalism – Al Fresco – writer, raconteur, sometimes editor and a cabbie of some 40 years, describing how on a Sunday morning recently he was filming for the BBC.

How could I compete? There was an erudite part-time journalist, old fashioned Jewish cabbie who had more tales of London’s East End after the war, a place where most of the cabbies hailed from at the time, featuring in a documentary entitled A Picture of London.

Oh well! My Andy Warhol moment will have to wait.