October 2025

🐕‍🦺 Rupert

On Bonfire Night, my constant companion lost his fight against a failing heart. Only dog lovers can truly understand how much the demise of your ‘best friend’ really feels: returning to an empty house, the absence of attending to the needs of a little life, and having a creature whose only desire is to please. If Heaven existed, my little dog would be at the front of the queue.

💊 The Magic Bullet

We have eradicated smallpox and can stop a novel virus in its tracks. So why can’t the huge pharmaceutical companies stop pain? The day after our dog died, my wife learned that an old friend had taken her life to block out pain.

🩺 Fortuitous discovery

The pre-operative assessment for my inguinal hernia discovered an undetected full heart block, which could have resulted in the termination of CabbieBlog. Hopefully, my new pacemaker has given this website a few more years of uploading London trivia.

🚓 Cabology

The more observant among you might have noticed CabbieBlog’s sidebar has been updated. From next year, facts and cabbie slang will appear under the ‘Today’s Cabology’ section. Also, there is now a preview of the latest Shelter Sleuths investigation.

📺 Gogglebox

I’ve reached the age when I watch considerably more TV than I once did – or should – a luxury my mother enjoyed for free (a concession withdrawn 22 months before I was eligible). Much of the BBC’s entertainment content now seems directed at Millennials, who probably have politely declined signing up for a licence. Channel 5 appears now to be the only channel that actually makes programmes for us Baby Boomers. I’m watching a news service from our National Broadcaster, which I don’t have confidence in being accurate or impartial, as Clive Myrie smugly informs me, ‘the fight for truth is on’. Then there’s the way Auntie insists I have a vested interest by calling it ‘Our BBC’, well, despite the licence fee, it doesn’t feel much like mine.

📅 November’s posts and pages

Most read post – Buying a black cab as a private car
Most read page – The Knowledge

📈 Last month’s statistics

1,516 views (-56.6%)
1,144 visitors (-6.8%)
33 likes (-21.4%)
44 comments (-15.4%)
21 posts (+40.8%)

October 2025

📣 Podcast

The wait is over! London author Christopher Winn has finished editing my rambling talk about being a cabbie when we met in Romford’s Golden Lion pub. TimeTable London uploads a new podcast fortnightly featuring guests a lot more interesting and knowledgeable than this humble scribe. Here’s my contribution.

🔪 Taking it easy

I’ve been banging on for months about my procedure to correct an inguinal hernia. October was spent convalescing, so this month’s Musings are rather truncated.

📖 The Trembling Lady

At least these past few weeks have not been wasted. Finally, I’ve finished the next Shelter Sleuths Investigation and am now on the line editing.

👀 1984

As they had it out on display, last month I picked up George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece in Waterstones. They clearly thought it was prescient. Since then, the Government has announced the imposition of ID cards. It seems the bookseller was right.

📺 Riot Women

It comes to most of us, but midlife invisibility is much worse for women, along with family responsibilities, being taken for granted, at the same time as undergoing hormonal changes. Sally Wainwright’s brilliant depiction of a group forming a ‘girl’ rock band, endeavouring to get noticed, is brilliant. Even this uncomprehending man could understand the problems and the humour.

📅 October’s posts and pages

Most read post – Buying a black cab as a private car
Most read page – The Knowledge

📈 Last month’s statistics

3,415 views (+131.5%)
1,214 visitors (+66.8%)
42 likes (+27.3%)
52 comments (+108.0%)
15 posts (-16.7%)

September 2025

🎤 Talking to the Oldies

I’ve now given my talk to an expensive local retirement home. Amazingly, they stayed awake and only one needed help using the loo. I managed to speak up and only fluffed my diction a couple of times. I’d hoped to sell a few books, donating the proceeds to the Green Shelter Run Club; unfortunately, no sales materialised.

🍺 Talking with the Oldies

Two days later, I was invited to make a podcast with TimeTable London at the Golden Lion, a local Romford pub. The team have devised a winning format and has attracted well-known guests from around the capital. Following that august company was daunting, I needn’t have worried it seemed to go fairly well.

🩺 In praise of the NHS…and the Spire private hospital

Five days ago, I underwent a procedure to correct an inguinal hernia. If this post has been delayed, well, this is my excuse.

🐶 Our little dog’s birthday

A few months ago, I didn’t think that with his heart condition, he would make this milestone. Reaching his 10th birthday has only been possible thanks to the expertise of our vets who specialise in cardiac conditions.

📺 I Fought the Law

Sheridan Smith deserves a Bafta for her portrayal of Ann Ming, a mother who fought for over 15 years to overturn the double jeopardy law – the genesis of which go back to the Magna Carta – after her daughter’s murder in 1989. With the acres of drivel on television, sometimes a little gem gets broadcast.

📅 September’s posts and pages

Most read post – The Green Hut Run Club
Most read page – The Knowledge

📈 Last month’s statistics

1,474 views
775 visitors
33 likes
25 comments
18 posts

September 2025

🎤 Talking to the Oldies

I’m now booked in to give my cabbie talk in the middle of September. Hopefully it will result in a few donations to Tom Hutley’s fund raising money for the Cabbie Green Huts.

🩺 In praise of the NHS

Everyone said it would catch up with me. My life now seems to revolve around doctor’s phone calls, blood tests, health check ups and consultations. And there was me thinking when I stopped pushing a cab around London I could relax.

✍️ Gloriously bonkers

I’m enjoying Chaz Hutton’s comic graphic take on life. He’s created a light switch, clicking his tongue for audio and drawn, well, a working switch; paradoxical islands; vikings; or explaining a skerry:

I’ll leave you to seek out Chaz’s description of just what’s a skerry.

🏡 Losing Trust

As lover of the British countryside and a history geek, for the last 50 odd years I’ve been a member of the charity The National Trust, happy to make an annual contribution to maintaining our glorious land, coast and historic buildings. But now The Trust, which looks after about 500 historic properties and thousands of square miles of our most cherished landscapes, is making 550 of its 9,500 employees redundant, apparently to control soaring costs after losing 89,000 members last year. The problem is that the charity needs to go back to basics and concentrate on conserving its buildings and landscapes thus giving its visitors a great day out. Too often in recent years its bosses have seemed perversely determined to infuriate their traditional supporters — the people whose membership fees keep The Trust going — by endorsing trendy social justice and eco-warrior causes. The first signs we noticed of a profound change in The Trust, was whilst holidaying in Jersey, a couple told us they ‘were asked’ to leave after 10 years volunteering after refusing to wear badges promoting a liberal political view of which they disagreed. Since then The Trust has accelerated this egregious wokery, lecturing us on the evils of the colonialism which, after all, enabled The Trust’s properties to be built in the first place, whilst trying to make the charity more ‘inclusive’, when anyone with an interest can join anyway. They have changed the voting procedures enabling members to back The Trust’s governing council by simply agreeing with one keystroke to its recommendation on issues and recommended candidates, who no doubt belong to London clubs which are clearly not inclusive. Former Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption described the quick vote system as ‘North Korean’ in nature. They’re turning half of its restaurants vegan, I’m expecting the remainder to become halal any time soon. And instead of sourcing locally produced ingredients cooked in their kitchens, they now will offer factory generic culinary delights full of e-numbers. When visiting we don’t expect to be branded white privileged middle class, nor to be lectured on our colonial history. A home baked scone, choice of tea and an afternoon spent in one of the glorious corners of our Island Nation is sufficient. I’m sorry to say my family ticket at £168.60 is unlikely to be renewed.

Last month’s posts and pages:
Most read – Green cab shelters
Least read – 100 years down the drain

Statistics:
1,220 views
694 visitors
37 likes
50 comments

1st August 2025

🎤 Talking to the Oldies

I’m not sure whether it was a coincidence, but after musing last month that I was still waiting for a date, after I had been contacted by a retirement home about gjving a talk, they got in touch. Health permitting (see below) it should take place this month.

🔪 In praise of the NHS

I’m getting old, and as a consequence managed to give myself a inguinal hernia whilst gardening (it’s a man thing). It took only 2 days to see my doctor and last Friday I saw the consultant at a private hospital, after being given a multiple choice in both private and NHS clinics. My operation is imminent, so if CabbieBlog posts take a hiatus you now know the reason.

🚽 The price of progress

I’m old enough to remember my Dad buying a cold-water tap washer from a hardware shop (remember those?) costing 1d. My modern toilet now doesn’t shut off the flow. The cost? £17.99 plus postage, and getting a plumber with the tools to fit it.

🏡 Improving the environment?

As a consequence of our little dog’s health, I’ve spent too much time in Upminster. Just up the road from the vet’s, the former pitch and putt course was sold off by Havering Council in 2021 and is now Kings Green: ‘a collection of exquisite detached homes set within a private community’, where you can: ‘step into a realm of opulence’. Sterling work by the locals prevented the developers chopping down a stand of oak trees, but some inevitably were lost. Now this public green space that once contributed to reducing global warming is neither public nor green.

📺 Human

This new BBC series examines how Homo sapiens emerged as a species. In the early years of our evolution there were at least six other human species on Earth, and one of them, Homo erectus, lived for a very long time – almost 2 million years. That’s about 6 times longer than many archaeologists believe our species, Homo sapiens, is thought to have existed. Makes you think about how long we’ll last, for we seem to be making an excellent attempt at extinguishing our own species.