Category Archives: A window on My World

A window on My World

June’s monthly musings

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🚓 What Cab News

I’ve recently received this email from British Airways: “From trips to the airport to rides across town, getting around with Uber will help you get away sooner. If you haven’t already, simply link up your Uber and British Airways Executive Club accounts.” So there you have it, flying the flag with Uber.

🎧 What I’m Listening

Listening on BBC Sounds – Fever: The Hunt For Covid’s Origin, a chaos of cover-ups, coincidences, and conspiracy theories, this is one of the biggest questions of our time: Just where did Covid-19 come from?

📖 What I’m Reading

Christopher Fowler, who has recently died, wrote a series of detective novels featuring the Met’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, led by London’s longest-serving detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May who with their wits, idiosyncratic practices and a plentiful supply of boiled sweets solve London’s most perplexing crimes. I’m reading book two (of 18) The Water Room.

📺 What I’m watching

Playing out on Drama TV is Just Good Friends, it was written by John Sullivan who was starting to write at the time Only Fools and Horses, it has all the clever hallmarks of this brilliant wordsmith.

❓ What else

I have this ritual when booking into a hotel, probably because I’ve watched too many 1970s disaster movies, the first thing I check out is the fire escapes. So when Zedwell Hotel opened “London’s first and only underground hotel experience”, I was naturally curious as to how guests could evacuate above ground onto Tottenham Court Road. The hotel is, of course, spinning this as a feature, billing itself as a place “designed to prioritise sleep, positive health, and overall wellbeing.”

A window on My World

Birthday treat

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It’s my birthday in a few days time, so in anticipation I’m counting down the days with offering my Kindle book for 99p. As you might guess, this isn’t an opportunity for others to cheaply buy my birthday present, but a chance for you to get the inside Knowledge of London and its cabbies.

Catch it on Amazon:

https://tinyurl.com/4tnnb3d8

Part Knowledge memoir, part history book and facts of London, this is a wonderfully written gem, with lots of nuanced history about London of which I was totally unaware.’ – Tom Hutley, Member of The Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers and top YouTuber with over 73,000 subscribers.

A window on My World

May’s monthly musings

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🚓 What Cab News

Tom Hutley has pointed out incorrect signage on Gracechurch Street and Bishopsgate. During the hours of 7 am-7 pm (Mon-Fri) only buses and cycles are allowed to use this stretch of road, but he has found not one, but two incorrect signs! Stating that the restricted hours are 7 pm – 7 am! Therefore taxis can use it in the day, but not at night?

🎧 What I’m Listening

Your London Legacy podcast was made nearly three years ago when Mark Monroe is interviewed about acting, being a cabbie and his YouTube channel Secret London.

📖 What I’m Reading

As I’ve been recently writing about London A to Z by John Metcalf. The book has a host of long-forgotten aspects of London. In 1953 Moyses Stevens offered an all-night flower-delivery service, so much for today’s next-day delivery.

📺 What I’m watching

This month blue tits are feeding their young in our bird box, unfortunately, due either to weather conditions or that the parents were inexperienced, three fledglings didn’t make it. Better luck next year..

❓ What else

Since July 2009 I’ve been posting daily London trivia on Twitter @CabbieBlog. Remembering to upload isn’t always easy, so when various resources appeared on the web which enabled 10 tweets to be scheduled it was to be welcomed. Now since Elon Musk has set Twitter’s API monthly access price at up to $210,000 and discontinued free access to APIs by third parties and developer plugins I’m back to where I was nearly a decade and a half ago. Thanks, Elon.

A window on My World

Shelved amongst the gods

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Recently a letter was dropped on my doormat, addressed to CabbieBlog Imprint. The missive informed me that Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion has been accepted by the British Library.

The most remarkable thing about it, and speaking as someone brought up on the British public library system, is that I can’t just go and pick my own volume off a bookshelf. There are no bookshelves – at least, none accessible by the great unwashed. A reader must order it online, and hopefully, within 48 hours, it’ll be available.

There are only a mere 35 million books in the basement (now hopefully 35 million and one) at the St Pancras building. The vast majority of the collection is up north in Boston Spa, Wetherby, and has to come down in a van if requested.

Should you wish, for some reason that escapes me, to read an antiquarian tome that belonged to King George III, because he gave his entire collection to the nation on the condition it remains visible to the public. And sure enough there it is, behind glass, in the centre of the main atrium. Needless to say, the public can’t just go in and pick one of the Monarch’s books off a shelf, outrageous idea. You have to order it like any other book – it’s just that it doesn’t have to travel by van to get to you.

And all that stuff you learned about the Dewey-Decimal system for categorising books? Forget it. Britain’s national library categorises them by size. Another illusion shattered.

This means that if a folio of Shakespeare’s sonnets is 8″ x 5″ we could be bedfellows.

A window on My World

April’s monthly musings

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🚓 What Cab News

Transport for London has revoked 327 Private Hire Vehicle driver licences in 2022 for non-medical-related reasons. In that total 39 licences were revoked for serious sexual offences and a further 26 for ‘other’ sexual offences. Other reasons for minicab drivers losing their licence in London include drink or drug driving (19), driving disqualification (122), dishonesty (46), non-sexual abuse or behaviour towards passenger (12), being arrested or charged for a serious offence (9), fraudulent identifiers (14) and violence (7).

🎧 What I’m Listening

On Sunday the 23rd my phone exploded with a test for an emergency warning. Apparently, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, and the Netherlands have a similar system. But we’re British, surely we needed Corporal Jones telling us: “Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring”.

📖 What I’m Reading

John Grindrod has written the secret history of our green belts, Outskirts is the first book to tell the story of Britain’s green belts, a fascinating social history, a stirring evocation of the natural world, and a poignant tale of growing up in a place. Part autobiography and part history of our green spaces.

📺 What I’m watching

I was contacted by Crich Tramway Museum in Derbyshire, who have recently restored a cabmen’s shelter which stood outside Bradford Exchange railway station from 1879 to 1973. On their site, they have produced a virtual tour of the shelter.

❓ What else

I’m not one to talk about health, but on 6th November 2021, I experienced an event. After my excellent GP had ascertained I wasn’t going to peg out any time soon, I was referred to a consultant. Last week, after nearly 18 months, I received my first and only (telephone) consultation. Having paid NI for 50 years and thankfully hardly ever troubled the NHS, one wonders just what are politicians’ long-term plans for this exemplary institution.