Category Archives: A window on My World

A window on My World

May’s monthly musings

2 Comments

🚓 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

2 Comments

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

2 Comments

🚓 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.

A window on My World

March’s monthly musings

2 Comments

🚓 What Cab News

Black cab fares are going up by 7.6 per cent next month, and the reason being given is “to ensure there are enough cabs available to help women get home safely”. The argument goes that if cabbies stand to make less money at night, then fewer of them will work those hours, which means there are fewer options for women looking to get home after dark. Maybe, just maybe, if TfL hadn’t done its darndest to create an uneven playing field between cabs and private hire, those undertaking The Knowledge wouldn’t be at their lowest levels in a generation. Just saying.

🎧 What I’m Listening

A weird London podcast returned on Valentine’s Day. Season 6 of Subterraneans began with an episode about the Aberfeldy Estate in Poplar, and lingering spirits, mould and the housing crisis – so romantic. If you haven’t been introduced to Subterraneans yet, download it on your favourite podcast app.

📖 What I’m Reading

The geek in me thoroughly enjoyed John Grindrod’s Concretopia a book about – well, concrete. I’m now reading Iconicon – Wimpey homes; Millennium monuments, riverside flats; wind farms; out-of-town malls, the buildings designed in our lifetimes that encapsulated the dreams and aspirations of our culture. John Grindrod reveals the sobering realities.

📺 What I’m watching

Atlantic Crossing, is the story of Norway’s Crown Princess Märtha, who fought for her country and her marriage during the tragic events in the early years of World War II, with the excellent Sofia Helin in the lead role. The series portrays Märtha’s journey from Norway to the White House where she sought refuge and became close to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Crown Princess tried to convince Roosevelt to save her country and Europe from Nazi Germany at a time when American voters were strongly opposed to being drawn into another world war. Although this production was first broadcast in 2020, the parallels of today’s invasion of Ukraine by Putin can’t be ignored. Amazing engineering.

❓ What else

I’ve taken out a subscription to London in Bits. If you’ve ever read The Big Smoker, which then became the Londonist, these are the people who started these blogs. Unfortunately Londonist, apart from the odd article, is now a giant advertising board. While London in Bits, on the other hand, produces a newsletter writing about both the beautiful and the infuriating parts of the capital. As they say in their blurb ‘something that’s interesting, funny, surprising and worthy of your inbox’. I have to agree.

A window on My World

A blank white space

6 Comments

Every day on my Apple Note app I get to stare at a blank white rectangle. Sometimes a few ideas enter my consciousness, on other days all I see is that white rectangle and wonder how best to fill it.

My SwiftKey app (thank you Bill Gates), offers me the use of 26 letters, plus a plethora of numbers, punctuation, signs and emojis, which I can arrange in a variety of different orders, some of which might even make sense.

Along with the text I could chuck in some web links, I could even throw in some pictures, but the space is all mine to fill in any way I choose.

Today is one of those white rectangle days, I could…

… write something almost original that will be linked to websites around the world (London’s top secret tower)

… write something prosaic about my life that doesn’t even raise one comment (Where Are We?)

… write something that gives me personal blog satisfaction (statistics 2021)

… copy a chunk of witty text off someone else’s site and modify it, in the hope that everyone thinks I wrote it (Metacognition)

… republish something I wrote on here many years ago in the hope that nobody notices it’s a repeat (Previously posted: Weather we care)

… list a lot of other websites that have come up with something much more interesting than anything I could think of (London links)

… write just nine paragraphs that take all evening to compose (A period of inactivity)

… write something with spelling or grammatical mistakes that people will delight in picking me up (Everyone is entitled to my opinion)

… write something controversial that ends up getting lots of derogatory comments (ULEZ Zone)

… write something controversial merely to try to get lots of comments, derogatory or otherwise (ULEZ Zone)

… write something cathartic that gives readers an insight into myself (Why won’t the blog just write itself?)

… write something that will be ignored by everyone on the world wide web (Cabbie’s dead end)

… write something that is not particularly about London, but it fills a slot (Search Me!)

… just fill the space by writing something about writing something – although I’d never do that, of course, because it would be cheap and easy (A blank white space)

A blog is a blank canvas ready and waiting each day to be filled by something – anything. The only limits here are time, imagination and one’s creative ability. The best blogs are those where you know the theme, but never quite know what angle someone’s going to find to post next, but you know that whatever it is, it’s probably worth reading.

They’re the blogs you go back and read time and time again, and as you’ve reached the end of this rather self-indulgent post I suggest you are willing to read and return to this little corner of the cyberverse.

I like writing my blog because I never quite know what’s going to pop up in my thoughts and what I’m going to write next either.

There you go, that’s another daily white rectangle filled. I wonder what I’m going to write tomorrow…