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.

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.

4,821 can’t be wrong (11.10.11)

I drive the world’s best taxi giving a level of service that is second to none. How do I know? Well, the annual survey of 4,821 respondents from 23 countries by Hotels.com has revealed that London taxis polled 28 per cent of the votes putting us way out in front of our nearest rivals in New York who only polled 9 per cent. London Cabbies came first in five out of the seven categories including safety, friendliness, cleanliness, quality of driving and knowledge of the area. Our famous chat and banter weren’t so popular with 37 per cent of Korean and 30 per cent of German visitors who said that they hated “chatty drivers”. No matter, group hug chaps.

But wait a minute, what empirical evidence was used to reach this conclusion? Precisely none. Every contributor used their own judgment of what they wanted from their taxi experience. And that is the problem; all these sites on the World Wide Wait provide a means to express one’s own opinion. Mister Angry to Miss Supine all has a chance to express their view. And who are these people? I don’t know, and nor do you, they could be genuine or one of my colleagues’ brother-in-law.

It is the modern curse, this information overload. A guidebook, written by professionals can at least be relied on to be consistent; but these sites rely almost solely on user-generated content- and there is plenty out there in cyberspace – I should know, contributing more than my fair share of personal opinions which my Korean and German customers seem to abhor.

One of the biggest sites is TripAdvisor which boasts 45 million users, who once claimed on its homepage that it had “reviews you can trust”, but following an allegation that up to 10 million reviews of hotels, restaurants, and holiday businesses could be fakes, possibly posted by the proprietors of these services, which prompted an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority, TripAdvisor has dropped their claim of trustworthy reviews. Presumably, now you should only use these comments as a rough guide.

So I decided to do a little research of my own in relation to the London taxi service and tripped over, so to speak, to TripAdvisor:

Moi0606 asked, quite reasonably I thought: “Can anyone tell me how difficult it is to get a cab from Marble Arch to [Natural History] Museum and then return at end of the day. Your advice is very much appreciated”. To which ajeleonard gave this valuable advice: “About as difficult as sticking your arm out and hailing one with its light on”.

Linet wanted to know: “We will need to take a 5-10 minute cab ride in London, when we visit in May. Approximately how much would this cost?” CheshireCat helpfully writing from Chester some 170 miles away gave this answer on London cab fares which should leave Linet in no doubt as to the cost: “Assuming you hail a taxi in the street or pick one up from a rank, my best guess is budget for about 5-7GBP. But . . . this isn’t a straightforward question. Depends on lots of things as fares are a combination of distance and journey time plus a whole lot of “extras” (e.g. how many people, how much luggage, time of day). Also if you pre-order one expect to see 1.50-2.00 GBPon the meter before you start your journey.”

Clearly concerned by being ripped off Rickamandog inquired: “I was reading a recent posting that said that the cabs [fares] in London were outrageous.” TexasEllen replied: “Black Cab drivers are a whole lot better than they used to be and generally are very appreciative when you tip them. Unfortunately, we came across one of the old school who took us to London Bridge Station, his technique was to get out of the cab walk around the back of the cab and accept the fare on the kerbside, the fare was 7GBP I only had a 10GBP note as he walked back around I heard him say “I guess we will call that even” yeah like a tip of 40% whatever per cent is even, I would have given him a pound coin, I’m a pretty good tipper but 3 pounds on a 7-pound fare was an attempted rip-off. I have never come across this before and don’t expect to again. We have found them to be knowledgeable and if you treat them well you get the same back. We even had one sing The Yellow Rose of Texas, after we told him we were from Texas.”

Well thanks, Ellen, your review is obviously genuine.

So there you have it, you pays your money and takes your choice, or in the case of the internet don’t pay your money and take your chance.

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.

The lost apostrophe (07.10.11)

Harrods cast it aside in 1928; Selfridges followed 17 years later, but by then Gordon Selfridge was too busy having his way with twin showgirls The Dolly Sisters, then worry too much about what went over the door of his emporium. Currys have dispensed with its services and Starbucks, well they are American, never used one in the first place.

The apostrophe is going the same way as the double space after a full point, which was much loved by legal secretaries when using manual typewriters. If punctuation marks were endangered species, then the apostrophe would be an Amazonian rainforest frog, or a fish dependent on Great Barrier Coral Reef for survival. We would have David Attenborough talking earnestly to camera in hushed tones about the need to keep it safe for future generations.

Despised by graphic designers who have been paid a fortune to “conceptualise” and “brand” a product, this little tick just gets in the way of their oh-so-cool layouts when they use their ubiquitous MS Comic San’s. And so corporate logos, billboards and most advertising omit this little symbol of possession or contraction.

This humble floating tadpole once looked to be consigned to the history books, but one valiant group have continued to keep it alive, albeit mistakenly. The greengrocer’s apple’s and pear’s were for many years a reassuring sight on our high street. This kind of sign-writer did not want to be faulted for omitting an apostrophe, so they were willing to run down their stick of chalk whenever an “s” is found on the end of a word. And it is this reverence for punctuation, an anxiety, even in this misuse which has kept it alive.

The large supermarkets seem to have put pay to the humble high street greengrocer with his random tadpole placed before an “s”, and Sainsbury’s, not content with taking all the customers from high street grocers, has even taken on the mantle of using their own apostrophe, the only supermarket chain to retain its use.

If punctuation has a gender then the full point is undeniably male, while the rather contrary apostrophe can only be a lady. The little mark shows up when she feels like it and at other times will appear gracefully in the wrong place altogether.

The Apostrophe Protection Society, established to defend the punctuation mark’s place in the English language, is calling on users of the inappropriate apostrophe to mend their ways, well they would. The Society probably has among its members the Colonel Blimps of this world who reside in The Shires expressing righteous indignation whenever an offending tadpole is spotted.

With the demise of the greengrocer, one might have expected the apostrophe to disappear from our streets, only appearing in its correct place, firmly disciplined within articles in The Times. But no, a new group has taken up the baton, and if anything in London at least is more numerous than the late lamented greengrocer.

Road works. Hundreds of them, in every street there is an urgent need to dig a hole and leave it for posterity. And many holes need the familiar temporary yellow road sign that often states the obvious.

The writer of the many road signs might not have apples and pears to sprinkle with fairly punctuation dust, but they have a surfeit of roads, streets, parks, squares . . . and yes cab’s.

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.

A Capital Idea (04.10.11)

The city of London was founded by the Romans, as Londinium, in the 1st century AD (although there was an earlier settlement), but the origin of the name London is still uncertain.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 12th-century work Historia Regum Britanniae, suggested it derived from an ancient King Ludd who, on capturing the settlement, renamed it Kaerlud, which became Karelundein and then London. This has been widely accepted, though Monmouth’s book is full of myth. Richard Coates, in his 1998 article A new explanation of the name of London in transactions of the philological society, suggests the name derives from the pre-Celtic word Plowondia, meaning “boat river” or “swimming river”, because the Thames becomes too wide to ford in London. He also outlines other theories such as the Welsh-derived Llwn Town (“city in the grove”), or Glynn din (“valley city”).

Another suggestion is that it comes from Luandun, “city of the moon”, a reference to the temple of Diana, supposedly on the site of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The World Gazetteers lists 27 other Londons of which 18 are in the United States alone. There is even an asteroid called 8837 London discovered in 1989 by Eric Walter Elst is a Belgian astronomer.

Here, I believe is the definitive list:
London, England, a city in the United Kingdom
London, Ontario, a city in Canada
London, Belize, a village
London, Equatorial Guinea, a village
London, Finland, a section of Jakobstad
London, Kiribati, a small city on Kiritimati
London, Nigeria, a village
London, Limpopo, a village in South Africa
London, Mpumalanga (Noordprovincie) in South Africa
London, Mpumalanga (Graskop) in South Africa

In the United States:
London, Conecuh County, Alabama, an unincorporated community
London, Montgomery County, Alabama, an unincorporated community
London, Arizona, an unincorporated community
London, Arkansas, a city
London, California, a census-designated place
London, Indiana, an unincorporated community
London, Kentucky, a city
London, Michigan, an unincorporated community
London, Minnesota, an unincorporated community
London, Missouri, an unincorporated community
London, Ohio, a city
London, Richland County, Ohio, an unincorporated community
London, Oregon, an unincorporated community
London, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
London, Tennessee, an unincorporated community
London, Texas, an unincorporated community
London, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
London, Wisconsin, an unincorporated community