This month’s quiz is about the lexicon of London cabbies, before starting you must promise not to look for the answers elsewhere on CabbieBlog. As before the correct answer will turn green when it’s clicked upon and expanded to give more information. The incorrect answers will turn red giving the correct explanation.
1. Blue Book Runs?
Time expected to complete a journey
WRONG Alas, no sexual connotations. All new entrants to the knowledge are given the blue book (usually it has a pink cover). A list of 320 routes (known as runs) that broadly cover the routes within the six-mile radius from Charing Cross. These are the framework that all other knowledge is added to. The first route in the blue book is Manor House Station to Gibson Square, a route that will always remain engraved on cabbies’ memories.
A framework of routes
CORRECT Alas, no sexual connotations. All new entrants to the knowledge are given the blue book (usually it has a pink cover). A list of 320 routes (known as runs) that broadly cover the routes within the six-mile radius from Charing Cross. These are the framework that all other knowledge is added to. The first route in the blue book is Manor House Station to Gibson Square, a route that will always remain engraved on cabbies’ memories.
List of misdemeanours by cabbies taking the wrong route
WRONG Alas, no sexual connotations. All new entrants to the knowledge are given the blue book (usually it has a pink cover). A list of 320 routes (known as runs) that broadly cover the routes within the six-mile radius from Charing Cross. These are the framework that all other knowledge is added to. The first route in the blue book is Manor House Station to Gibson Square, a route that will always remain engraved on cabbies’ memories.
2. The Dirty Dozen?
Twelve girlie clubs
WRONG Twelve roads through Soho that once, before Crossrail, got you from Regent Street to Charing Cross Road without having to sit behind several thousand double-decker buses on Oxford Street.
Twelve roads through Soho
CORRECT Twelve roads through Soho that once, before Crossrail, got you from Regent Street to Charing Cross Road without having to sit behind several thousand double-decker buses on Oxford Street.
Twelve hookey hotels
WRONG Twelve roads through Soho that once, before Crossrail, got you from Regent Street to Charing Cross Road without having to sit behind several thousand double-decker buses on Oxford Street.
3. Down the Wasp?
Four streets in Chelsea
CORRECT Route through Chelsea: Walpole Street, Anderson Street, Sloane Avenue and Pelham Street.
Punter refusing to pay
WRONG Route through Chelsea: Walpole Street, Anderson Street, Sloane Avenue and Pelham Street.
Being stung by regulator fine
WRONG Route through Chelsea: Walpole Street, Anderson Street, Sloane Avenue and Pelham Street.
4. Droshky?
Yiddish name for a cab
CORRECT This isn’t some obscure Russian poet but the Jewish name for their cab. The word derives from two- or four-wheeled public carriages used in Russia and means literally droga, pole of a wagon.
Cash paid for the fare
WRONG This isn’t some obscure Russian poet but the Jewish name for their cab. The word derives from two- or four-wheeled public carriages used in Russia and means literally droga, pole of a wagon.
Fare paid without a tip
WRONG This isn’t some obscure Russian poet but the Jewish name for their cab. The word derives from two- or four-wheeled public carriages used in Russia and means literally droga, pole of a wagon.
5. A Churchill?
A meal
CORRECT Churchill gave cabbies the right to refuse a fare while eating.
A Hotel in Portman Square
WRONG Churchill gave cabbies the right to refuse a fare while eating.
A doorman with an attitude
WRONG Churchill gave cabbies the right to refuse a fare while eating.
6. Bilker?
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club
WRONG Not a member of Acker’s jazz group of the Sixties, but someone who tries (and sometimes succeeds) in avoiding paying the fare for a journey.
A runner
CORRECT Not a member of Acker’s jazz group of the Sixties, but someone who tries (and sometimes succeeds) in avoiding paying the fare for a journey.
A cabbie who refuses a job
WRONG Not a member of Acker’s jazz group of the Sixties, but someone who tries (and sometimes succeeds) in avoiding paying the fare for a journey.
7. Brushing?
A meticulously clean cab
WRONG When the driver on point refuses a fare and the punter has to go to the next cab in line. If you are that second driver you know either: (a) the job’s worth £3; (b) the punter’s drunk; (c) the punter looks like he hasn’t washed for a week and doesn’t have the proverbial pot to p**s in.
Punter refusing to pay
WRONG When the driver on point refuses a fare and the punter has to go to the next cab in line. If you are that second driver you know either: (a) the job’s worth £3; (b) the punter’s drunk; (c) the punter looks like he hasn’t washed for a week and doesn’t have the proverbial pot to p**s in.
Refusing a fare on the rank
CORRECT When the driver on point refuses a fare and the punter has to go to the next cab in line. If you are that second driver you know either: (a) the job’s worth £3; (b) the punter’s drunk; (c) the punter looks like he hasn’t washed for a week and doesn’t have the proverbial pot to p**s in.
8. Iron Lung?
Inside a claustrophobic old cab
WRONG A bloody useful toilet in Horseferry Road SW1 (it looks like the old Parisian ones of the Sixties).
A smokey cab shelter
WRONG A bloody useful toilet in Horseferry Road SW1 (it looks like the old Parisian ones of the Sixties).
Toilet on Horseferry Road
CORRECT A bloody useful toilet in Horseferry Road SW1 (it looks like the old Parisian ones of the Sixties).
9. A Legal?
A written warning from the regulator
WRONG The fare on the meter without a tip. You wouldn’t do that to a poor hard-working honest bloke, would you?
Fare paid without a tip
CORRECT The fare on the meter without a tip. You wouldn’t do that to a poor hard-working honest bloke, would you?
A cab passed fit for use
WRONG The fare on the meter without a tip. You wouldn’t do that to a poor hard-working honest bloke, would you?
10. Putting on foul?
Joining a full rank
CORRECT Nothing to do with dressing up like a chicken, but joining a taxi rank that’s already full.
Ranking outside Parliament
WRONG Nothing to do with dressing up like a chicken, but joining a taxi rank that’s already full.
Bad-mouthing fellow cabbie
WRONG Nothing to do with dressing up like a chicken, but joining a taxi rank that’s already full.
LONDON CLINIC (n.) Hospital famed for its clients, Chilean dictator Pinochet inadvisedly used the clinic for a bad back and was promptly arrested by the peelers.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
Not long ago there was a craze for colouring books, not the one for young children, but for adults. Many of those books now seem to have left the shelves of bookshops, I suppose Covid lockdown saw to that, there must be just so many swirls you can colour in.
Recently, taking this idea to a whole new level has been a project undertaken by Matt Brown of the Londonist. He took the first known map of London from the 16th century, printed in black by the copperplate method and brought it to life. It is thought that originally the map consisted of 15 panels of which only three are known, nevertheless, the coloured detail represented here gives us some understanding of Tudor London.
From what was a pretty prosaic representation of the city, seen on many maps around that time, Matt has brought it into stunning focus, you can see how London looked before the Great Fire of London, and surprisingly how much of the original road network survived post the fire.
Featured image: Matt’s colouring of Moorfield, he has gone on to write about the project with far more images on London: Time Machine available on Substack.
LONDON CLAY (n.) Dark brown deposit, which Londoners claim to be unique, despite geological evidence, much favoured in the manufacture of poor people’s houses.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
CabbieBlog 