Previously Posted

Previously Posted: Electric Ink

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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.

Electric Ink (29.09.09)

Sitting in my garret chewing the end of my proverbial pencil composing this post, for your erudition, it occurred to me that electric ink has empowered all us, wannabee authors.

With the passing of the brilliant columnist and author Keith Waterhouse recently, who rejected all electronic devices to write and used a trusty manual typewriter, it’s time to look at the digital revolution which has enabled amateurs to publish their work.

A blog (a contraction of the term “weblog”) is credited as being started by Bruce Ableson who launched Open Diary in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary was innovative, inventing the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers’ blog entries.

I’ve started reading Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys The Unequalled Self a biography of the great diarist who wrote with astounding candour and perceptiveness in the 10 years from 1660 at a time when England was undergoing momentous changes.

Do you fancy yourself as a 21st century Samuel Pepys and want to start writing or are you happy to be one of the 98 per cent of web surfers who are just voyeurs and not publishers?

If you want to join the Band of Bloggers I recommend Matthew Stibbe’s Bad Language to get you started with some sound advice and Neil Patel who is so prolific a writer on all things blogging I wonder if he ever sleeps.

Oh! And thanks for taking the time to read CabbieBlog.

Thinking allowed

The Yanks are back

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The fact that the dollar now buys you twice the number of Chinese made Big Ben snow globes than it did this time last year (and tax free shopping is now back for tourists), means that US tourists ‘are flocking to our shores’ and will probably continue to do so right up to the King’s Coronation sometime next year – incidentally they should announce the date to give hotels time to jack up prices. This means we’ll probably continue to see even more luxury hotels going up in the West End over the next few years, and more heritage parts of London destroyed, which ironically is why the Americans visit the Motherland.

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: Pigeon

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PIGEON (n.) Grey bird often seen in Trafalgar Square whose purpose is to entertain tourists, a bird that doth make an excellent pie.

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon

A window on My World

October’s monthly musings

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🚓 What Cab News

The City of London is going to exclude cabs twenty-four hours a day from Bank Junction. Nowadays you can’t drive along Cheapside end to end and you can’t drive down Bishopsgate. Many cabbies already avoid working in the City, but when this goes into place, they’ll stop working the Square Mile completely.

🎧 What I’m Listening

For two years Blue Badge Guides Emily and Alex have been podcasting weekly snippets on their Ladies Who London as a way to (as they say) bring London’s quirky, fun history to everyone in the comfort of their own homes. Having just discovered them I have a lot of episodes to catch up on.

📖 What I’m Reading

For some time now I’ve been a member of NetGalley, which offer books for review. Ex-Home Secretary Alan Johnson now writes novels, his latest is The Late Train to Gipsy Hill. While most politicians turn to novels as a way of showing how inside track they were. Johnson eschews this approach and just gives us a thriller not without prescience given later events in Ukraine.

📺 What I’m watching

Sewage. Pressure group Thames 21 appeared on a BBC Panorama to show reporter Joe Crowley a mound of wet wipes on the Thames foreshore at Barnes. Designed to be a safety valve for occasional use, London’s overloaded sewage system routinely discharges raw sewage into the Thames, on average once a week, discharges have now become regular and routine. Thames21 showed the BBC Panorama team around one of the five Thames sites where wet wipes have accumulated in such quantities they have physically changed the shape of the riverbed and are informally known as the Great Wet Wipe Reef. Incredibly only 7 per cent of Britain’s rivers are in good health, and sewage pollution is one of the major causes. Ignore at your peril.

❓ What else

With the Queen laid to rest the arguments have begun over where to put her statue. Currently, there is only one full-size statue in Windsor Great Park. The bookies’ favourite is, of course, the fourth plinth, but that, according to ArtNet, would mean bringing to an end the “best-known public art commission in the world”. The plinth is not suitable for the memorial for the late queen either, as it sits in an awkward location in front of the National Gallery terrace, and close to the busy public toilets. Some politicians are lobbying for a statue in Parliament Square, other plans include renaming streets, parks, and even Heathrow airport in her honour.

Taxi Talk Without Tipping