1st June 2025

🎤 A cabbie’s talk

Out of the blue a local residential home invited me to give a talk about being a cabbie. I’m still waiting to fix a date. I’ll report later how it went.

✈️ Holiday invitation

On my contact page I’ve received this:
‘I hope you are well and enjoying the sunshine!
I wanted to reach out as we would like to invite you to a press trip to the gorgeous region of Haute Savoie in the French Alps.
You will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the culture and learn about the heritage of the region while exploring places like Yvoire, the historic, medieval town in bloom, Evian’s Belle Epoque architecture, Menthon castle’s history and architecture. You will also enjoy visiting the relaxing Saint-Gervais Thermal centre and the famous Évian springs.’
What’s that to do with being London cabbie? Write your answers on the comments below.

📖 The Diary of a Bookseller

To save having to pay postage to Amazon I topped up an order with a recommend book. How I wish my memoir was this good – humorous, warm and informative. Quite brilliant.

📺 Canal Boat Diaries

I came across this antidote to living in London some time ago. Series 6 of Canal Boat Diaries features Robbie Cumming’s narrowboat, the Naughty Lass (Nautilus, get it!), as he navigates the canals and countryside of southern England. Bliss!

󠀿🎥 London’s youngest cabbie

Most start The Knowledge at middle age, Mo The Cabbie started at 18, and actually passed his Knowledge before he was 21. You can begin studying from age 18, but you can only receive your badge and start driving legally from 21. He’s recently started a TikTok channel which has gone viral, and is inspiring a new generation of potential London cabbies.

1st May 2025

⛪ Keeping up appearances

Whilst clearing out the attic I came across this receipt for my wedding suit.

✏️ Getting it down

I’m trying out the Cornell method of organising notes. Devised by Walter Pauk at Cornell University, the method is a ‘two-column’ notes style. The paper is divided into two columns: the note-taking column on the right is twice the size of the questions/keyword column, which is on the left. Four lines are left at the bottom of the page for the summary and one at the top for the page number and heading.

💬 Cabbie lingo

My post, Driving my droschky over The River, for reasons known only to Substack’s algorithms, has had over a thousand views and since posting, generated a couple of dozen new subscribers to my site – Unblogged London, and more likes than you could shake a stick at. Why some missives take off while others languish in cyberspace awaiting discovery I’ve yet to discover.

📖 What I’m Reading

Shakespeare. The Man who Pays the Rent – Judi Dench’s memoir. This delightful book has anecdotes galore, more remarkable is Judi’s ability to recount so much of her acting life.

❓ How popular?

I’ve recently received an email from FeedSpot informing me: ‘I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Cabbie Blog has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 100 London Blogs on the web.’ All very nice including the badge now displayed on my sidebar. So I checked out the site above me at number 24 in FeedSpot’s popularity rating. The site, London Is Cool, is now defunct. So how is it more popular than many other London blogs? Stop press: Number 24 has been replaced by the excellent A London Inheritance.

🦊 Eating habits

Why do Havering’s foxes insist on consuming inedible piping? My neighbour’s fountain in their water feature was regularly sabotaged with foxes eating through the electricity feed. Now recently I’ve discovered a nibble in my hosepipe. There was a time when discarded McDonald’s take-aways were sufficient.

1st April 2025

📚 CabbieBlog News

Exactly this time last year, I announced that I wouldn’t be uploading daily postings for various reasons that I won’t reiterate again. Restricting uploads to just three days a week has given me time to write my first novel. Thanks for all your support by entering the competition. The winner who got the answer was Mark, one of our Colonial Cousins. He was out of the blocks with the correct answer within hours.

🦆 A new app

In January, I ticked off one from my bucket list. On a walk in a park and along our local river, I saw five foxes, a little egret, and a kingfisher. Spotting the colourful bird encouraged me to download the Merlin Bird app. So far, I’ve spotted 34 species. It’s not an obsession, but I can see how you could be drawn in.

📖 What I’m Reading

I’m working my way through the Bryant and May novels by the late Christopher Fowler. So far, I’ve reached number 9, The Memory of Blood, out of 23 books in the series.

📺 What I’m watching

I’ve just discovered Detectorists, Mackenzie Crook’s touching comedy about male relationships and men’s obsession with their hobbies. Working long hours on shifts, I missed it when it was first broadcast. It is now available on BBC iPlayer.

󠀿❓ What else

It’s nearly 13 years since a senior manager at TfL was generously wined and dined by the American company that now dominates London’s private hire. This has resulted in a serious decline in the number of licensed taxis and drivers, raising serious concerns about the future of the trade. Figures from Transport for London show that more drivers are leaving the industry and fewer new entrants are replacing them. As of the week ending 16 February 2025, the number of licensed taxi drivers fell to 16,816—a decrease of 20 compared to the previous week- and only 2 new taxi driver licences were issued. The number of licensed taxis (vehicles) also declined by 17, bringing the total to 14,470, with just 1 new vehicle licence granted. In comparison, 10 years ago, 25,538 cabbies pushed their vehicles around London’s streets. Now TfL are starting to become alarmed; with fewer entrants into the profession, it is only a matter of time before we turn into New York.

🚙 Gallows Corner

Gallows Corner near Romford is being improved with a new flyover; it promises to be a summer of disruption at this busy junction. It is named after a nearby execution spot that ably served the local community’s hanging needs from the 16th to 18th century. In 1932, a Metropolitan Police car collided with a cow at the junction. The animal was so badly injured it had to be destroyed. It was, in all probability, the last time the authorities had to make an execution at Gallows Corner. My thanks to the Londonist for this rather gruesome anecdote.

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…