Tag Archives: Musings

A window on My World

September’s monthly musings

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🚓 What Cab News

Bilking, a funny name, for a not-so-amusing practice of running away without paying the fare. Website Taxi Point has collected bilkers who got their comeuppance. Alan Clark said: Had a lad run off, vaulted a 2ft wall and disappeared, he didn’t know it was about 20ft drop on the other side. Cabbie Jason Lake had a guy run on an £8 fare, he picked him up 16+ years later and told him. In all fairness, he paid me £20 plus the fare on the day. I asked ‘what’s the £20 for?… he said interest! Adrian Roberts had a similar scenario: I had a lad who paid me £20 upfront for an £8 fare but paid me as I started driving and said sort the change when we get there. We got to his house and he legged it shouting I’ve got no money!

🎧 What I’m Listening

For years I’ve been trying to get Suggs to submit a London Grill, but it looks like I’m going to have to satisfy myself with his Love Letters to London on BBC Sounds where he shares his fondest memories of the city with his unique wit, charm and musical highlights from his career, celebrating of what it means to be a true ‘Londoner’.

📖 What I’m Reading

Diamond Street: The Hidden World of Hatton Garden by Rachel Liechtenstein. For six years as an apprentice I worked a stone’s throw from this iconic street, home to diamond workshops, underground vaults, monastic dynasties, subterranean rivers and forgotten palaces, and before reading this book little did I realise what went on behind those unexceptional doors.

📺 What I’m watching

Passport to Freedom. Aracy de Carvalho was a young clerk at the Hamburg Brazilian Consulate. For two years during World War II she secretly issued passports to Jews without the dreaded “J” stamp, which not only wouldn’t allow them to travel but doomed them to the horrors of concentration camps. When newly appointed diplomat, João Guimarães Rosa, arrives the two fall madly in love. Loosely based on a true story, the parallel with today’s Ukraine is obvious. Why the BBC didn’t screen it not so plain, leaving its transmission to the niche Drama Channel. Aracy would later be honoured by the Yad Vashem with the Righteous Among the Nations Award. João would be known as the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century.

❓ What else

One of my earliest memories is of my first year of primary school being given a ‘Coronation’ pen set. The pen’s bodies were deep red with a huge crown on their top. The trouble, in those pre-plastic times, was these heavy metal adornments ruined the balance of the writing implement. Today if I’d have found the now lost pen it could have been used to write in Her Majesty’s book of condolence, that’s if the ink hadn’t dried up and Her Majesty’s crown could be removed from the pen’s top.

A window on My World

August’s monthly musings

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Cab News

When my neighbour surrendered his cab licence, Transport for London wrote thanking him for his service to London and refunding any outstanding licence fee. Roll on post-Covid-19 and when I surrendered my licence some 3 months ago, I find myself still awaiting an acknowledgement. I rang our taxi association and mirth ensued that I should even expect TfL to be working.

🎧 What I’m Listening

Admire him, or despise the man, there’s no ignoring Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. This series by BBC Sounds tells the story, from boy to man to prime minister. In each episode guests who have watched, worked and dealt with him from his early school years at Eton, studying at Oxford University, and later as a journalist, through to his resignation, tell of their interaction with this divisive character.

📖 What I’m Reading

The Mercenary River: A History of London’s Water by Nick Higham is a fascinating account of how, despite incompetence, private-interest greed, double-dealing, political corruption and short-termism, London became the world’s first place in the world to turn reliable piped drinking water supply to the home into a profit-making business.

📺 What I’m watching

I’ve come to the time of my life when TV Drama Channel has an appeal. Spooks a spy drama series that originally aired on BBC One, has wonderfully bizarre visuals, 1970-style split screens and a host of now well-known aspiring actors. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service’s Thames House headquarters. With an absence of cycle lanes on London’s roads and an abundance of Fairway cabs, it’s pure nostalgia.

❓ What else

Who uses paper maps to get around anymore? And what has using sat-nav done to our brains? These were questions posed by Timandra Harkness who teamed up with cabby Robert Lorden in a BBC documentary to scrutinise a technology that we now take for granted. Are sat-navs changing our brains? Does it affect the way we think? And at what cost for our health and well-being, particularly in mental health and early dementia?

A window on My World

July’s monthly musings

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💬 Cab News

You couldn’t make it up: Conservative MP and Minister for London Paul Scully has bemoaned the lack of Uber drivers willing to take him ‘Sarf of the River’ and begrudged paying the metered price by London’s black cabs for taking him the 16 miles to his home. Paul Scully MP’s original post on Twitter said: “Genuinely can’t remember the last time I could find an Uber driver in central London who’s prepared to go south of the river.”

🎧 What I’m Listening

There seems a curious convention among those who travel in the back of a cab. First, the cabbie is asked how long they’ve driven a cab, followed by: “What time you on ’til?” This question is now the title of a podcast by two Northern cabbies, JP and Ryan, who give their opinions, with a humorous twist, on industry news and stories from the past month.

📖 What I’m Reading

According to Caroline Roope’s The History of the London Underground Map, the map or Diagram, as she refers to it in her excellent book, fundamentally lacks key mapping elements such as topography and urban detail, but what it does is encourage a mental map of London, one that exists inside the passenger’s head allowing them to traverse the city, much like London’s cabbies achieve when studying The Knowledge. London’s Underground Map can be found on t-shirts, keyrings, duvet covers, and the app has been downloaded an astonishing 20 million times. After nearly 100 years it remains an icon of British design and ingenuity. Caroline’s book takes you through the history of the Underground and the different variations of this cultural artefact. Fascinating.

📺 What I’m watching

Mark Monroe whose London Grill is featured next month studied musical theatre at the Arts Ed School in Chiswick, becoming a jobbing theatre actor and after picking up a few prestigious roles, he then realised the fragility of treading the boards and undertook The Knowledge. In May 2019 he created Secret London sharing facets of London on his YouTube Channel where he shares a side of London that very few people are aware of.

❓ What else

For some time now I’ve been a top reviewer at Netgalley which offers free book downloads for honest reviews. Top Reviewer sounds like an impressive title but only means that a least three of my book reviews have been featured by a publisher.

A window on My World

June’s monthly musings

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Cab News

I have a confession, as from this month I’ve become a bit of a fraud. Ever since CabbieBlog has been uploading missives, I’ve boasted about being a London cabbie. This month I surrendered my badge and bill, so I can’t claim that again. This has occurred due to health issues, the difficulty with London’s traffic, but mainly Sadiq Khan removing thousands of cabs from the fleet, resulting in an inability to find a vehicle when you want to work part-time.

What I’m Listening

For anyone who has dreamed of becoming a writer (see the last paragraph of this post) Ed Reardon’s Week, was first broadcast on Radio 4 and available to purchase, and is essential listening. Written semi-naturalistically in the style of a radio drama, it concerns the story of a curmudgeonly middle-aged writer described in the show’s publicity material as an ‘author, pipesmoker, consummate fare-dodger and master of the abusive email’. Victor Meldrew is mild-mannered by comparison.

What I’m Reading

Dr Amir Khan: The Doctor Will See You Now is a powerful story and a rare insider account of what goes on behind those surgery doors written during the Covid-19 crisis – hope and heartbreak and everything in between. I’ll never complain about the NHS again.

What I’m watching

During this Platinum Month, I’ve been immersing myself in our Queen’s Jubilee and watching Netflix’s The Crown. My earliest memory of the Coronation was being given a pen and pencil set both with matching crowns in my first year at primary school, it’s a pity I didn’t keep them.

What else

I was expecting my memoir Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion to have been published by now. Now delayed due to my Gmail account not always allowing me to contact eBook Versions who are formatting the manuscript. It’s been a long journey from 23rd October 2018 when I agreed to write my autobiography for PenguinRandom House.

A window on My World

May’s monthly musings

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Cab News (and for everyone)

Rickshaws are one of the banes of London life, not just for cab drivers but just about everyone other than the rickshaw barons who rent out these death traps. They first started to appear in the late 1980s and contrary to common belief they have never competed with us, any journey undertaken in a rickshaw is invariably only for a few hundred yards and is viewed more like a fairground type thrill than a serious travel option. Fast forward over 30 years and Nickie Aitken, MP for Westminster, brought a Private Members Bill to license rickshaws, the proposals would require DBS checks on riders, difficult for a temporary transient workforce; operator licensing for the rickshaw barons – difficult for many of them; a ban on sound systems and electrical assistance; specific safety standards; and most importantly set fares. Rickshaws do very few rides, paying £75 a day to rent a rickshaw necessitates them charging ludicrous prices to the few passengers they get, a fixed fare will stop the rip-offs and, to many, the only incentive. Now a Rickshaw Bill has been featured in the Queen’s Speech for this session of Parliament. About time, it’s only taken my entire working life as a cabbie to regulate this Third World look for London.

What I’m Listening

For anyone of a certain age, as am I, the moon landing was a seminal time of our life. The BBC World Service celebrated its 50th Anniversary with 13 Minutes To The Moon exploring Apollo 11’s mission and the stories of the people behind its success. The podcast features interviews with the pioneers who made Apollo 11 a success and became the UK’s number one podcast. A nostalgic feast.

What I’m Reading

My daughter took our grandson to the Transport Museum and bought me, from their excellent bookshop, Tube Trivia by Andrew Emmerson, filled with fascinating facts about the Underground, such as Embankment Station once had a gramophone with a compressed air amplifier instructing passengers to stand on the right.

What I’m watching

Or not watching. We have a bird box at the end of our garden, and every May we watch the blue tits tend to their brood and see them fledge at the end of the month.
Fledging dates:
27th May 2021
24th May 2020
May 2019 on holiday so didn’t see them go
26th May 2018
This year none.
We have hardly any breed of bird in our garden, sparrows once we had over 50, now 2 or 3. Is this a trend? Global warming or what?

What else

John Ransley at eBook Versions has been patiently helping with my pedantic requirements, formatting and uploading my book to Amazon, both in ebook and printed versions. The whole process is too complicated for this humble cabbie.