Have you walked down the eastern end of Oxford Street recently? How do those emporiums selling ‘tourist’ crap survive? Usually empty of customers, they are purveyors of low-margin stock from high-rent retail spaces to, judging from the routine absence of punters, an indifferent public. I’m afraid there can only be one answer: money laundering.

Knowledge numbers are down 95 per cent from their halcyon days. Is anyone surprised? Back in the 1960s and 70s, it took on average 9 to 12 months to complete The Knowledge. Move into the 1980s and 18 months was average. Learn the first 5 pages on blue book apply for your first 56 appearance, no idiotic map test, no silly redlines, no stupid turnarounds in the back end of Hackney, Highgate or Herne Hill.

I’m 100 per cent convinced The Knowledge has been purposely made much harder which has led to a massive drop of candidates.

Throw in private hire, ply for hire apps and London grinding to a halt with reductions in road widths, and who will bother doing The Knowledge? And just to make absolutely sure force us into a £70,000 cab.

I’m expecting the usual nonsense about it will mean lowering standards if The Knowledge is made quicker, and the crap about learning 20,000 obscure silly points necessary.

Ask yourselves are you a better cab driver having just completed The Knowledge recently, than me or someone older who has done it in less than 12 months.

Remember they want us gone that’s why it takes years the pass The Knowledge, if it’s not reformed and quick we will be in gone and London’s taxis will be like every other city.

When did it become necessary for us to abbreviate everything in our lives? I’ve been pondering the situation since undertaking a series of medical tests: MRI, A&E, ECG and ENT, you name it, there’s an acronym or abbreviation for it.

Everywhere you look there’s another. Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, Transport for London is TfL and the Metropolitan Police is just the Met. The BBC’s excellent Line of Duty is littered with them. I’m sure there are dozens of other examples, and I just don’t know why.

Are we supposed to be saving seconds of our valuable time by just voicing the letters? I assume that they feel they are so familiar that they don’t need to have the words said to be identifiable.

I’ll admit that I am old-fashioned. I don’t care for change. I’d be happy to say the words, and most days I have the time.

Inow have a Cockney laptop, every time I press the H on the keyboard nothing registers. So you’ll have to excuse the rather bad diction, until I can get out of the ‘ouse to buy a replacement.

I had to replace the porch as the double glazed windows had blown and the door leaked. The replacement showed the outside light, which only worked during nighttime to be shabby. You cannot now buy a light which turns on and off according to the light levels. I now have to use a mechanical timer. Saves the planet I suppose.