London Black Taxi Cab Diaries, no 1

I found myself driving around the backstreets away from the main roads dominated by lit taxi lights. I eventually spotted a group of people standing outside the Embassy Club in Old Burlington Street as I drove along Clifford Street. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have bothered as I knew it was one of the clubs that was swarming with minicabs and a marshal (or clipboard Johnny); but it was too quiet not to try. I drove by very slowly and had to double take when I was flagged down by an elderly gent, dressed in what I can only describe as hunting gear and looking like Alan Wicker. Basically the only thing that was missing was a shotgun draped over his arm. What was a man like this doing coming out of the Embassy club? As he came to the window and said ‘Balham please’ I could see he was holding a pipe. When he got in I could immediately smell the strong tobacco; so strong in fact that I thought it was still alight and nearly turned to ask him to put it out. I was a little intimidated by him, and was worried that he might question my route or start telling me which one to take. He had a very stern demeanour, almost like a teacher from the old days, that would rap you over the knuckles when you had been disobedient. I suppose it’s fare to say that the way I drive is sometimes dictated by the passenger I have in the back. I drive quite fast when I have younger more rowdy clients, more carefully when I have older or richer ones, and in between, it depends on my mood. In this case I drove carefully and at regular speeds, and used my no traffic light route through Belgrave Square and Lower Sloane Street. He had told me the name of the road in Balham, and I didn’t know it, but he did tell me it was off Balham Hill. So the first chance I got I had a quick look in the A-Z so at least he didn’t have to tell me the final part. As soon as we stopped outside his house he said to me ‘That was a very good journey driver… and I mean that in the nice way’. Firstly, I greatly appreciated his kind comments, but found it amusing that he had to add the second bit just to confirm he was in fact not being sarcastic; why, I don’t know. Just before I drove off he gave me another compliment ‘that journey usually takes a lot longer’.
Next I picked up a young man with an accent, from Regent Street, and we headed down to Clapham. He told me he worked in one of the big stores in Oxford Street, and I asked him how the economic downturn was affecting his store; apparently it hadn’t. Eventually I found out that he was from Rome, and although he said he loved it very much, he was a little angry and disappointed at how much of a mess the country as a whole was in. I asked if he meant organised crime and corruption, i.e. the ‘The Mafia’, and he replied ‘yes, but there’s more than one, there’s four’. He asked if I had heard about the rubbish problem in Naples, which I had, and he explained that big companies and industry don’t want to pay such high taxes to have their rubbish taken away. What they then do is pay the Mafia a much smaller amount and they come and take it away, but then dump it on the streets. I told him I had heard a news story a couple of months ago, about the arrest of several police officers in Rome, because they had been altering the traffic light sequences. They had raked in about 200 million Euros in fines because the lights were changing quicker; my passenger had strangely not heard about it. Anyway, an interesting journey; and it was good to hear stories about another country that you wouldn’t hear on our news.
One of my last jobs was a short journey featuring 2 young Australian men, who waiting outside the Walkabout on Shaftesbury Avenue. They looked very unkempt and sweaty, as were most of the people who come out of that place. It’s probably one of the few places in the centre that allows people in, who look like they have just slept in their casual clothes in the back of their cars. As soon as they were in the swearing started-

Big guy - “You’re a ****ing idiot, oh man, what the **** is wrong with you”
Smaller guy - “Wait a minute, no, no, I didn’t…”
Big guy – “Shut the **** up, you’re a ****ing ****hole”
Smaller guy – “no listen a minute…”

This went on for a minute or two, then the bigger one, much to the other one’s horror, said to me “hey mate, what do you think of this….?”. But before he could finish, the smaller one started protesting. I assured both of them that what ever it was I couldn’t take sides, because it would be completely unprofessional to give an opinion. I was told the story anyway “We’re best mates yeah, and we have recently become friends with these 3 guys we were out with tonight. This ****** here goes and calls one of them a ****, but he didn’t realise he was standing right behind him”. The smaller one’s protests that he didn’t weren’t convincing, even to me who wasn’t even there. Just before we got to the end of journey the conversation got really surreal –

Big guy – “Look mate, shut up, or I’ll going to punch you in the face”
Small guy – “Okay, do it mate, do it, and I’ll shake your hand”

Just before getting out they both apologised to me for the racket, and handed me my payment – a damp, sweaty, and screwed up £10 note; nice!

Video version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGhbsVPVvNM&feature=channel_page&fmt=18

London Black Taxi Cab Diaries, no 2

I was doing the Dean Street, Soho Square, Greek Street circuit for the 5^th time tonight, but was glad to see an outstretched hand from halfway down Greek Street. It was a young man and woman, but the woman got in alone and asked to go to Earls Court. Immediately after telling me where she was going, she said ‘those bloody minicabs, they are so in your face; thank god you turned up when you did’. ‘Yep’ I replied, ‘they are blatantly touting but are somehow allowed to get away with it’. I continued ‘The funny thing is is that they are not cheaper; many a time I have picked up someone going somewhere that would cost them about £7-10, but before getting in, a tout had quoted them £15-20!’ Touts obviously don’t have all the costs to cover as we do, so why are they giving such high quotes? The next thing I said was a bit of a gamble, as it was something I was ashamed of as a London Black Cab driver – ‘did you hear about the London Taxi Driver who was giving women passengers drugged Champagne?’ She had, and she said she couldn’t believe women had actually been falling for it. She went on to say that she knew the only girl that got away, that just after refusing the drink, she pretended she saw a friend of hers on the corner and asked the cab driver to stop, then legged it. I was impressed – ‘so this girl didn’t just refuse the drink, she knew something was up?’ I asked, ‘oh yeah’ came the proud reply.

Video version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7HcOQY-ax4&feature=channel_page&fmt=18

Landlord and Managing agent problems, and forming your own right to manage.

We have had a problem with overcharging by our managing agent, who has been appointed by the landlord to manage our property. They had charged us for work they hadn't done, and the work they had was sub standard. I took photos as evidence, kept all emails and mail, and then contacted the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) -

http://www.rpts.gov.uk/about_us/lvt.htm

I lodged a complaint with them then filled out the necessary forms to dispute the "reasonableness of service charges". I had to do a lot of paperwork and get all my evidence together, but we won, and had a lot of the charges refunded. The problem was that the managing agent would remain our managing agent, so to get rid of them we decided to form our own company and forcibly remove their control. This is called right to manage. You can either put 'right to manage' into a search engine or go to the people we used, the Leasehold Advice Centre-

http://www.leaseholdadvicecentre.co.uk/?gclid=CLfVhP3-tpkCFQiF3godLCuP4w

They do everything for about £1200, but if you can understand all the legal jargon and be bothered with all the paperwork, you can probably get it all done for a few hundred pounds.

BP and Marks & Spencer garages change mistakes.

Count your change before you leave the premises! you should obviously do this at every shop, but on 3 of the last 4 times I visited an M&S in a BP garage, there have been mistakes with what I have been charged, or change I have been given. I emailed BP direct and they emailed me back to say they would contact area managers to be more careful and accurate.

Gatwick car parking payment machines conspiracy

Was at Gatwick recently north terminal recently, and was angry to find that the car park payment machines had been moved from the inside of the terminal. They are only available from inside the car park which is approximately an extra 30 seconds walk away. This to me is just a a way of creating some more funds. How many people are within that last 30 seconds of the 30 minute payment increase? and now will miss it and have to pay the next payment tier - cha-ching!

Youtube code hack for high quality playback

Do you know the Youtube code for high quality, no?, it's - &fmt=18 - type this into the end of the video URL and not only do you get the high quality option that wasn't there before, but it plays smoother.

Here's a video I made explaining it-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbYSKj7eU6A&fmt=18

For the first time in history

For the first time in history 11 year olds are an authority - computers and the internet. Heard on a BBC podcast.