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
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