Sunday, April 23, 2006

The Busy Times

The Busy Times is a publication started by an enterprising individual who started off selling receipt pads to taxi drivers at the entrance to Paddington Station. It's really taken off this last year and a copy can be seen on the dashboard of most taxis. The one in the pictures is a supplement to the main booklet and it lists all the venues in London where somebody may need a cab and the times that events finish. Now, I've managed for 16 years without it but it's very handy to have in the cab if the work is a bit thin on the ground. It also lists train times for all the main line stations, the times theatres turn out in Theatreland, lots of other handy information and also has a warning message to would-be thieves on the back page. The main booklet is £3 and comes out every quarter and the supplement comes out as and when circumstances require.

I spent most of the day ferrying the kids about hither and thither. My daughter spent the day with a school friend in Wembley and my son went to his mates 21st Birthday celebration in Harrow and then into town at Covent Garden.

I got out to work at 10pm (it's getting later and later again) and only did three hours before my son rang to see if I was in the area to pick him up and take him home. In that short time I managed about 10 jobs most of them in the centre.

Smooth Operators

I picked up four Brazillian guys in Chelsea and took them to the trendy Sanderson Hotel. They were in very high spirits and one of them had samba music playing from his mobile phone. They were all singing along and the cab was rocking from side to side. A Mercedes Sports pulled up next to us with 3 beautiful girls in it and the guys started chatting them up whilst we waited in the traffic. I had to smile to myself at all the pick up lines they were using and d'you know what? They worked because they told the girls to follow them to the Sanderson for a drink and some fun and the Mercedes stuck right behind me all the way there. Once there I was paid off and looked on in admiration as these guys reeled in their catch. Good luck to them.

As I said it was a short shift tonight as I collected my son from The Roadhouse in Covent Garden but it was a pleasant evening all the same.

Today is St George's Day, the patron saint of England so Sunday night should be pretty busy in town, hopefully not too many drunks, i'll let you know how it goes.

4 comments:

Paradise Driver said...

Since you don't have an Independence Day or Founders Day celebration in the UK, how would this day rank among your national holidays?

Truckmann said...

Hi Wil
it's not actually a holiday at all just an excuse for a booze up or "piss up" as they say here. Most of our national holidays are on religeous feast days, probably the same in every Christian country the world over. The USA has far more national holidays than most. We don't have Labor Day or Thanksgiving or Columbus Day or the two you mentioned. Do you have Boxing Day? (26th of December) LC.

Truckmann said...

The links: Angie's Blog and This is life on my blogroll belong to two of my sisters and they have commented on St Georges Day, take a peek if you like. LC

Paradise Driver said...

We don't have "Boxing Day" but Canada does. Our biggest non-religious holiday is New Years Eve/New Years Day. July 4th, "Independence Day", is second.

Most of the individual states have some sort of "Founders Day" (it goes by different names) celebration that typically recognizes the date of their admission to the US.

Our BIGGEST non-holiday is Super Bowl Sunday, when the the best teams of the two (American Rules) National Football League (aka: NFL) conferences (AFC & NFC) have their annual game. I know that game is televised globally but is probably just a confusing sport to the rest of the world.

What you call "football" or "futbol" is called "soccer" here and is very popular with our youths (thousands of youth leagues nationwide) but interest seems to wane when they reach their late teens.

Since, by law, there is a separation of church and state, we have few religious holidays. The few we celebrate are more secular than religious.