Of course a night off has to be paid for and I’ve spent most of today sat in my cab trying to make up for it. I knew it was going to be a long day so I tried to pace myself with regular refreshment stops including Prêt a Manger in Finsbury Pavement, Burger King in Old Brompton Road and just an hour and a half ago in Tesco’s at Gloucester Road.
It was while I was sitting in the cab eating my salt beef sandwich from Prêt a Manger that I noticed this telephone box.
I took an interest in the advertising and slowly it dawned on me what the picture was of.
The £80 is fashioned out of vomit. The more I looked at it whilst eating my sandwich the queasier I became and I wouldn’t consider myself that type of person. I can generally stand the site of anything revolting but on this occasion it definitely got to me and I tried not to look anymore.
I had to do a spot of DIY on the cab earlier. One of the indicators stopped working. I naturally assumed it was a bulb so I unscrewed the front off-side indicator lens and attempted to remove the bulb. The whole of the bulb came away from the stem. Luckily I had some pliers and managed to fiddle with it until the stem came out. It looked badly corroded like it had been in there a long long time. I replaced the bulb, tried it and nothing. I decided to leave it till I visit the garage tomorrow but when I screwed the lens back on it started working. When I took it off again it stopped. I ran a new earth wire from the bulb to the cab body and managed to complete the shift with a working indicator. Just as I was pulling on to my drive it decided to pack up again. I’ll get them to have a look at it at my garage tomorrow or later today.
The only thing of note that has happened since my last post happened about three nights ago. I was driving through Peckham, not a very nice neighbourhood, on my way back in to town, my “For Hire” light off and all the doors locked when I noticed a lady cycling along in the opposite direction. She had a typical woman’s bike with a basket on the back and she had a helmet on and reflective strips taped to her ankles and elbows and flashing lights to be safe and to be seen. And she was seen. By a young lad from the council estate she was riding past. I say all this after the event because at the time I never knew what was happening. This young lad started chasing after her but you couldn’t hear a sound from his footwear. He caught up with her an lifted her handbag deftly out of the basket behind her and ran off into the estate. She must have noticed the weight difference or something because she looked round and immediately seemed to know what had happened. I thought she would probably shout for help or scream “Thief!!!” or something similar but she did none of those things and instead she spun the bike round and followed the robber into the council estate. Brave? Or just stupid? I’ll never know because I drove off before someone decided to target me and relieve me of my hard earned takings.
Finally, if you think that by ignoring parking tickets they’re gonna go away think again.
The reminder I got in the post this morning was for a ticket I got in December. I got it fair and square so no complaints there. It went from £50 to £100 and then to £150. At this point I thought I would ignore it totally and for eight months I thought I’d got away with it until this landed on my doormat. I should be glad they’ve only added a fiver costs. I have 21 days to pay it so by 27th August it will be paid in full but it will be painfull.
14 comments:
Silly billy LC - you know the law always catches up to you in the end - especially when it involves a parking ticket!! Bad luck!!
I've decided I won't put myself through any more torture by standing with the home fans. The whole point is to enjoy the game and release your feelings by singing and shouting. Leeds fans are one of only a few that require a membership card to buy tickets for away games and I never bothered getting it this season as I generally only ever manage to see one or two away games per season. I much prefer to go to Elland Road with my son as it's a great day out.
We are playing Leeds on Sunday.
I will be there but cheering on Palace.
I have sat with the home fans (non Palace) only twice before and it's horrible. Rather not be there. At least you can watch this on the box.
All the best,
How badly are your airports screwed up after yesterday's incident?
The new rules here are now disallowing any carry-on luggage and no liquids of any kind (excepting baby formula).
With the delays at the security check points, its about a three hour wait to get to the loading gates.
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That cab you are driving is sure having a lot of problems with its electrical system. Sure hope you get a newer one soon.
Where I was a cop, if the vehicle was being driven by an employee, or a lessor, then we would issue the citation for mechanical defects to the owner of the vehicle rather than to the driver. If the defects were serious enough to warrant it, we would tow and impound the vehicle. Only the owner could retrieve it from the impound garage. Minor defects were allowed to continue on with a requirement to have the defect corrected within 15 days and it had to be inspected by a police officer for certification of compliance. Minor defects corrected within that 15 day period would not be assessed a monetary fine. If the owner failed to correct the defect, then a hold was placed on the vehicle's registration renewal and appropriate fines were then levied.
parking ticket, why did you not pay the original £50.00 fine?
now it is triple.
As you would expect the airports were bad yesterday but they'll soon be back to normal.
Why didn't I pay the original £50 fine?
Stupidity on my part.
Help out an ignorant American. I know UK advertising is miles ahead of ours, and often exists on multiple levels - but that wasn't actual vomit, was it? That would be very time consuming and disgusting work to install those ads. My stomach is turning just thinking about it.
Wow! ugly sign.
Anonymous American: Of course it was real vomit. They're creating jobs - someone has to vomit and someone else has to collect and then someone has to apply it to the phone booths. It's brilliant, really. We should do that in the States. I'm going to write my congressman immediately.
PS: Enjoying your blog, Cabby :)
I'm actually planning to do the knowlege in sept/nov once i get a mo ped. I'm currently working in the passport office so i see you guys in the taxi rank behind victoria station all the time. After handing the odd taxi driver his passport and sending him off on holiday and them telling me how much money can be made ( if you up for working your ass off ) i've decided to ditch the goverment and chase the dream.
I just hope by the time i grow an extra brain and learn that knowlege the game not up and the trade is ruined if not runied already
Its one of those things, i hate that knowlege for being so hard, but understand if it was so easy
easy, their would be a million cabbies trying to get a job at the passport office.
whats your take on the futire of the trade, would u advise any of your sons to do it if they asked for you adivce
If I had my time over I'd give cab driving a wide berth. It's hard work, there are no perks, no paid holidays and there's always some twat in the back complaining about something. The future is bleak for a few reasons. It won't be long before licences are lost for the most trivial things due to the amount of enforcement and cameras that are out there. We will probably price ourself out of the market. Prospective cabbies will get wind of what a crap job it is and won't apply to go on the knowledge.
I have already advised one of my sons not to do it.
take it you dont like pushing a cab round london!!
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