Cabbie
It’s a celebrated fact that London’s cab drivers seem to know everything about everything. Once you’re in that taxi, you can strike up on any topic of conversation with the confidence of knowing that your driver will be the world’s authority on the subject. Well, it’s arguably more entertaining than silence. Some people don’t like such a direct approach. The idea of holding an intelligent and worthwhile conversation with a person who drives around London for a living can seem a little alien. After all, when was the last time you discussed the politics of the middle east with a bus driver, or the bloke on the tub station platform who shouts “mind the doors”? Exactly. But I would argue that there’s nothing wrong with a chatty cabbie.
In all the years I’ve been traversing London by tube or bus, the only things I have learned are the tricks needed to make the journey as short and easy as possible—like which door of which carriage to stand by to get out exactly opposite the exit of the final destination. However, in a cab, there’s no limit to what you can learn. Today, for example, I learnt about the humble London taxi itself. There are three distinct models, you see: the traditional curvy Fairway model, the squared-off Metrocab which looks like the bastard child of a Volvo 240 and an Austin Allegro 1100, and the new TX1 which is kind of the Fairway for the Pepsi generation. Or something. I could go on—I know all about their fuel consumption, reliability records, performance statistics, and production quantities for the last twenty years. Learning is good. I need a bigger brain.