London Taxis

When my nephew was little he came to visit London from the country village in the Heart of England where my brother and his wife have made their home. It was fun to get together as a big family group to do touristy and kiddy things in London - there was my brother and my sister-in-law, my sister, my mum (who absolutely loves playing Granny), me, my partner and between us, we showed him the town. We took Little Nephew to the Planetarium, the London Zoo, HMS Belfast, the Aquarium, Chinatown, piling into cabs to be whizzed around town in style.

Towards the end of the few days, I asked Little Nephew, “What do you think of London?”

We were in a black cab, circling Trafalgar Square. Little Nephew was around 7 or 8 around that time, looking out of the window at the hoardes of people feeding the pigeons and taking photos. He turned to me and said, “London is a very big village.”

He looked puzzled as we all burst out laughing, teasing my brother and his wife that they were a family of little country mouses.

Sometime later, as they got ready to head out of the big city back to their little village, I asked Little Nephew, “What did you like best of all about your visit to London?”

I wondered if he was going to say that it was pretending to shoot enemy aircraft with the big machine guns on HMS Belfast or watching the pirinha being fed at the Aquarium. Or laughing at the penguins at the Zoo. Or eating the delicous meals in Chinatown.

Without hesitation, he said, “Riding in taxis!”

I have to agree with him there. One of THE best things about London is the black cab.

For most of us Londoners, we usually see the city from underground, squashed in the tube, or from the confines of a bus, jammed against other bodies on our daily commute. We find ourselves beaten down by the drudgery of it all, jostled and assaulted by others’s smells and prickly personal spaces. But when we fork out the cash for a taxi cab ride, for that one special journey, London seems to be re-born anew for us.

Cocooned in our own personal, private space, cosily separated from the hoi-polloi - and even the driver himself/ herself - we can sit back in the cab’s spacious seats and look with refreshed eyes on the beauty of London. I LOVE taking London taxis! I love it that I am seated above the rest of the traffic, I love the panoramic windows, I love the intercom system that allows you to make your conversations private but also, if need be, avoid your having to raise your voice to speak to the driver. I am amazed by the drivers universal knowledge of the city and its back streets - how you don’t need to give them any directions, even to the most obscure part of urban sprawl, and they’ll get you there by the quickest route. Instead of seeing the grungy pavements and feeling invaded by other people, I can gaze up at the city’s historic sites: the National Gallery, Monument, Harrods… And even the less exciting areas like Elephant & Castle, Vauxhall, the Hanger Lane gyratory system - all look interesting and vibrant, instead of dreary and depressing.

If I could afford it, I’d have my own personal black cab waiting for me every morning to take me to work and every evening to convey me home again - and at my beck and call to take me anywhere I please. Sigh. Such is the stuff of dreams…

Photo: thanks to patrick mayon from flickr.com (CCL)