Cab with a cob on

Today I had an angry cab driver.  In my old job I tended to get a cab at least once a week, but I do much less travelling with my new job, and that which I do do, I tend to drive.

But today saw a trip to Coventry, and a one-hour train journey, versus a three-hour car journey seemed the more sensible option.  Until, of course the tube strike was announced.  Then it became a Very Silly But Already Paid For Decision.

So I ordered a cab for 7.45, needing to get to Euston at 8.45.  Plenty of time.

Of course, with not a tube running, the traffic was shit.  Actually, scratch that.  The traffic was worse than shit.  If you imagine actual faeces running down the street, that would have been significantly more pleasant than 8.22 on Gray's Inn Road this morning.

Now my cab driver was a minicab driver - meaning we'd agreed a flat fee for the journey of £15 rather than a black cab where the fare would have ticked up by 20p every 48 seconds, meaning that I owed roughly the GDP of a small South American country by 8.32.  This made the cab driver angry.  Very angry.

I will concede there was a lot of traffic.  I will concede that it was frustrating.  But I also realise that when this is the case, most of the time you're better to sit in the queue you're in.  This cab driver had not yet realised this.  So every time there was a queue longer than three cars in front of him, he would tut and do an angry u-turn in the middle of a busy street, at speed.

Every time a traffic report came on the radio, he'd turn the radio up.  It was Magic FM (easy listening that's a bit easy listening even for me).  At the end of the traffic report, he'd uniformly forget to turn the volume down again.  Meaning that by 8.37 The Carpenter's Close To You was being played at a decibel level I bet it's never ever reached in the whole of human history before.

We arrived at the station at exactly 8.43, meaning I missed my train by slightly less than one minute.  London tube strikes - gotta love 'em.