Mini Cabs From HellWe've all taken a dodgy cab in our time. One guy asked me to give him a back-rub in exchange for letting me off the fare. I was like, "here's the cash mate." Another chappy claimed to be Paddy Patel - a child actor from UK TV series Tuckers Luck - he drove like a speed freak and regaled me with stories that "playing a black Irish boy. England wasn't ready for it." So go on - tell us your worst and we'll tell the world.
[edit: for those confused by the term mini-cab, London has two sorts of taxis: highly regulated, licensed and salt-of-the-earth black cabs that you see in films and a whole bunch of unlicensed, uninsured, random cars driven by nutters who aren't supposed to pick up from the street (you have to phone for them). They are universally rubbish]
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rob, Wed 26 May 2004, 21:44)
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Lost in Antalya on the Turkish coastlooking for the museum, we wandered into the "old town".
Houses looked like they'd been there since biblical times. We came around the corner to find a cab parked outside one big wooden house inside which a big argument is going on.
Bloke comes out, slams door, the entire house visibly shakes... but then he notices us looking lost. "MiniCab?"
We mention the museum and he's fine about taking us there, so we get in and sit gingerly on the slashed seats. Note that each seat had been slashed once per cushion, each in the same direction. I think his wife did it. Certainly it was very neat.
Anyway, the cab wasn't the problem, it was more his navigation. He knew where the museum was alright, and he even proceeded to take us directly there.
That was the problem - he took us directly. Ignoring all the niceties such as one way streets or the correct side of a dual carriageway to use. At one point we careered off the wrong side of a divided two lane ring road into a small lane on the left, mounted the bank on the side of the road to narrowly miss a donkey cart coming the other way and dropped back down onto the road proper, all whilst conducting a conversation on British coins which involved him rooting around in his pockets for examples and then turning around to show them to us.
What a nice man he was.
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chthonic, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:18,
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