Alf Townsend’s London
taxi talk column
The G-20 Shambles in London. The Old Rockers are Coming Back week?” Now I am reduced to telling ‘porkies’
So it’s cost us taxpayers around £20 million – I hear that Spandau Ballet are mates again and and I come up with some miniscule amount that
including some £7 million for the policing, are re-forming after a break of many years and goes into my large pipe every day!
to have the ‘good and the great’ of world
Take That are hitting the road again with their
leaders over here in little ol’ London town
‘new mate’ Robbie Williams. Even Adam Ant But still the inquisition continued. “Do you drink
for a two-and-a half-hour meeting! But
is talking about a comeback – and I thought alcohol?” she snapped. Gawd ‘elp us, I thought;
cynics are already saying that this Summit
he was ‘brown-bread’. Where will it all end, now I’m in dead trouble. “Well”, I replied,
could well have been achieved by using the
what other has-been-groups will be looking for choosing my words as carefully as I could, “I
old-fashioned, tried and tested method of
the gravy train? Please not The Monkees, or, like to have a lager or two while I’m relaxing at
committees. In effect, it was a ‘done deal’
Freddie And The Dreamers, or not even Joe home watching the telly in the evening”. She
before the talks had even started and that
Brown And The Bruvvers! It sounds as though sniffed loudly with a look of total disbelief on her
our £20 million was spent purely on political
they’ve done their dough and are all a bit skint! face and, staring closely at me she said, “Would
spin and stage-managed to promote Gordon
that be one or two lagers, or maybe three or
Brown’s stature as the ‘World’s Chancellor’.
The Annual Cab Medical four?” I thought for a nervous minute before
Okay, so ‘our Gordy’ and all the other world
When you reach my ‘great age’ as a London saying, “Well possibly three- sometimes”. But
cabbie – my ‘three-score years and ten’ have still the grilling continued and she hadn’t even
leaders, made doubly sure they were seen
long gone, you are required by the PCO to have taken my bloody blood pressure so far. “Do you
on the world stage with President Obama.
a medical every year. That’s no big deal if one have those three lagers – or more, every night
One wit remarked that: ‘They looked like
is reasonably fit and healthy – but I do object of the week?” Yet again I was forced to nod
meerkats strutting on their hind legs’. And
having to fork out about a hundred pounds sheepishly like a naughty child who had had
okay, the latest polls show a five point gain
of my own money every time. I’m seriously one cream cake too many! “And spirits, do you
by the Labour Party over the Tories after
considering campaigning for a special OAP have any spirits with these lagers?” she asked
this non-event. But do we poor souls in the
discount on the grounds that we only work knowingly. “Well doc”, I mumbled, “I have to
UK stand to gain any benefits from our £20
half as much as the younger guys and gals, confess that we do sometimes enjoy a small
million investment – or the Trillion Pounds the
therefore we should only pay half as much! So dark rum and coke while we are relaxing”. Even
world leaders have promised to put into the
off I go to attend my annual medical at my local I know the next question. “Would that be just
pot to restore the global economy? I’ve read
group practice. I didn’t recognise the young one small dark rum and coke every night – or
just about every comment from the financial female doctor who entered the room, she was possibly two or three?” she snapped. Again I
experts on this question and the vague one of the new breed, not much older than my was reduced to waffling in an effort to get off
answer is, ‘Maybe not now, but possibly in the eldest grandchild and very bossy and officious. the hook. “How many litres of alcohol do you
foreseeable future’! “Could you please get on the scales?” she think you consume during a one-week period?”
said, in a rather authoritarian voice. “M-mmm”, she enquired, “or putting it simply, how many
I’m not going to have a rant about politicians she muttered in an almost self-satisfied glasses of lager and how many SMALL rum
and the scandal of MPs’ exorbitant claims
manner as she read the scales, “you’re slightly and cokes do you drink every week?” Now
for second homes - and the fact that our
overweight”. Now my problem has always been I know she has got me bang to rights and I
present Home Secretary must be the only
that I can’t keep my mouth shut, especially can’t waffle my way out of it anymore. So, I
Home Secretary in the whole of Parliamentary
when this paragon of virtue gives me some proceeded to do what I always do when I’ve
history to claim expenses for the loan of two
stick. “So what do your kilos translate into old been exposed - I attempt to make a joke out
blue movies! And yes, there is going to be yet
money?’” I enquired rather cheekily. “Just under of the situation. “Well doc”, I said with a really
another investigation by the Parliamentary
thirteen and a half stone”, she replied stonily. soppy grin on my face, “I’ve gotta be honest
watchdog - but guess what, the results won’t
Okay so it would have been quite easy to let the with you and say that after I’ve downed the first
be published until AFTER the next election! My
matter rest, but I am very conscientious about two rum and cokes and the first two lagers, I
main beef is that I can’t get the opportunity of
my weight and I knew from my chart that being lose count because I’m absolutely legless!”
dipping my snout in that trough! But moving
almost six feet tall made ‘just under thirteen But not a hint of a twinkle in those cold, blue
on to more important matters during the G-20
and a half stone’, almost the perfect weight. eyes, instead I was given a stern lecture
So in effect, I was slightly underweight and not about a ‘man of my age risking strokes and
Summit; why can’t all those small shops and
‘slightly overweight’ as she had said. So, I told heart attacks by smoking and drinking’. This
businesses claim for loss of earnings when all
her so! Her deadpan expression was a serious was followed by yet another admonishment
the streets were sealed off for two days? Come
indication that I should have kept my big mouth about my being, ‘one of those people who are
to that, why can’t we London cabbies claim for
shut, because now, she was going to throw the a burden on the National Health Service by
two days’ loss of work – or, in my case, claim
kitchen sink at me. “I see you smoke”, she said, costing them millions of pounds every year with
for the money I lost while playing golf all week?
glancing at the computer. Now I am feeling all the smoking-related diseases’. My day had
Seriously though, some of these young cabbies
really guilty and I go into one of my waffles to started in a happy frame of mind, followed by a
are lumbered with crippling mortgages and
hide my embarrassment. “Yes doctor, but I only pleasant walk through Hampstead Village in the
heavy repayments on their cabs and they need
ever smoke a pipe and I consider that the lesser bright spring sunshine. Now an hour later – and
to work EIGHT days a week to keep their heads
of two evils because I don’t inhale”, I mumbled a hundred pounds lighter, I sidled out of the
above water. So if they couldn’t work for two
somewhat sheepishly. She stared straight group practice feeling like a common criminal
days and it’s the fault of the Government, why through me without a hint of any expression on whose selfish actions of just enjoying life, was
can’t they be compensated? That’s purely a her face – then suddenly barked. “How many possibly endangering the whole structure of the
rhetorical question because there’s no answer! grams of tobacco do you not inhale every NHS. One thing’s for sure sunshine if, even with
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