Taxi Times

There has been many a time where a taxi driver has over charged me because of the situation I was in. This is not the case of all taxi drivers, but I do recall standing outside Waitrose around 2am bartering with them as they asked for a premium payment to take me home at that moment or wait 3 hours when it’s all calmed down. When it’s freezing and you’re starving, twenty pound seems a small price to pay to get back.


This encounter however, left me confused and also challenged these previous experiences I’ve had. I booked a taxi from outside the library on a Sunday evening when it arrived with a screech as it zoomed around the corner.


“Yes bruvva, how you doing?” He said as I got in.


“Yeah, not bad, thanks” I replied whilst thinking, should I bother going through the cliché questions of what time did he start work, what time will he finish work and how well he knows the roads round these parts.


“So you been in the library, man you must be studying hard. Economics?”


“Huh? Erm, no. I’ve been out and I was planning to walk home but I got tired” I told him. I noticed he had a massive grin on his face as he bobbed his head back and forth.


“Wow, you are a studier. Me, I mean, economics, man, that’s difficult. But do you like it?”


I didn’t know what to say, I wasn’t sure if he didn’t care what I said or had no comprehension of my replies.


“So what you say, economics is hard for me?”


“Erm, nah, I think you could do economics well.”


“Ah wicked.” This was then followed by a laugh that resembled me of Mutley from Whacky Racers.


Now I was sniggering to myself because of Mutley. We went past three consecutive roundabouts in silence until he asked me another question.


“So is macroeconomics harder than microeconomics, my man?”


He shuffled a bit and I noticed he was wearing Adidas tracksuit bottoms with sandals; this guy was a right character.


“To be honest, I don’t know. I reckon you should visit an adult education website to help you, or something. It seems you really like economics.”


“Yeah, yeah that seems a really good idea.”


We pulled up at my destination, and he gave another Mutley laugh before charging me £3.50. I pulled out a ten pound note and he shook his head.


“Ah man, you ain’t got anything smaller?”


I opened the little compartment in my wallet and tipped out £1.73 in change.


“Ok, ok, ok, that’ll do. Superb,” he said whist scooping up the change.


I got out, said goodbye and felt a bit unsure of what had just happened. He drove away, I swear I heard one more Mutley laugh as he zoomed off, and I thought this was the first time I had paid less for my journey. However, what really freaked me out was that he took me to my location without me saying anything.


Weird.

Yelland's Tale

I read this.

This article made me stop and think about things for a little while.

I was intrigued to read that in order to fully operate functionally in his job, he had to be influenced by alcohol. He identified something I have long considered plausible, that the relationship between success and addiction is so so close. Could it be that the addict will strive to do anything in order to satisfy their addiction?  Skill, wit, cunning, deception, cheating, lying, determination are all part of the addict’s repertoire to get their fix and practicing them on a daily basis only makes it easier to transfer them to other means, such as a career. We all have the means to use some cunning now and then or lie, but I don’t think I could do it so well compared to someone who has focussed motivation. When people watching I sometimes try and find characteristics to try and work out what they really want. Not in the sense that they have a hidden agenda but maybe because they do not know themselves or are having trouble to express it. When I encounter those with addictive personalities they always seem to be able to influence me through some means of hi-jinx, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad but either way they are infectious individuals.

Yelland’s ambition to prove himself and reading that he had done it appealed to me. I liked that because I want to prove myself, don’t we all? Sometimes, I feel I’m getting closer and some days, I admit, I’m really decades away, but I love reading about people who have done it. It’s always interesting to discover their journey of how they got to the point in their lives where they’re now sitting in front of a keyboard, in Bournemouth, tapping away their tale.  

Everything seemed to change for him when he realised who his real parents were. All those years of training and conditioning the mind in a certain way fell by the wayside once he realised who he was. Turning against The Sun’s overall agenda in order to push his own personal one takes some serious balls in my opinion, slowly altering the newspaper’s stance to protect and help those whom he probably wouldn’t have had he not discovered who he was. I wonder when was the turning point in his life, was it during a sober moment in a cab back from the office or finding some poignant clarity when inebriated during a night out.  

This article blew me away and will probably only raise an eyebrow for you. I’m none the wiser why specifically but am more so generally. I just find this guy interesting, although it seems that although his addiction fuelled his career, where they worked in tandem to maintain it all, his alcoholism began killing the very thing that matters in life, the ones he loved.

It’s also a reminder to me that periodicals still very much have a place, despite what I thought a few months back. There’s no way I would have stumbled across this on the web.

When They Were Rubbish

So the other day whilst getting increasingly frustrated about Spanish grammar, and my inability to understand the rules competently - I’ve got problems with understanding when to apply the perfect subjunctive as opposed to the subjunctive. I thought about how this was never a problem for Jose Pablo, but then concluded that he’s Spanish so why would he ever have had a problem, well maybe when he was seven and couldn’t pronounce ‘¿estas bien?’ So increasingly feeling crap about myself I made a ginger tea and let my mind go a bit wild. By this I mean, I began thinking about well known people and the problems they might of faced.

First off, Pablo Picasso must have been rubbish at painting once. Maybe when he was about twelve and drew something at school and the teacher just snorted in disgust at what was later to be known as cubism. As a result he went home and smashed up all his brushes and cried. Only to realise a few days later that he wanted to continue painting and wanted to create something that would show everyone that he what he produces is extraordinary pieces of art.

Or maybe when Roald Dahl thought he’d finally nailed a short story he had been writing for homework, only for the teacher to castigate him for not knowing where to apply the past-participle. This left Roald spending hours upon hours trying to memorise what this grammatical rule is and where to apply it. Instead of it just clicking he was left feeling annoyed and frustrated. So much so that he perhaps thought that writing wasn’t for him and it was better to instead try and focus his brain on something else, like fly fishing.

Perhaps Lionel Messi thought he’d never be a footballer when he tried to take the ball around bigger and stronger defender only to find himself flattened by a challenge more frequently seen at an NFL game. For a while he probably thought he’d never be able to get past players who were physically taller and stronger than him, and so he considered quitting and turning his attentions to something else. That was until he worked on his skill base and soon realised that he had the ability to ghost past defenders as if they weren’t there and when roughly tackled, was able to grow in strength to sustain those types of challenges.

Hmm, I guess I have used this entry to make realise that pretty much everyone, even those that became brilliant, have had set backs (well in my mind, I think they did), so I’m going to give myself a rest from trying to memorise stuff which at the moment is just not registering, and come back later when I’m not so annoyed at myself. I guess, sometimes I want to understand and remember something quickly when, to be honest, it actually takes me a while to fully take it in.

In other news, I met up with an ol’ pal named Ricky Rickatson (aka Jack Thursby and occasional visitor to this blog)a few weeks ago. It was good to catch up and also to see he still maintains his active enthusiasm for imported American confectionary, ‘fancy a sour Skittle?’

Disclaimer: All examples above are just a figment of my imagination and did not occur, and if they did, well, that’s just coincidence. Honest!