Zen Minicabbing lesson 88 : if you only look back you will eventually hit something.
The police car you are watching in the mirror is less dangerous than the one that might be in front.
I often used to pick Lulu up, she would say thing like: 'Doing our kind of work you have to work odd hours so that others can enjoy their leisure time' implying that the minicab driver and the singer were both cogs in the entertainment machine.
Zen minicab lesson 99: she may be famous but if you dont get her to the theatre shes fucked.
I was a roving raconteur, the cabby with the savvy, the existential philosopher of the highway the Satre of the Street.
Zen Mini Cabbing Lesson 6: We are all in showbiz and you are often rewarded for a good show. Over the years I have probably performed to a sizeable crowd. How many car loads fill the Hackney Empire?
MentionChevs
I must have been five or six when, while playing outside my house I accidentally ran into a soil pipe. My father explained its purpose to relive the pressure in the sewers and since then I have always tended to notice 'Street Furniture' often missed by people who walk past it everyday.
Londoners miss so much: It was only after years of driving past the law courts in the Strand that I noticed the gold statues on the church next door. For years I would ask people if they knew the purpose of what I later found out to be the tram tunnel by Holborn station. People who passed it everyday had no idea what I was talking about.
Zen Minicabbing lesson 58 : you had better start noticing, cos its
all disappearing.
One night I was driving down The Old Kent Road when I became totally disorientated having stopped at traffic lights next to an open space where the night before a whole row of shops had stood. The builders had some time previously cleared the site leaving only the shop front which they then had demolished and cleared so quickly that it appeared the impossible had been achieved.
Zen Minicabbing lesson 59 : the view through the windscreen is your television, your movie screen and your art gallery. Real action, real landscapes and real romance. I once watched a couple saying goodby to a friend they had spent the evening with and as I waited for a call I heard the boy say to the girl.
'You fancy him dont you, well I only hope he fucks as good as I do'
The girl just smiled and replied 'Almost'
So many roads Ive travelled since then, still looking for my own road to Damascus. I even sometimes cross the water.
In London we have the two sides which in many ways never meet, these being the two sides of the River Thames. While many support the South and believe it will rise again. Blinkered as I am, I cannot see South London as anything other than an annex or afterthought.
Zen Minicabbing Lesson 32: If you live south of the river.....MOVE The best thing to come out of the south is the Blackwall Tunnel.
Being bought up in an area of London that has a tube station you develop, at an early age the opinion that all the places in this life worth visiting are linked by a series of coloured lines, and you would not be totally wrong.
To the child of the North West places like Catford and Sydenham are unsubstantiated myths. You may know that they exist in that large blank space below the Elephant and Castle, but why should you care. It is hard to lose this prejudice in later life once you have actually experienced the South East. If anything the actuality increases the prejudice.
Not only are there no tubes but the South is possessed of a strange attitude that has resulted in the overt display of the hideous and the hiding away of anything less than hideous.
In North London we crown our hilltops with structures such as the awesome Alexandra Palace, or churches such as that on top of Harrow Hill. The planners of the South East however decided to improve the skyline of Forest Hill with a hideous housing estate which dominates the view from the nearby, and poetically named Dog Kennel Hill. A typical SE London vista.
If you are ever unlucky enough to find yourself in the Kingswood estate in Dulwich (Pronounced Dullitch but probably named after a Dull Witch)Then amongst the decaying brick tenements you will stumble across Kingswood House. An interesting stone built castle like building totally hidden away from public view.
'But what about Blackheath' people from the south will always ask? 'One swallow does not make a bowl of soup' I reply. The only reason I can see for someone preferring the south is that they have never lived anywhere else.
They say 'I get lost north of the river'. Well Id be inclined to let them.
Zen Minicabbing Lesson 101: When venturing into strange territory be sure to make a mental note of how to get back. You will never discover your true self if you cant find your way home.
My band the Chevrons was world famous in Harrow, people would stop me in the street and talk to me like an old friend though I had no idea who they were.
People would buy me drinks. They would talk of the times they came back from Chevrons gigs in the van, the late night stops at the Kentucky in Shepherds Bush or the Heston Services. They would recall the camaraderie and the constant quest we undertook to find the answer to certain questions by asking fellow drivers caught in traffic jams: how do snakes fuck and why do Sugar Puffs make your piss smell.
In the late 70s it was the children of the middle classes who took drugs. They would sit in the pub shaking, waiting for their contact and discussing their ambition to become registered.
Well read, articulate students would share the same space at the restaurant at the edge of sanity. As they compared their Lysergic fantasies so the working class kids, obvious in their smart clothes and short hair, would talk of a fair days wedge for a fair days graft, pissing it up in the rub a dub taking no shit from the misses, a bit of agro down the Shed on Saturday, News of the Screws on Sunday and kick about with the nippers. The 80s were to be their decade, they were Thatchers Children and I was on the wrong side.
'Ill be glad to get back to Oz' an Australian tourist confided to her mate on the way out to Heathrow 'At least then I wont have to spend all my time worrying about how the English are gonna raise enough money to preserve all these old churches and things'
When a man is tired of London he is tired of life Sammuel Johnson
When a man is tired of life, he may just as well move to Friern Barnet
Nobby Plumrose
When a man is tired of London and life, he should try Mini Cabbing (he may regain a zest for both).Lesson 19 Zen Mini Cabbing
'You seem to have an interesting story to tell' Phil observed. 'You should maybe write a book'.
Following the split from Margaret I found solace in the word processor. But it slashed my wrists and started feasting on my blood. Writing was therapeutic but I was unleashing too many memories, trying to cram too much data into too small a memory buffer. Overload and system crash. I forgot who I was remembering only who I had been. I forgot to stand up so my legs went to sleep. I couldnt sleep but the writing gave my sleeplessness a purpose. But it also kept me awake.
The word processor opened up a world of possibilities to me that my embarrassment at being unable to spell had steered me away from. I thanked god for the spell checker. It redressed the imbalance caused by the plethora of purposefully miss-spelt information that continually assaults us. The likes of Kwick Fit, Fast Foto, Supa Sava and whatever.
My friend Phil is a man of infinite jest, alas I know him, for it is he who encourages me to write this stuff. He was my contact with the world of letters having had three plays performed, helped launch and edit several magazines and contributed to a Trolls comic.
When I asked him to read through the rough ideas I had assembled to offer to the TV company that had expressed an interest, Phil suggested I turn it into a book. Upon completion he declared 'Zen and the Art of Minicabbing' a success though I remained sceptical.
But it has no story. I pointed out.
No it doesnt need one, its just some stuff that happened, as Homer said. Homer was Phils idea of a philosopher, not that is Homer the Greek poet, but Homer Simpson.
Its a stream of consciousness.
More a ditch. I interrupted. Phil was being expansive though that was my tendency.
Its abstract like a literary Picasso, its primitive like a Lowry its impressionist...like...
Like Bobby Davro.
I do have certain credentials needed for writing a self discovery road book: I have spent longer on the road than Jack Kerouac, Robert Persyg and Thelma and Louise put together.
Zen Minicabbing Lesson 102: If you are a Londoner you are more likely to find the road to self discovery in Euston rather than Houston; on the Motorway rather than the Interstate; in West Central One rather than South Central LA; and in Soho rather than So-Ho.
I once actually drove on part of Route 66 going into Flagstaff Arizona just like in the song, but it has no relevance to this story. I though it was the most romantic road I had driven on, but one night I heard a visiting West Indian say to the lady he was staying with:
You know Cheryl, I find this so romantic.
No. Cheryl replied, You ax me wot romantic is, I tink the drive along the coast road back to Montego Bay in the cool evening air, with the chirping of the crickets and the glow of the fire flies in the bushes and the smell of the blossom on the fruit trees: that is romantic; this is Holloway Road on a wet Wednesday night.
Ah but to me this is romantic. I will remember it fondly when I return to Jamaica. Maybe I will remember it fondly when I finally stop.
Phil once expected me to admire a shirt he had bought for sixty pounds.
'I would never pay sixty pounds for anything that was not electronic or mechanical.' I philosophised. 'If you cant drive it or make music with it then I just dont have space in my life for it'
Having cured myself of many petty addictions including a serious bout of T.V. addiction I became addicted to Mini cabbing and computers.
Zen Minicabbing Lesson 55: Give it up, whatever you unnecessarily do and lose nothing, but gain a valuable freedom. People ask how I gave up smoking to which I usually reply. I started minicabbing and took the opportunity to remove myself from temptation by working long hours and never going into pubs unless doing a pick-up.
I bet youve saved some money. They say in admiration.
Not so as you would notice, I mean, I could not have any less then I do now, but I never have to panic that Im running out or worry cos I dont have the price of a packet of ten.
This however was slightly hypocritical coming from someone totally addicted to his work and so I also offered the following advice:
Zen Minicabbing Lesson 71: Try not to get hooked. I have driven in fog and heavy snow and been parked up for hours in the middle of freezing cold nights. Ive driven psychotic passengers who have scared the shit out of me and racist bigots who have left me fuming. Ive been ambushed by a gang of louts on an estate in New Southgate who forced me to swerve onto a sharp object and wreck a tyre. But... still I cannot face the thought of not doing it!
Zen Minicabbing Lesson107: The drunks you pick up from the local pubs usually hold their drink and are quite safe. The people to watch out for are the 'respectable' looking ones who are inexperienced at drinking. If a passenger asks you to STOP the car, do not ask why, just pull over quick and if they make a mess get them to clean it up. Make sure they wipe away all traces of vomit in order to avoid stains; although generally the best way to avoid Staines is to use the A316 and M3.
'JO JO! You should never have left the bank' Margaret revived her favourite old chestnut (JO JO is a Yoruba verbal exclamation mark signalling annoyance, it is said in a sharp impatient manner)
'And I would now be looking for a job, having been replaced by a machine and having not been part of the real world for eighteen years'
They say pass your exams and you will always have something to fallback on, well all my Olevels, an Alevel in economics and Bankers part one have never been any use whenever I have tried to get a Normal job. Even the bank only required four Olevels; in fact I am sure intelligence is detrimental to progress in the high street banks. No; my advice to the school leaver of the 90s is get a driving licence, a Sierra and an A to Z.
'How is the book going' Margaret asked, sceptical as a misheard infection
'Very well' I bragged, like a T.V. arts show presenter.
'It puzzles me how you think you can write a complete book when you cant even complete a complete sentence'
' Thats because you never let me, and anyway...
' What do you mean, I never let you' She interrupted.
' Well anyway, in the book I will get to finish all my sentences'
' But will anyone understand'
' Well I understand'
' But will anyone else'
' I cant say. Im not anyone else. I think Phil understands'
' No I mean normal people... like me'
' NOT A CHANCE'
Margaret was always with me, I would sometimes almost catch sight of her out of the corner of one eye, arms akimbo, one foot tapping impatiently.
I would imagine her voice disapproving and scalding and though I rarely understand her arguments I am so familiar with them that I can voice her reaction with some accuracy.
'Oh how very very clever' The generic Highgate woman patronised,' 'Tackling the meaning of life using your wife as a metaphor'.
'No my wife is a Nigerian...you are the metaphor'
To understand that you cannot understand something is almost as good
as understanding it.
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