the cabbies capital

things what you can see near my house

October 15, 2009 by rjcudlip

As a gentle reintroduction back into the blogging world, I thought I’d have a gentle stroll around where I live. With new camera in hand, the camera that is hopefully going to inspire we to share lots more stuff with you all, I didn’t venture further than about half a mile from my house. And this is what I found: signs that the long mooted gas mains work is finally happening further up my road and that they have surveyed outside my house ready to do us. I just hope this Ben character is good at his job.

In the gallery that hopefully follows the rest of this text, you’ll be able to imagine you live near me. Now how exciting must that be for you all. You can turn left out of my front door & see the road works that are slowly working their way down the hill and my house, turn left by the post box and you’ll see the evidence of someone elses excesses from last night. I keep my excesses private and my rubbish in a bin. Rock ‘n’ roll. If you go down the right little footpath on the other side of Rectory Lane you can find hidden away the old clock tower and some random columns, all that is left from St Benedict’s Hospital for the Chronically Ill which closed in 1981. Emerge from the private estate that now bears the name of the old hospital onto Church Lane and you can find the scout hut which also doubles as the Sharona Stage School every Tuesday night. (insert own The Knack joke here) Further down the road and you have Mitre Electrics who prize their alternators so highly that they keep the best ones on view for you in a glass cabinet. Almost next door is Paws, the best charity shop in Tooting but strangely situated in a slightly obscure side road. Then as I make my way home along the main road you have the usual mixture of shops which include Rick’s Cafe the best only proper restaurant in Tooting. And to get back to my house you have to avoid the lure of Tooting Progressive Club (something my Great Uncle failed to do for about 30 years) before finally climbing back up the hill to home.

So there you have it for now. With new camera being kept in the cab, I’m hoping to capture a lot of my city to share with you soon, I already have one half written post that will emerge blinking into the light in the next couple of days. I won’t pretend you’ve missed me too much, but I’ve certainly missed the regular exercise my brain was gettting, so it’s good to be back…..

Posted in Tooting | 2 Comments »

we ♥ Barafundle Bay…..

August 29, 2009 by rjcudlip

Rather then bore you all senseless with endless posts about my holibobs and how the Nokia N97 took such good photos & video, I thought I’d just pick out the best bit of the week. And without doubt it was our day on the beach at Barafundle Bay. The weather was kind and through pure fluke we picked THE best beach to visit. Part of the National Trust property of Stackpole, Barafundle is a beauty and with the right weather you really could be in the Med. It’s a bit of a walk, and here is a bit of video to prove that point; bugger, just realised that you have to upgrade on WordPress to embed video, Barafundle was nice – but not $60 nice – sorry! So here are a couple of photos of the bay instead. Bit of a let down in the end…….but here’s the view on the walk from the car park….

and here’s the view that makes that walk worthwhile……..

and from the sand dunes behind the beach…..

and finally the view from further down the coast but still part of the National Trust estate…..

IMHO then, not much of a let down at all, in fact a pretty spectacular bit of coast. Just goes to prove that if we could just sort out that pesky weather, you’d never have to leave this sceptered isle….

Posted in Holibobs | 11 Comments »

On tour with Cabbies Capital…..

August 27, 2009 by rjcudlip

…….I’ve been out of the country for a little while, on me holibobs. Only a week and “only” to Wales, but is a different country and I really thought I might need my passport. After all, you do pay for the privilige of entering Wales, if you chose to do so by the M4 over the Severn Bridge anyway. But off to Llangwyn Ferry we went and I was equipped with a new toy to play with, a trial N97 courtesy of 1000 Heads and the people involved with WOMWorld & Nokia. This won’t turn into an ad for the N97, I have an iPhone after all. But you will find me mentioning what I do or don’t like about it, and things like how all the photos & video that I took on me holibobs where all taken on the N97. Tell me if I’m boring you all already…..

Back to Wales though. The Cabbie family like Wales, something to do with do Mr & Mrs Cabbie visiting Stout Hall on the Gower Peninsula whilst at Middle School. We’ve done South, North & Mid-Wales but never Pembrokeshire. And now I know why. It’s lovely and, as you see from the photos, has some amazing beaches, but boy is it a long way from London. Almost 7 hours it took us to get to our cottage. 7 hours! Good grief. But despite some dodgy weather, we had a great time and I hope to reflect that over the next few posts by showing off where we went & some of what we did. But having moaned about the time & effort of getting there we did arrive to this view;

(actually taken on my iPhone but don't tell anyone)

and this is where we stayed for the week;

heron cottage - small but perfectly formed.

Posted in Holibobs | Leave a Comment »

rumours of my demise…….

July 31, 2009 by rjcudlip

…..,to paraphrase someone who had a better way with words than me, are vastly over stated. Summer is here (therefore cricket to be watched), family are visiting, beer is being drunk and work (and this blog) are taking a back seat. Normal service will resume shortly. I’m sure you all can’t wait…..but then those of you that are my Twitter friends would have known all that already wouldn’t you? Eh? eh?

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Group Hug!

July 19, 2009 by rjcudlip

As a thanks you to everyone, and because I’m lazy, I have incorporated all your comments on London road names into one easy to read, and write for me, post. Without getting too tearful, it really is hugely gratifying to get such great responses. I highly recommend everyone to have a look through all the comments, with quotes to back up suggestions and links to help explain things further. What a clever and interesting bunch you are. So come on, get in close – group hug!

From Matt - Threadneedle Street & Coldharbour Lane, also Petticoat Lane’s an odd name when you think about it. Matt also supplies a link to a post about Scottish road names in Poplar, and a 1923 book about London road names, which I have been reading online.

From my colleague David Styles over at http://cabbieblog.wordpress.com/ – Little Britain (No Matt Lucas or David Walliams), Bleeding Heart Yard (named after an ancient religious symbol), Crutched Friars (not as rude as it sounds, its an old form of cross), Electric Avenue SW9 (first street with electric light), Ogle Street W1 (place for lechery), Rotten Row (was the first throughfare with light in England), Undershaft (old term for a maypole) and French Ordinary Court (Ordinary is an old English word for eating).

Battersea Dog suggests Petyward in Chelsea and Lavender sweep in Battersea.

Jules, who I suspect is another Battersea resident; “In Battersea there’s a little corner full of references to Afghanistan – Afghan Road, Candahar Road, Khyber Road and Cabul Road. From the fact that the spelling is different to current accepted usage (Kabul, Kandahar etc), I’m guessing that these are fairly old street names, although I have no idea of their history – maybe some link with Britain’s 19th century military exploits in Afghanistan?”

M@ (who I just knew would love this); Endlessly entertaining subject. Hanging Sword Alley, near Fleet Street., Turk’s Head Yard, near Faringdon. Oh, and there’s a Tessa Sanderson Close somewhere in the northern suburbs. Dullest name has to be Avenue Road in St Johns Wood. Bor-ring.

Britt – not content with suggestion a couple of names, gives us chapter & verse on their history.

The one I immediately came to think of was the little narrow Frying Pan Alley, nr Middlesex Street. Always wondered how it got its name , never bothered to check it up. Nicked this explanation from http://www.walksoflondon.co.uk :

“Frying Pan Alley. The frying pan was the emblem once used by braziers and ironmongers. It was the custom for ironmongers to hang a frying pan outside their premises as a means of advertising their business. The number of such businesses in this alley led to its being named Frying Pan Alley.”

Another one which springs to mind is Little Britain.

After first thinking Matt Lucas must live here (not), I’ve now learnt (from http://www.victorianlondon.org.) that it used to be the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. “As London increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to the west, and trade creeping on at their heels, took possession of their deserted abodes. For some time Little Britain became the great mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy and prolific race of booksellers…”

Chris – How about Shooters Hill SE18, Popes Head Alley EC3, and the most strange I think, Trevor Square SW7 so grand yet such an unimaginative name.

darryl853 – Of course, it has to be Ha Ha Road, SE18 – crossing Woolwich Common (next to its ha-has). And, like Snowsfields, single-word names usually make me stop and think. Like Colonnade, WC1, behind Russell Square station.

MartCAFC - There a few crackers, Bleeding Heart Yard, Jockeys Field and not forgetting French Ordinary Court – which is off of Crutched Friars.

James Cousins - Poultry. Why not Poultry Road or Poultry Street? Were hens really that important that Poultry sufficed as a road name? Throgmorton Street. I just love the way sounds (and also spent far too much time and money in a cellar bar there that was blessed with no mobile signal).

I’ve taken the liberty of editing bits out and tidying up other parts, and also put capital letters where they need to be for those that couldn’t be bothered, (that’s you MartCAFC!) but as you can see there’s some jolly interesting stuff, so give yourselves a pat on the back.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

mes amis, je tiens à vous présenter, un répertoire des noms de rues de Londres

July 11, 2009 by rjcudlip

Roughly translated as a few London street names that have taken my fancy over the past few years. Inspired by a punter who wanted to go The Vale of Health in Hampstead yesterday, it jogged my memory that I had wanted to write about some of the stranger and more interesting street names in London. But so precious is my time now that I’m such a media whore, I am going to start the ball rolling today and then hope that you, my adoring public, will rise to the challenge and let me know your favourite LONDON road names. If it takes off, I may even give the directory it’s own page on this site, a rare honour.

So I’m going to start you all off with 10, in no particular order, apart from the one at the top of my list and the reason for my intro de Francais;

Petty France, SW1 – presumably derived from “Petite France” but someone else will have to fill quite why it’s called that.

Vale of Health, NW3 – now, here was a nice Twitter moment (groans all round from non Twitter users and BM who thinks Twitter is for narcissists – moi??), after tweeting that I’d done a job to the Vale of Health, one of my cabbie colleagues gave me the following information about it; “name was changed to disguise the fact that this was once a swampland and tanning pit and quite unsavoury till redeveloped”. There, a cabbie told you, so it must be true.

Newington Butts & Newington Causeway – both quite grand sounding but sadly just part of the concrete jungle that is the Elephant & Castle traffic system.

Snowsfields, SE1 – Close to the entrance to Guy’s Hospital, a really evocative street name I’d say.

Fleur de Lis Street, E1 – another French influence, another very evocative name.

All quite close together in EC3, I can give you; Mincing Lane, sorry but it makes me think of Dick Emery every time I go down it, Seething Lane, Crutched Friars, Rood Lane and last but by no means least, London Street which just got the nod over England’s Lane for sheer arrogance, believing it can speak for the whole city. London Street is, however, such a disappointment, being part of the one way system that takes you past the front entrance to Fenchurch Street Station. But I’d love my address to be No. 1 London Street. Wouldn’t you?

Posted in Loving London, found down the back of London's sofa | 18 Comments »

London loves….

July 6, 2009 by rjcudlip

…..the way people just fall apart……..

Oh my, Friday 3rd July 2009 was some day. A day when I stepped out of my comfort zone and lived to tell the tale. Regular readers of this blog may have picked up on my propensity for over excitement and hyperbole when I talk about London. Well this post has the potential for people to think the same about how I view, and write about, myself. It’s difficult not to show a bit of yourself when you keep a blog. But my focus has always tried to be about stuff, and things, and other people. But my week, and more importantly my day on Friday, have had a potentially profound effect on me. Really. Much as I enjoyed Blur, and they were fantastic, it has precious little to do with them either. This is all about me, me, me and what I did. I’m breaking one of my personal rules and going all self aware and, possibly, a bit self-important on you all. I’ll apologize in advance, you can all start hating me now.

Back in the great Britpop war I was always on the side of Blur. Oasis, to me, were always a bit provincial and Blur had that metropolitan style and not a small amount of substance to back up the air of arrogance. Come on people, Oasis had one and half decent albums then fell off a cliff into Status Quo-esque parody and cliche after cliche. Blur produced one album that truly tapped into a generation (Parklife), then followed it with work that at least showed signs of progression and many moments of true quality. And I haven’t even mentioned the first 2 albums which also contain some great pop moments. Their comeback had sort of passed me by though. I had a similar problem with The Specials this year, did I really want to see these old men be a shadow of their former selves? I thought that I didn’t. But as the gigs got nearer, I was getting 2nd thoughts. Lots of people I knew were talking about going, Twitter was talking about it big time, I even let myself watch a bit of the Glasto coverage. And they didn’t look that different, Damon was back to being THAT Damon, Alex is, er, Alex and Mr Coxon has grown up into Graham Coxon Superstar. Poor old Dave just really gets ignored doesn’t he? But then he always was.

And, after my usual waffling, we get to the main event – last Friday. And what I’m going to talk about isn’t much to do with the gig, it’s really about how I ended up being there and what I also did that day. Writing this blog has lead me down paths I didn’t even know existed. It now appears that it’s starting to change me in ways that I didn’t know I could change. Hopefully, these changes will be for the better, but then I’m not the one to judge that. Those that know me well will soon pull me up if I show signs of over confidence or too much self importance. Having made the decision that I should go I then had to get a ticket, I Tweeted, I Gumtreed, I tried sister-in-law who once shared a house with Dave Rowntree. But nothing quite came off. And while I was doing this, my cab had a fit on Monday and was off the road for a couple of days, I was helping launch @tweetalondoncab (see my last post), I met @paul_clarke to chew the fat on a few ideas and I also did a two hour film shoot with the BBC for a Ukranian TV show. Blimey. If BEM is reading this, I know he isn’t going to believe I could be quite so energetic and pro-active. Then on Friday, still without a ticket for Blur, I took a deep breath and headed for the Tuttle Club, something I really would never have done even a few months ago. But I went, talked to a few people and really enjoyed myself. Finally finding out that my Gumtree contact was basically touting his spare ticket I decided that I’d go anyway and get one from a bone fide tout. And just to clarify, I was going to attend this event with none of my regular mates. I knew a few Twitter contacts were going and was hoping to meet as many of them as possible, but once again I would never previously have thought of heading for something like this without the safety net of a couple of “regular” friends. But head off I did, and tried to play my confident Londoner card with the tout, after returning the ticket he gave me that was for Thursday 2nd July, they eventually supplied me with a “charity” ticket that had clearly been some sort of freebie. But after being sent to every single entrance around the perimeter, I eventually got in (having to make a £10 charity donation in the process) but was rewarded with a guest wristband. And once I was in, I waited to make contact with anyone I might possibly know who was already there. And here’s the real nub of what I’m trying to say, I waited ON MY OWN, had a few drinks in the bar where nice waitresses will bring you more beer when you need it, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I ended up sharing a table WITH STRANGERS and even TALKED TO THOSE STRANGERS. And what could have been better? Not much from where I was sitting, & TALKING TO STRANGERS. What I hadn’t factored in was my phones useless battery and the fact that thousands of people being so close, means minimal phone & data connections. But I managed to hook up with @Britt_W, her lovely daughter Mirjam and Mirjam’s boyfriend. And a good night was had by all. Blur rocked, played exactly the right songs, in pretty much exactly the right order and I even got a cab home. I’ll pass over the fact that he was a very miserable cabbie.

After all that excitement in one week, what I have I learned? Well, Blur are ace, I should go to more gigs, I can talk to all sorts of people about all sorts of things, I can say “yes I enjoyed it” in Ukranian. But more than anything, I learned to do stuff on my own. Not be on my own, not all the time anyway, but be prepared to go a little bit out on a limb and get outside of my comfort zone. It seems that doing that makes you feel a bit better about yourself.

ps, I’ve also bought tickets for The Specials in November. They’d better be bloody good.

Posted in Loving London | 3 Comments »

tweet me, tweet me…..I’m a cab!

July 5, 2009 by rjcudlip

It’s a not every day you can paraphrase Duncan Norvelle is it? But when you run your own blog there are times when you just want to stick two fingers up to the world, and there’s no better way of doing that than invoking a bit of Norvelle.

Those of you that do follow me on Twitter should have seen on Friday that there were more than one mentions in my stream of @tweetalondoncab, which I’ve helped @londontaximan take from his original idea to reality and a launch of the service on Friday. The full details of what tweetalondoncab is all about are here if you click, needless to say it sort of does what it says; send a tweet to book a cab. It’s very early days, and we have only completed a couple of jobs using the service, but we’ve proved it can work and once we make more people aware of what it’s all about we can start getting some regular users. I was at Tuttle when we launched tweetalondoncab, a sort of drop-in centre for roaming social media types, and ended up having some really interesting chats about the potential of an idea like tweetalondoncab. Initially viewed by us, the cabbies, as a one way service where people just send a request that we respond to, the brains at Tuttle quickly saw the greater potential that could happen here. (WARNING; to those not disposed to Twitter, look away now) Rather than it being a one way service, how about if all the people that follow @tweetalondoncab looked out for any requests that might get them home? So if someone in a bar in Mayfair requests a booking for 11pm to go to Tooting, all followers of tweetalondoncab can see that request, and if someone who is also in Mayfair lives near Tooting, they might could contact the person who requested the cab to see if they wouldn’t mind sharing. Then the request could turn into a Tooting via Wandsworth, the driver gets a better fare and the punters get to reduce the cost of getting home. If we could get that side of it going as well, that really would be something pretty (and I make no apology for the word I’m about to use) cool. And then there’s the holy grail of cab driving; a job to take you home. Rarely acheived in my experience, but tweetalondoncab might be able to help with that too. When a driver is ready to go home, there’s nothing to stop him putting a message out saying that he’s soon heading north/south/east or west and is there anyone looking for a cab in that direction? All this is further down the line, we still need to get a head of steam up with ‘normal’ jobs and turn the amazing amount of goodwill we’ve had into work. Watch this space for more news and to see how we get on over the next few weeks & months. I’ve no idea right now if this will really work, but it won’t do us much harm if it doesn’t. In fact, the drivers have already benefited by creating their own little Twitter community , one that can help each other with really useful real time information about where work is, where the worst traffic is and who’s turn it is to get the teas in. That’s got to be good, right?

If you do use Twitter and hadn’t picked up on tweetalondoncab, then please have a look at the website, and think about us next time you need a cab.

Posted in Working Day | 1 Comment »

you can never have enough statues….

July 1, 2009 by rjcudlip

….or, if I was in a Monty Python mood; just one more wafer thin statue.

I’ve included the notes I had to write just now to help myself make sense of what I’d seen and tried to record yesterday; the inordinate number of statues in Parliament Square. Not content with the 7 statues that were already there in the middle of the square, commemorating the great and good of Britain (and elsewhere), it was decided to put Nelson Mandela there as well in 2007. Great to have a statue of Mandela, absolutely no problem with that, but it seems a shame to see him right on the SW edge looking a bit like he’s permanently trying to cross the road. And then you have some other characters floating around the outside of the square looking a little bit uncomfortable, like they’ve arrived at a party where they don’t know anyone. But the full list of those in the inner sanctum (the island in the middle of the square) goes something like this, from the NW corner;

: Winston Churchill – Cigar smoking drunkard who apparently did something for the war effort.

: Welsh wind-bag David Lloyd George

: Jan Christain Smuts – couldn’t look prouder to be there could he?

: Lord Palmerston – aka Edward Stanley

: Lord Derby – anyone want to enlighten me?

: Earl of Beaconsfield, better know as Benjamin Disraeli

: Sir Robert Peel – you all know him right?

: Does this man need a caption?

As I mentioned before, there are more statues in the square, the most prominent of which are hanging around outside Middlesex Guildhall waiting for the big boys to invite them into their gang, desperate for a bit of attention are Gerorge Canning & Abraham Lincoln, see below for photos. And that’s it, lot’s of pictures of statues taken on a beautiful sunny day in London as I wandered around like a tit in a trance while the cab is in the garage. Some more photos from that walk will crop up here soon no doubt. Careful out there in the heatwave, London is on the point of melting don’t you know……..

I want to be famous enough to have a roundabout named after me

Some dusty old colonial

Posted in Cab Rant, Loving London, Useless London | 1 Comment »

places in wot I ‘ave aboded in that there London….

June 26, 2009 by rjcudlip

View Larger Map

…..or how I’m desperate to prove that I’m a proper Londoner. Partly prompted by a “conversation” with Mrs Cabbie over who was the mostest London out of the two of us, which of course I won, I decided to map out where I have lived in our great metropolis. I will need to revisit that “conversation” with Mrs Cabbie properly at some point, as it brought up some interesting questions about what counts as “proper”. Is it being born and/or raised in a London postcode? And do the all parts of the London Boroughs count? Because you can be in a London Borough, but not have a “London” postcode, just look at parts of Brent, Barking & Dagenham, Redbridge, Richmond and pretty much all of Bexley and Bromley. (and despite not really being London, they are the ones I blame for having Boris the Buffoon as Mayor) I feel a long post about this subject brewing and I haven’t even mentioned the weighting that should be given over where you were born over where you have lived. This could get messy.

But back to the main subject for today; places where I have lived in London. And it seems I’ve covered a fair bit of south London, doing that young persons thing of moving from shared houses to first flat with girlfriend, to finally settling down in SW17. If you can be bothered to click on the “View larger map” link at the bottom of the map, you’ll get a better view of my pan-London living and be able to see the list of places I’ve lived, to which I may add some photos and words at some point. Starting in Pimlico, where I was born in Johnson House in 1968, we then went to Beckenham and lived next door to David Bowie before my sojourn in Surrey began, before finally heading back into town from the early 90s onwards. I’m not going to talk in any more detail now, as I plan to revisit the more exciting places I’ve lived (have I mentioned that I lived next door to David Bowie??) over the coming weeks/months/years. But for now, I’ll leave you all with (another) may to peruse and, possibly, enjoy.

Posted in Loving London, Tooting | 7 Comments »

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