I arrived in at Heathrow yesterday and headed over to the official London taxi stand.
I expected this last bit of my globe-trotting journey to be reasonably run-of-the-mill.
There was an officious looking chap in a high visibility jacket holding some kind of electronic gizmo at the top of the queue. He asked me for my destination.
“Chiswick,” I said, thinking it was rather cool Heathrow Airport had finally implemented some kind of taxi master / wrangler to organise things.
The taxi driver at the top of the queue got out and asked me, “Where to mate?”
“Chiswick,” I said again, whilst the officious chap fiddled with his machine.
“Where in Chiswick?” the taxi driver asked. I gave him the name of the road.
“Where’s that?” he asked.
“Well,” I replied, “I don’t exactly know, but I have it on Google Maps.”
Stupid.
“Yeah, it’s just I’ve been waiting here for quite a while,” the taxi driver continued, “and that’s not a big fare you see.”
I looked at the guy.
I waited for him to say something.
“It’s just, if you actually want to go to Chiswick, I don’t get a ticket right.”
I gave him another stare.
“But if where you want to go is a bit further away, I’ll need to come back and join the end of the queue.”
What a total arse.
Here I am, waiting to give the guy no-doubt ridiculous amounts of money for a short taxi ride and he’s really concerned with losing his spot in the taxi queue.
Total arse.
Once again, a brilliant example of the self-serving couldn’t-give-a-toss-about-you service culture in Britain.
I eventually got out Google Maps, pointed to the exact location and the Taxi Driver jumped with glee.
“See,” he said, thrusting my iPhone at the official with the gizmo, “That means I get a ticket to come back to the front of the queue, right?”
The official nodded.
The taxi driver grinned and walked round and jumped in the front of the cab.
Meanwhile I lifted my own sodding bags into the taxi and we headed off.
Bollocks. Total bollocks.
