I am dreadfully torn.
I have a problem with my Inner Ethics.
This is the sort of thing that happens to people sometimes, especially if they live in London and listen to Radio Four, and use the earnest phrase ‘incredibly important’ a lot.
The problem is that in the very core of my very soul I am a fervent believer in civil liberties. I am not at all impressed at the restrictive nature of some of the new bat-flu related rules being imposed by our current beloved leaders. These are being determinedly inflicted on us in the name of looking after us properly and making sure that we go to bed early before anything dangerous happens to us. What good mummies and daddies we all have.
The terrible thing is that even though we are earning far less money, I like this ten o’ clock chucking-out-time very much indeed.
Not only does it mean that we can have a splendidly early night, but also our customers are quite different people to the ones we had before bat flu.
They are not at all the dribbling vomiting nuisances that the nightclub eventually used to shovel out at three in the morning. They do not have noses crusty with cocaine, and I have not needed to look at any of them to check that they have not done a wee in their trousers, not for ages.
Also, as one of the drivers pointed out last night, the compulsory masks mean that they can’t start eating pizza and cheesy chips in the back of the taxi when they think you are not looking. This is a huge improvement.
They are couples who have been to restaurants, not noisy stag parties. They are no more than mildly tipsy, and they are visiting hotels, not working in them. I have not picked up an unwashed and incoherent Ukrainian kitchen porter for months.
It all fits in very nicely with a day job of rural broadband and house renovation. Mark can come out and sit on the taxi rank at half past nine, occupy a lucrative hour taking pub customers home, and still go to work the next day. The night is entirely over and the streets dark and deserted by half past ten, which means that we can get home and empty the dogs and still be in bed for midnight.
I can hardly say how much happier this is making our lives. It is very difficult to get out of our bed with any enthusiasm when we have only been in it for four and a half hours.
When we were young taxi drivers there were some crusty old ones, who to our mystification, always gave up and went home at about half past ten.
We never understood this at all, because of course all the cash is to be made after midnight, when the serious drinkers finally stagger out on to the streets.
These drivers were not timid retiring chaps. They were gnarled old taxi drivers with whom you would never dare pick a fight, even though they were in their seventies. They had worked through the era when fisticuffs were far more common than they are now, maybe before the Pill filled the country’s water with female hormones. They were all veterans of many interesting evenings, and one of my acquaintance had had his nose broken so many times that his glasses would no longer stay on it.
They shook their heads sagely and said that they could do without the trouble, and buzzed off home, leaving the high-earning late night youthful high spirits for us.
I know now exactly where they were coming from.
I am sorry to say that I like our current early-bedtime arrangement very much indeed, and am secretly very sorry to learn that the chattering arm of Government, being our elected representatives, are going to try and vote it out.
I suppose it should be voted out really. It is a bit authoritarian and very hard on young people, who ought to be allowed to drink Jaeger Bombs until they throw up if they want to.
I will be sorry to see it go.
The picture is from my walk this morning. In the continued absence of the Peppers we have been ploughing up to the top of the fell in the mornings. I miss having company and a chat but it is ace to feel breathless and exercised.
Roger Poopy’s father disagrees with this.
The picture is a hollow tree which appears to have a bees’ nest in it. I was very pleased to discover it this morning, and like Winnie the Pooh, immediately started contemplating ways in which I might rob them.
I won’t, obviously, because they will need their honey for the winter, and I can always get it in the Co-op.
All the same, it is good to know it is there. You never know when the world might come to an end.
