I have done it.
Done what? I assume you imagine, wondering vaguely which trivial task has occupied my efforts today. Well, this time wasn’t jolly trivial, I can tell you, this time I was doing something Really Important.
Today was the day of giving evidence to our beloved leaders, who, in their wisdom, have decided that a radical shake-up of all laws relating to taxis and taxi drivers is long overdue.
It jolly well is. They should have done it the moment Uber set a tentative toe on these shores.
Being one of the noisier members of my chosen profession, I was asked to turn up to a Zoom meeting with seven other taxi drivers, including, to my great pleasure, the editor of the trade newspaper which is called something original like Taxi And Private Hire News, I forget exactly, but which I read regularly and revere greatly. Also I trust it very much more than the august Daily Telegraph, which is prone to partiality when it thinks we are not looking, and I trust it even more now that I know the editor thinks exactly what I do.
We were being asked to give evidence to the Transport Committee, who have the unenviable task of sifting through piles and piles of evidence about taxi legislation, taxi drivers, taxi operators, taxi customers, taxi licensing authorities, and Uber, who consider themselves loftily above the reach of all of the rest.
I do not know how they manage to get up and come to work every morning. I think it is gripping, because of being interested in taxis, but I very much doubt that they feel the same.
We gave our evidence. That is to say, it turned into exactly the sort of event that is attended by belligerent noisy taxi drivers with a bee in their bonnet. We all complained loudly and vociferously. At least one driver had a far better grasp of the finer points of taxi legislation than anybody on the committee, and one driver, who had clearly been handpicked to represent Uber, drew everybody’s ire.
I knew he had been handpicked because he was the identical twin of the chap who represented Uber at our local council meeting when they applied to invade the Lake District, and was intrigued to realise that they must have a standard public face, aged about thirty, bearded, slim, well-spoken. Uber on the ground might be a mish-mash of desperate elderly Pakistanis all dressed in jogging pants from Matalan and frantically trying to scrape an impoverished living under Uber’s iron fist, but the public face shown to Authority is white, youthful, sophisticated and articulate.
Anyway, I said my piece. I said a lot of pieces, actually. I went on and on, and once or twice carried on even though the Chairman lady was trying to interrupt, because I knew perfectly well that this would be our only chance to get them to even think about taxis in the Lake District.
I liked the other drivers. There was a kinship there. We had all been doing it for years and years except the Uber chap, who considered himself an expert even though he had only just started.
We all said the same things except him, and we all hinted, politely, well, mostly politely, that he was making it all up, because the committee might have believed him but none of the rest of us did.
The meeting over-ran by about half an hour, and I was unexpectedly exhausted when it had finished. This was partly because I had crawled out of bed at seven to take the dogs over the fells before the meeting started, which was rather splendid, I watched the sun rise and the sky turn from grey to pink to pale blue. I had also started the day with the most colossal headache, which on reflection I thought was probably because I forgot to drink anything at all during yesterday’s activities. Hence I have determinedly reminded myself all day today, have drunk several cups of tea and have to keep diving in and out of the loo.
After the meeting I cleaned the living room, which was disgustingly grubby.
I have still got the dresser to do.
That can be tomorrow’s job.
