I do wish that I could shake the feeling that it ought to be Sunday.
No matter how I try, the day has a definite Sunday feeling to it, caused, of course, by the late night which was the inevitable consequence of the nightclub opening last night.
Intoxicated nightclubbers are only a feature of Saturday nights these days. When I first started driving a taxi, back hundreds of years ago, in the days when I truly believed that one day I would get a real job eventually, the nightclub was open every night. It was a real nightclub. You had got to be a member, and you had got to be older than twenty one. If you wanted to get in there were all sorts of shenanigans about telephoning in advance to announce your imminent arrival. Usually this was followed by arguing with the door staff that you really had telephoned, even though Raf, who was the manager back in those days, and who once passed out on the steps at the end of the night with the takings in a bag under his jacket, had forgotten to put your name on the List.
They sold pies as well, which was a condition of their licence to give the place a veneer of respectability. This did not help with the problem of customers being inclined to vomit in taxis, usually after the consumption of a great deal of beer and a couple of week-old pork pies that had been kept warm on a heated glass shelf all night, and quite possibly for the couple of nights previously.
There was another nightclub as well, about two hundred yards away. Drunk people used to get taxis between them, which only cost them three quid then, and which was a very handy money-spinner.
It was thirty years ago.
Somehow I never quite got round to the real job.
So another New Year, and I think I can resign myself to the fact that I probably won’t get round to it this year either, so probably I can make a reasonable guess about the likely events of 2026. There will probably be a lot of reading books on the taxi rank, several blank-faced moments gazing gloomily at a smoking and defunct engine, and occasional celebratory counting of cash.
I am quite looking forward to it, actually. I do like getting old. I have got some friends who were in my class at school who have retired already, and whilst I know that they are having a splendid time, I can’t even begin to imagine it. I haven’t worked very much over Christmas, and I was decidedly twitchy by Monday, even though we hadn’t actually spent all our money. Somehow it has turned out that taxi driving was exactly the right career for me. I am currently in touch with quite a few taxi drivers in other parts of the country, and I am blown away by how exceptionally well-read and clever some of them are. They are such interesting company, what a brilliant career this is.
If you are an unemployable weirdo, step on board, it could be the vocation for you.
I haven’t made any New Year Resolutions. They never end well. Either I don’t manage to keep them, or I do, which is considerably worse, and lands me with tiresome chores that I have been avoiding for a very good reason, like cleaning the bathroom or getting thinner.
If I had a wish for 2026 it would probably be not to die. I am getting to the age where it is worth keeping an eye on that sort of possibility, and there are so many things I am really enjoying that it would be a shame to be booted out before I had had enough.
I want to build the camper van. I want to paint pictures on it. If I am to make a Resolution it could be that, to find time to take the camper van to the shed in the springtime, and to sit placidly on a heap of tyres, painting pictures in the sunshine.
That is going to be wonderful. I will make that happen, and I will write a story as well.
Also I will try not to die. I will let you know if I succeed.
2026 is going to be splendid.
