Going Home Rank
What may turn out to be the most innovative, yet simple, idea to hit this trade for many a moon arrived on Friday 15 October. It was a wet, cold and thoroughly miserable evening, one that I was pleased not to be involved in. Instead I was at home watching Ashley propose to Claire in Coronation Street’s Rover’s Return – well where else would they do it!
   Later that evening, my phone went and I heard the sweet dulcet ones of the LTDA’s Mr ‘Tout and About’ and my sometimes journalistic sparring partner, Steve McNamara. He explained that the Mayor’s office were funding a going-home rank for Taxi drivers in Cranbourn Street – opposite Mr Ali’s minicab establishment for cars more than ten years old and in the marked-out rank, which of late had been taken over by Pedicabs. Steve was there, as were members of the police, PCO and trade organisations. Could I put a message out, asked Steve?
   As he lets me say whatever I like about him, I could hardly refuse and as I thought the idea was excellent anyway, I was happy to do so.
   Within an hour, the rank was running and drivers were asked which direction they wanted to go and passengers were matched depending on the answer. After midnight, at a time when Mr Ali is at his busiest, passengers were delighted to see "real taxis" on the rank and it seems logical to assume that this rank can only get busier.
   It runs every Friday and Saturday between the hours of 10pm and 3am and will always be Marshalled, so you won’t have to be embarrassed at saying which way you are going because the Marshal will do all that in addition to making sure that you won’t get someone who can’t let go of the lamppost without it falling over!
   We have criticised Ken Livingstone in the past when we felt it necessary, but we congratulate him on this piece of forward thinking. Well done as well to the PCO who braved the cold along with the local constabulary. If it fails, it won’t be Ken’s fault, but ours…

Trade Personalities?
A press release did the rounds recently with the heading: "Taxi trade loses high profile personalities." Call Sign publishes releases that we think are of interest or that are important for those in the Licensed Taxi trade to know about, but I have to admit feeling surprised that some trade papers have published the story. Certainly, it is a legitimate story for the PH mags, but surely not

Licensed Taxi papers?
   It involved Radio Taxis Group former Head of Sales, Martin Cox and their Head of Client Services, Rob Hawkins – someone that no one I have spoken to seems to have heard of. Both have been running Mountview’s car service for the past year and have now left to run their own car service. They then have the effrontery to have a press release issued telling us all how much we miss them!
   According to the anonymous Mr Hawkins, he was surprised to find that the "…grass was as green on the car side as it was on the Taxi side." I’m pleased to hear it! But as for "losing" high profile personalities, I for one expect that we’ll survive…

London Olympics
While I’d love to see the 2012 Olympics taking place in London, the recent victory parade told me what I felt anyway, the interest in the Games isn’t really there. There were many thousands of people watching the event on a beautiful autumn day, but had you taken away the schoolchildren who were given the day off to attend, then the numbers would have been an embarrassment.
   Certainly those who won medals did well and they deserved all the adulation that the newspapers and TV viewers gave them at the time, but it is only a sporting competition and the winners didn’t save anyone’s lives or complete a rescue in space; they just came in the first three places of a competition.
   Then we had the downside that no doubt was a dress rehearsal for London if we get the Games - traffic grinding to a halt. And of course the no-little matter of how we pay for it? Athens put on a great Games, but they lost a fortune on it. Yes, their infrastructure was improved just as London’s would be. But without the Games, that infrastructure would have far more to spend on it and we’d still be better off. How many new stadiums would we need at the end of the event anyway?
   At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the Oz Taxi drivers had a washout when all public transport became free for the Games two-week stint. One Australian driver wrote to Call Sign last year when he heard that we had entered the 2012 race and said that even those who didn’t care about the Olympics still used the free

transport to get around at the time. That could happen here as well…
   I don’t blame Ken Livingstone for pushing London’s case, but as I said at the beginning, I’ve changed my mind as to whether the Olympics are what London needs. Getting into a huge debt for a two-week sporting occasion seems daft. The people of Beijing are really going to kop it when the final cost to China of the 2008 Games comes in.
   There is only one sensible solution. Why not use Athens every four years with all the major countries helping with the cost between them. After all, that’s where the Games started and where they should be held. That makes far more sense…

Goodbye Bill
I rarely use this page for my own non-taxi thoughts, but Saturday 23 October brought the sad news that former ‘Spurs manager Billy Nicholson had died following a prolonged illness. I first started watching Tottenham at the tail end of the Jimmy Anderson era, when his team found life in the old First Division had downs as well as ups. We were just two points away from the relegation positions when Tottenham announced that Bill Nick was to take over.
   I loved football, much to the chagrin of my father who hated it. But he enjoyed dog racing and took me on many Fridays to Hackney Wick where some of the Spurs players would also go to relax. My dad knew those players well and I remember feeling quite shocked when he introduced me to players like Bobby Smith, Tommy Harmer and Alfie Stokes. I got to know them and others on a first-name basis and just fell in love with the club. I became a ‘regular’ at every home game and most of the away games. With the Supporters club, we even travelled with the team to the away matches.
   So Bill’s first game in charge came on that miserable day in 1958. It was at home to Everton and we needed a win to avoid dropping into the relegation zone. We began scoring goals while Billy Nick stayed stone-faced. As we hit our tenth goal, the supporters started believing in the team again. And was the new manager pleased with his 10 – 4 debut match? Like hell he was! His only comment was: "Our defence isn’t too good." Just over two years later and playing the finest one-touch football ever played by a team from the UK, we became the first team this century to win the then "impossible" double. Thanks Bill… RIP

Alan Fisher
callsignmag@aol.com