Business News

At the time of the budget, national newspaper, Sunday Business, asked Dial-a-Cab Chairman Brian Rice to comment on what financial changes he would like the Government to implement.
   Alongside other major organisations such as British Steel and British Airways, Brian explained that, providing taxis were exempt, he thought a road pricing policy in London would help ease the Capital’s congestion.
   In addition, he said that more revenue should be spent on public transport and went on to explain why the rising diesel tax was very unfortunate as most diesel vehicles are more fuel-efficient than petrol-driven alternatives and that the high number of people using taxis was a good barometer of economic activity.

Once Again With Blower

With it’s huge readership, the Evening Standard once again showed Dial-a-Cab to be the face of the London cab trade with it’s latest ‘Blower’ cartoon. Combining two stories in his cartoon, Patrick Blower has again shown millions of Londoners that 253 5000 is the cab number to dial.

Grappling with the Media

Taking the Editor back to some of his earlier roots, he was approached by L!VE TV to do an interview that went out in mid-April concerning the state of British wrestling. Taking place at Cabot Square, the price of success took hold when the TV company, at the Editor’s request, tried to film our cabs outside numbers 25 and 1. Cabs were coming and going like blue-tail flies to such a degree that every time we approached the ranks, all the cabs had been pulled off with radio jobs and all that they were left with was a shot of his own cab and logo as he pulled away!
   They say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, however, as the Editor’s appearance came between the L!VE Financial Report read by a buxom, blonde lady who slowly stripped to her undies and an edition of Ladies Topless Darts, we cannot help but wonder!

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

Following last month’s misuse of words and schoolboy howlers, I hope you will find this month’s offering interesting and entertaining.
   I particularly like two notes that parents sent to teachers explaining something about their dear children.
Dear Miss Jones,
Please excuse Sandra being late. She was waiting for the bus at twenty to nine, but came back to use the toilet and missed it.
Dear Miss Jones,
Sorry Alan was away last week, but with all the wet weather, he has had diarrhoea through a hole in his shoe.
How about these beauties - because it really is so easy to make just a simple mistake.
The pope is ‘inflammable’.
Macbeth’s courage failed him at the last ‘minuet’.
Vikings could sail up rivers because they had ‘whores’.
I know that my ‘reindeer’ liveth.
And this famous bit of news from the middle east originally put out by the infallible BBC news department:
"Lesbian forces are moving down from the north towards Israel".
In fact, if you go to the wonderful BBC Experience (attached to Broadcasting House in Portland Place) you can actually hear that last item read out in a news bulletin in their ‘bloopers’ secretion - sorry, that should be ‘bloopers’ section! Easily done, though…!
"For my birthday, I'd like a long sleeved ‘cardinal’ to keep me warm" is another cracker.
Or, "We’ve bought a beautiful three piece suite in ‘stimulated ‘ leather."
And for those who like their leisure, how about:
"There is nothing I like more on a lovely evening like this than a ‘long, cool, John Thomas’.
Most families have problems like this one:
"My niece is going to apply for a divorce because her marriage has never been consumed."
I've got a few more but I'll save them for next time, meanwhile here are a few more meanings of phrases that I've found.
When you say that someone is ‘well heeled’, it doesn’t mean that their shoes are in good repair. It originates from the bad old days when we had cock fighting and steel spurs were attached to the bird’s feet to turn them into killing machines.
And if you are driving your cab ‘hell for leather’ you would think that this had something to do with leather, but no! The original phrase was ‘all of a lather’ meaning fast and furious.
We have all seen magicians on TV using the phrase ‘hocus-pocus’ when they do their tricks, but did you know that it came from a Norse wizard named Ochus Bochus and is just a corruption of his name? Well, you do now!
More next month…

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