The London Blogger Interviews #18: Cabbie Blog

A peek into the life of a London cabbie this week as we catch up with the Cabbie Blog – who unsurprisingly isn’t short of a few opinions on our city!

If you had to describe your blog in less than 15 words how would you do it?
A London Cabbie’s slant on the iconic “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”.

How and why did you start blogging? What about London inspires your blog?
London cabbies spend an unhealthy amount of time on their own, in a space smaller than a telephone box. We have ample time to ruminate on London’s shortcomings . . . and its greatness.
Look, when I first worked in London eighteen years after the war it was still a bombsite. We had started building the modern crap that used to surround St. Paul’s. Now in a more enlightened age we still allow London to be despoiled by the likes of Tower Bridge House built adjacent to a World Heritage Site, just because it’s designed by architects with an international reputation. While only 600 yards away a little gem like Wilton’s Music Hall, the oldest music hall in the world falls into disrepair, Tower Hamlets Council should be ashamed. Sorry rant over, I feel better now.

You’ve had some great celebs in your cab – any good stories to tell about them?
I have a full list on my blog, with a pithy one liner for each. But if you insist; I picked up Tony Blair’s head once from No. 10, pity it was only a bronze bust, I suppose he just wanted to gaze at himself. Last July the Monochrome Man from No. 11 (Alistair Darling) got in; we had a short but incisive discussion about my pension. But I suppose my piece de resistance for dinner party conversation is having Grayson Perry in the cab. Who is Grayson Perry I hear you ask, well for you philistines, he’s a Turner Prize winning potter. Oh! Yes, nearly forgot Grayson Perry is also a transvestite and always dresses on a variation of Alice in Wonderland.

Read the rest on Londonist.