Taxi Driver Online

So the email has gone trough, proof of that? Well, how about this? "our legal advice is that we cannot accept a renewal application for an expired licence under any circumstances and as your licence expired on 18 May 2010 this means that you will have to apply for a licence as a first applicant." Now, where are the emoticons, quick! I need them!

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

Well, I´m pretty sure by now she decided to sit that one out and on not answering (if I´m wrong I apologise) so I publish this second email from this Thursday now here, currently writing on the third, which will really be quite something, they haven´t seen the end of it!
I wait a few days if there´ll be an answer and if not I will publish the letter here too.


"Dear Madam. Thank you for responding.
As you have declined me what I was hoping for it leaves me now with asking for a compromise.

I mean, it´s just a fact that regulations as they are do not fit for a case like me. I didn´t let the license expire carelessly or because I was no longer interested in the job, but because, although I was still working (!) as a cab-driver, I just simply could not renew it at that time, for a UK-driving license was required. Therefor I shouldn´t even be in the position to beg for an exception, it should indeed be the other way round, whoever is responsible for making such regulations should clearly see that there is a flaw and be happy to make it up to me.

Still, I am ready to make a compromise. Why can´t we have an agreement that suits us both? I would apply as a first-time applicant and follow the exact procedure, which would take 3-4 months and in the mean-time you would allow me to work on a provisional license?

You know I understand your position just as you surely understand mine, so I would be okay with this. Yet if you would not agree even on a compromise and send me away completely empty handed and if this would end up in excluding me completely from working in my job I had trained for a whole year, invested 15000 Euros I had to borrow and passed all tests successfully, I might be inclined to seek legal advice about this if there is a way to sue HCO for discrimination.

Please don´t get me wrong, Madam, I don´t take this in any way personal or would blame you for it, I don´t want to lead this to any resentments on any side, I might really just be happy in the end, if none of this works out, to apply as a first-time applicant again, if I could miraculously get this funded somehow still, yet I am sure you can perfectly understand me, for I have depicted my really dire situation in any detail."

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

Think that will be received like a red hot suppository

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

Well, I´ve tried nice, haven´t I!

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

Moreover, why does it always have to be the small people who get it up the arse?

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

I have received an answer, so I do apologise!

As you realise, we are governed by UK legislation and unfortunately there is no provision in that legislation, or within the council’s Blue Book, to allow us to grant you a provisional licence.

Yet it´s not an answer I am satisfied with, so I will sent my third email today and quite long it is.

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

After careful consideration I have come up with this! The Ultimate Proposal!!!!

"Dear Madam, thank you again for answering and please accept my apologies that I may have assumed too quickly you wouldn´t.

Moreover, I am sure you have looked at this thoroughly and from all sides.

Yet, you see, my point is, whatever regulation there is and there has to be, for good reasons, there always has to be room for an exception to that rule.
What I´m trying to get across with all this is that my case would justify such an exception.

Surely, if this might be something that even you as the superior cannot decide I´d be happy to deal with the authorities that can. I am sure there will be someone who is directly responsible for these regulations and if it is B&H City Council itself, then I will be happy to deal with them, I am convinced, and I don´t want to appear immodest, that this is something they might accept as an exception and I don´t care how much time it takes or what effort, you see, unlike it would be if I´d come over to England I can keep my head above water here and I have always other work in between. (For France is still not in reach soon I could work towards Innsbruck, Austria, perhaps, in between, to get the license there is a small matter compared with Brighton).

If it would not be possible to supply me with a provisional license then I have a further suggestion, because I would be happy not having to ask for an exception out of sheer mercy or even pity with me, yet as an exchange for something I have to offer!

Now, I might very well just submit this offer to you for your own consideration, yet I´d feel much obliged, if this is indeed something which is out of your hands, that you could perhaps name me someone I could send this to or even forward it to this authority yourself, together with the whole correspondence.

It is an offer which would be very generous on my side, the way I am looking at it, for it would involve a tremendous amount of extra work, much more than a new application would involve, yet it could just be a fine way to sort out this issue in a way that would suit us, and even others, both and therefor I would do the sacrifice gladly.

As I have already made clear I don´t see any point in any of the requirements I would have to meet as a first time applicant again, but I do see a point in showing proof of a very profound knowledge, even more, it is something I would take much pleasure in showing to you, because it would be a real challenge for me.

So, to compensate for your generosity, perhaps, by making an exception for me, I would return this favor by demonstrating to you a profound knowledge of B&H roads, as a matter of fact I would have the pleasure to prove that I would be therein the best applicant you´d ever had!

I want to be able to show that my knowledge is so good, that I have a photo-copy of the town-map in my head!

Not only want I be able to answer you all questions in the Theory Test to a hundred percent, in naming which road out of the list is the beginning and end of any road, I want to be capable of drawing a little sketch of the road and it´s adjoining roads, of course not as a piece of art, but still accurate enough!

Of course, if the council or someone else would provide me with a vehicle for the Road Test (as I will not have the means to buy a car like the last time, not even the cheapest one) I would be more than happy to demonstrate my skills in finding the roads behind the wheel, but if not I am offering to go even a step further and demonstrate my capability of finding the shortest way to whichever road you name me from the list, from whichever point in town, blindly, by naming all the roads necessary to pass through or where to turn!

Now you know that this is much more difficult than finding them in reality, for then you would be able to orientate yourself on landmarks and obviously by driving slow enough to spot the road signs, which, I have to give it to the authorities, are quite exemplary signed for in B&H, (even more so if compared with some French towns where they are almost invisible).

Moreover, I would be more than willing to do this in a sort of a contest, thereby helping to motivate drivers to do a good job and be more satisfied with it by triggering their ambition, in Brighton and elsewhere, the more drivers who would want to take part in that contest the better. Now to pimp this up media-wise we could even try to get this on TV in shows like “Wetten, dass” (You Bet!) or anything else suitable. (Though it pretty much looks like Wetten, dass, the most successful TV-show in Europe will not run again, sadly.) Yet, just trying to get on shows like these will get a lot of positive attention for B&H´s standards on knowledge, which should be standard world-wide, I still am happy to emphasize, just as I want to emphasize that annual renewal is, erm, less good.

(Needless to say, of course, my knowledge right now is not up to scratch yet, so I would need time for it and advance notice.)

Yours sincerely, Jochen Lembke

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

Dont forget that you have already done the knowledge and a dsa driving test if required so all you require is your badge renewal

Your word in God´s ear, Skippy.

Well, that approach "I´ve done that already, now gimmie the badge, alright" unfortunately has not worked. So, now this is the "Brain vs Bureaucracy"-approach.

I mean, there´s still enough time to bring out the big guns if even that won´t help.

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

The council are saying, quite rightly, that a person without a license is a person without a license.

The reasons you don't have a license might be genuine, but you still don't have a license.

Therefore as you don't have a license you need to do whatever the council deem fit for you to gain a license.

However I suspect they will not require you to do the DSA is you have a pass certificate.

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IDFIMH

And don´t you ever think this is a German-wise-ass-knows-it-all or even German-against-English-authority thing, I had the most tremendous quarrel with German authorities and even Swiss ones, it´s just in my nature that I don´t accept things without seeing a point! When I was 16 and our headmaster came in our classroom (that guy was an old **** and was really feared) I was still on my chair while the others had long stood up and he asked me do you need an extra invitation and, well, yes, I think I had already well decided to be rebellious in all my life by that age.

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

Look I'm telling you the facts.

If you choose to ignore them then fine.

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IDFIMH

I´m not ignoring facts I´m questioning them.

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)

You're on a loser there Sussex, can't you see whatever you say he's going to shoot it down if it's not within what he feels he's entitled to do, he's already admitted to being a protester by nature and that doesn't ever change, even Stevie Wonder can see if a council says broken service with non renewal periods means re-take test then they mean re-take test.

The title says it all to me, it reads please beg me to drive a Brighton Taxi, or Those nasty licensing officers are making it difficult.

Jochen, let me save you a small fortune mate, the UK is F****D right now, there is no money because the moneygoround cycle has been destroyed my mass immigration and the casting off of British people by penny pincher firms, a British person earning wages spends them to other businesses who in turn spend it back, enter the Immigrant who buys the bare essentials and sends every penny back to their homeland, which is perfectly legal btw but very bad for a good economy let alone a bad one, if you fish the sea day and night constantly eventually there are no more fish in the water to catch, this is what has happened and I don't see it getting any better, and right or wrong I can tell you the not too distant future is not going to be very nice if the now scrapheap kids decide to get their boots on and go find something to kick that they blame, and I know you'll understand that because it's exactly what happend in Germany between 1925 and 1939, now I don't have a problem with EU citizen's moving about, I do however do have a problem with other countries dole queue's moving here and being assigned things I still haven't managed to finish paying for in 30 years, infact the UK now resembles what I predicted over ten years ago when this all started, and before anyone else fancies awarding me the race card, Ian Duncan Smith said almost the same thing recently now the dummies have woken up and realised the long term effect is going to be so bad it will never be recoverable from, anyway, if you want to come back, come back, if they want you to sit another test, sit another test, personally I think you will go OMG on your first night back, it's finished the wells are dry the gold is gone and now the future looks like it will result in another war as the scraps are fought over, just to let you know it took me 10 hours today (Saturday) to gross £70, that by the time I take the £40 expenses out for the day (£4ph for everything) leaves me £3 ph gross, so, get yer ticket and come get yourself stranded in this sh**hole.

So, we´re all doomed, then?

No, Doom, I don´t think that immigrants are the main problem, they only fill the gap shrinking Western population is leaving. Sure, I doubt that German will still be the official language in Germany by then, in 50 years, it rather´d be Turkish. But see, the world is changing so dramatically, there´ll be no Germany and there´ll be no UK anymore by that time, at least I doubt that very much.

The problem with the UK is, it was, other than Germany, too much based on the Anglo-American boom bubble, which has burst now and that English products are not competitive, the finest product UK has to sell is the English language. Yet, protectionism and isolationism will only make things worse though, so, I see the EU as a chance for England, not a thread.

Though, when you look at the present Euro-crisis you will not see the few Euro-countries struggling for the Euro, what you see now already is the world itself struggling for a global currency, as it is clearly visible in being the IMF the ultimate institution to back the whole thing up, not just Europe.

Meanwhile, the real problem nowadays is the global crisis of capitalism, in it´s form of neo-liberalism, which has become a threat for world-economy. Sure, according to the Telegraph Britain has the third biggest budget deficit in Europe. Yet, according to Sunday Times Magazine the thousand wealthiest people in the UK are now worth a third of national debt and Cameron is not going to change this discrepancy, he is only worsening it. Yet he won´t last, he is a political dinosaur.

Societies will not work with such a discrepancy, there is too much friction, so what we can presently watch is the slow restoring of a balance in this system, over the next ten years this discrepancy will level out and we come back to normal again.

Though as it is this decade, where the changes will take place, it will not take place without the disadvantaged actually fighting for what is rightly theirs!

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Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.)