Taxi Driver Online

PMSL

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci40ae8BlcE

Nuff said.

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IDFIMH

Just put me up next time, Sussex, I´m fun to be with. Only don´t mind me being dressed in a Mohandas K. Gandhi costume and spending every other night in prison. Hahahah!

PS: I´ve been past the Amex-Stadium quite a few times on my way to Lewes and back.

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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.)

So, while I am still sick and then soon be writing on my "revolutionary manifest", that will shake the ground and wipe away all injustice and ignorant arrogance an the side of the council (only to be replaced soon by the injustice and ignorant arrogance on the side of the revolutionaries), meanwhile, here´s some light entertainment, as first published on DAC (Douglas Adams Continuum):

A little essay on why I will insult the English!
(Satire, not to be taken seriously. Or... is it?)


"It is sure good to be English.
Is is not?
I mean, God, if there is a God, must be English. Why?
Well, is has to be, given the fact that you rule the world?
Dominate the world?

What´s this you say, you´re not so sure, the quality of German products and their position in the market, no one wants English products, we are in a recession and all we have to answer to this is sodding Cameron...blabla, this and this, yeah, always complaining like true Englishmen.
But don´t you see?
This is the point!
This is what is left over for us, the land of the poets and thinkers, we now build cars for the English snobs! While they sit on their armchairs, smoke their pipes, read the Times, being generally smug about everything!

We have entirely given up our own culture our own language, while we suck up eagerly everything that is English! Read everything that is English, listen to everything that is English! Watch everything in English, buy everything in English, so that the English can lean back and watch how every little whining noise someone (English) makes is turned into a world-selling hit record, every little pubescent thought someone (English) put on paper becomes a word-selling novel, every little pathetic flick (with a little the help of the overseas colonies, of course) … is turned into an Oscar-winning major movie, as long as it is in English language, verdammt! Sorry, damn.

Look at my miserable life!
Just because I am an artist who wasn´t born with the right language!
I´ve worked for 10 years like a slave and lived like a bum, the girl I love doesn´t even tell me to sod off, she doesn´t speak with me at all, I have piled up debts half of the UK´s deficit – I can do what I want, no one wants to know anything of me!

While all the while, when my ancestors would not have been such douche-bags (I mean, what´s conquering half the world, the English did it!) I could have been not only be a successful artist, I could have been an important Nazi-viceroy, ruling over half of Siberia, commanding a harem of obliging female Russian slaves, now, how about that?

The best advice to give to a German writer nowadays is to learn English. Write in English.
The best advice to a German singer is to learn English. Sing in English. The best advice to give to a German actor is... well, you get the point.

You don´t want to do this? You think you can be a proud Kraut? Stick to you language, stick to your culture? Sure, if you are an actor there´s always little fringe-shows and there ´s always little weird awards to win no one has hardly ever heard about, but best is you get a vocational training in the field of the car-industry. Well, if you are a singer you can always earn a living having gigs in dodgy pubs, if you a writer, my, you can put some shine on family gatherings, when reading to them from your newest unpublished novel, but best is become an engineer and build cars for the English, then you can do the cultural stuff as a hobby.
For the English love their “Mercaides”, love their “Be-Em-Doubleyou, love their “Oddi”.

But if a bunch of foul-mouthed drug addicts, who can play three cords and do a lot of noise (as long as it is somehow verbalised in English) you can call this the Rolling Stones and make it a whole goddamn industry branch out of it.
Same goes for the rest.
Yeah, money for nothing, chicks for free, haha, that only goes for English artists, but we built these refrigerators, we built these colour tv´s...

See, the worst is, you have gotten us so deeply colonised and deprived of our own identity that you made people like me actually love what they do to, out of sheer need!
I love England, I love English culture and language, I am about to give up, what has made originally me, I love England, I am good German, who feels guilty about the war, who feels sorry about the **** crimes and who earns [edited by admin] as a writer!

But here comes the funny thing, now, see what brought me this currying favour with the English, working my back of with English language, practicing a flawless th, till my tongue hurt (actually to that extent that it alienated me from my own language, which appears to me now like trying to talk with a potato in your mouth...)

I have written a sixth volume for the deceased author´s Douglas Adams original book the Hitch-Hiker´s Guide to the Galaxy, which is brilliant, which by far the best sixth volume ever written, so much degrading the book that was in the end chosen to be the official version of a sixth volume to a mere children´s book!
I was not authorised!
I was not even considered!
More, I was not even talked to! (Alright, after some heavy insulting on my part I got insulted back, sure.)

It´s not that the Hitch-Hiker is so holy an English relic anymore these days, it´s become quite international (I mean, in a colonial, always empire-like style, obviously), it has been translated in almost any language there is, to begin with (in German for a second time by my humble self), the agent who is so vigorously defending the purity of it, Ed Victor, is actually an American from the Bronx, (making it look like a personal affair that I will not be authorised as long he holds the rights who has criticized him too many times, by the way), the authorised author is not a Kraut, but an Irish Mick (who made his island so ashamed, when the book was finished, that it sank half a meter deeper into the ocean bed-rock, yes, that there even is now an open and frank discussion in Ireland if those incompetent writer-riff-raffs should still go on tax-free or if they should not, now in dire times, pay double taxes!).

When I turned my outstanding taxi-world-record in, “most countries as a licensed cab-driver”, and, oh, believe me, this is so much more work than to just bake the biggest cake ever (and later donate it to charity for it tastes like straw) at the Guinness Book, they just ignored it, they wrote to me that they have so many other submissions. I have done the license and driven a cab in three different countries and they turned me down, why, if there would be any Englishman being actually able to they would give him an Nobel-prize for just being able to speak a foreign language, but unfortunately no one does. (There was one last century, but just before they could stick a medal onto his breast they found out that he was originally from another country and has just tried to get away with it.)

Finally, when I turned to Brighton & Hove Hackney Carriage Office to ask them, if they would be able to help me, what did they say? Oh sure, Mr. Lembke, we´re proud to have you here for another time, to be such a cherished station in your world-record tour, thank you very much for appreciating Brighton so much, it makes us all proud, oh, how would the French envy us that you prefer to come here for another time instead of going there? No, they said I´d have to apply as a first-time applicant again! Nice one!
So thank for this, Brighton & Hove Hackney Carriage Office!
So, thank you for another one, England, vae victis!

Now, I will obediently go back to England, like a conquered barbarian, who marvels at the wonders of the Roman Empire and has lost all his pride, just to be once more in the exquisite position to carry out “three pound no tip four suitcases”-jobs, for the English, to carry luggage, for the English, being insulted by odd English 10-year olds, (you´re from Germany, mate? So was Hitler!” No, he wasn´t, he was an Austrian, damn it!) who are in a special school and get send in taxis, while all what they really need is a good spanking and live as a lodger in shady rooms in dodgy houses, inhabited by emotionally disturbed [edited by admin] (yet in desperate need of money, so desperate they even take a foreigner, oh, I could write books, what I have experienced last time!)

Sure, moreover, I will like it, won´t I, for if you don´t like it, then why do you come here, mate? Right? [edited by admin], yeah.

But believe me, I will look for something I can blow off some steam!
I will insult the English!!!!

Now, if you know a bit about the Hitch-Hiker´s Guide there is this character called Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, an immortal who decided one day, to give his existence a meaning, that he would insult the universe, in an alphabetical order!

Well, I am not immortal and don´t have unlimited means, so I have to take as it comes, the way I will insult the English will not be in an alphabetical order, but in the order they will get into my cab and of course I need a cover-up as a well mannered and friendly person and cab-driver (not as the envious, frustrated and fascist little [edited by admin] I truly am in the inside), I will have to maneuver them somehow into a position, where I can safely deal the blow, I will offer them a bait and say that I am the author of the best H2G2 sixth volume ever written and do you know this Wowbagger-thing and I am doing this to get me a name, for this is just the weird thing that will get people´s attraction, like that guy who dragged a refrigerator through Ireland (oh you know him!) and that German crazy dude who whips the Alps (yes, he climbs a mountain top with a whip on his belt and when he´s on top he goes right at it (see, this is so weird you are beginning to be interested!) and now there´s me, another crazy German, insulting the English and this and this and of course it is a funny thing, do you want to be in it? So, here´s the fare on the meter, I will say, of course, averagely in Brighton it is no more than, say, five ridiculous Pounds, do you want to pay this or do you want a completely free ride, all you need do is to be on video, where I will do a little mock-insultery for my “rich and famous and I want to get in the media”-thingy and I have decided to call you today, say, (of course I will have a neat little clip-board listing today´s insults) a mindless [edited by admin]. What would you say? Would you like it? Would that be a nice little insult for you to be on YouTube, as “Jochen Lembke Insults the English” for show and to become famous?

And when he or she says yes and takes the bait I will do the insult on video without further ado I will come right to the point and not fuss around (if it is a woman) come on, I don´t have to say you have [edited by admin] hair today first, do I, (if it is man) your suit looks ridiculous and that tie just makes me laugh, I do it quickly and off you go and have a truly miserable and rotten day, sir, or madam, and we share a laugh and everybody will think what a funny guy, why, if all drivers would be that nice and creative, not just old grumps who let it out on their passengers, while deep inside I am I´m not so sure.
Deep down I´m not.
Deep down I will always be a Hun, howling for blood.
English blood.

Perhaps I should have listened to my father who wanted me to become an engineer, oh, I would have had such a terrific knack for building a right-handed steering into the newest Mercedes-model..."

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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.)

Jochen I'm going to try to make you see reason one more time,


You have been out of the country for a period of time, during that time you could've been found guilty for any number of crimes in another country, the process demands the council be on top of their game, and the Brighton one is one of a few that actually seems to give a fig who they license,

That demands in itself that if there is a break between elapsed licensing and new application you must go through that process, nobody has it in for you, you simply have to like everyone else go through the process as a fresh applicant, otherwise what is to stop a Ugandan refugee marching in and demanding a license under the same terms, then you'll be saying they let anyone and unsuitable get a license, you really are knocking on a brick wall with this, you are the only person in the world who thinks this unjust, and as you already know Brighton having held a license previously why is there an issue to not simply just taking the test again?

Doom, you really don´t like Ugandan, ey?

Look, you are not really making sense. I´m not demanding that anybody with a Ugandan license should be able to exchange it into a license of his favorite UK-town, do I?

But I actually heard of an Egyptian who had held a B&H license, which supposedly expired under the same terms, he couldn´t renew it, because he was, supposedly, again, in Egypt at that time for a longer stay. He still owns a Brighton cab, but has given up on getting the license again, too complicated.

So, if a Ugandan has been a B&H cab-driver before with a license, it mustn´t expire, only because he wants to be in his home-country for more than 2 years. For this is clearly a discrimination and, Doom, do you want that Ugandan to stay in the UK only because he fears that his license expires? There are enough drivers here, right, have you looked at the problem from that angle?

I don´t want to live my life according the conditions of stupid licensing regulations - just to demand that from me is outrageous, stupid and bold!

The cheek of it!

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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.)

Missed it totally Jochen, the Ugandan was an example that if they let you in the back door, they then will have to open it for someone who can't speak English and has been in the country 3 days who might just be a mass murderer.

That has in English language two meanings, Doom, as I may point out, it could mean, you have missed it totally, Jochen or I have missed it totally, Jochen.

Anyway, Doom. Let´s be precise here and not just stir fears and aversions, for this is not worthy of the TDO and I am sure here Sussex would agree with me.

You are saying (and I want to answer to that, because, although it is quite extreme a standpoint, others might not say the same but think) that if you start making exceptions everything will go to chaos and the country will drown in it.

Well, let me tell you something to that, according to what the customers told me, that, although there are really tough standards in B&H, they´re still not tough enough.
And with that I can only agree.
There are still plenty of drivers who, although they had their ok from the council, are still not ok, which led Streamline f.ex. to extra tests in KNOWLEDGE and LANGUAGE.

It is a simple fact, that you can pass the knowledge tests only when you have prepared enough, that means you need to go over the roads at least 4 hours a day.
Now, when you have taken the test, from that moment on, and you have observed it yourselves, the knowledge get´s less and less. One month after it, you wouldn´t be able to pass it anymore. One year after you know hardly anything, just that what is really important.

Same with language, a foreign driver is able to polish up his English to the required standard anytime, if he only just puts up enough effort at that time (!) (which was pretty low anyway, btw) but if he doesn´t really practice (and most don´t, because they don´t care) it gets less and less and after a year he canne haredly spaeke onea worde.

The result is that, although B&H regulations are very strict, especially in the Utterly Pointless Annual Frigging Renewal, there are a lot of drivers on the road who just don´t belong there.

And this, my dear colleagues, has upset me from the first day I have driven a cab, 26 years ago.

So what I will demand is to lower the renewal frequency to, say, three years, yet to have each time an additional theory knowledge test and a language test!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, to the CRB check.
Now, to "let´s treat everybody equally"!

You know, your oh so cherished B&H Council followed a very, very lax routine here, they basically, for those applicants freshly arrived in the UK, made the CRB-check worth a toss, namely. For there was a shortage of drivers they accepted the CRB done from the moment of arrival, which was in my case only a month (and I could repress my blood-lust for that time, although I´m not so sure now... )

So, you see, the council gives out regulations just as they like, without any thought or actual need for, they are not there for the drivers, they want to have a high salary and still an easy job.
These sloppy regulations might actually have led to a lot of trouble with foreign drivers, because, actually, you might have just gotten fresh out of prison because you raped your latest passenger back home and can just make a fresh start in England) )

But, when I got in the office in autumn last year I showed the head of HCO (who first didn´t even want to come down, although I flew here for 800 miles) my valid Swiss licence and my valid German one (which is just freshly renewed, a proof of that I don´t have a record, btw.) I showed this to him, as proof that I actually worked in Switzerland at that time, meaning I actually held a Swiss license.

Moreover, I emphasized that I am a writer. I did that on purpose, meaning, don´t f... me mate, for that will mean me writing, you know. Many, many letters and other stuff. Meaning trouble, basically.

Only because he is so stupid and arrogant (and, honestly, polite is through, I am really, really angry now, I am willing to say this right in his face, if he doesn´t read this anyway) he didn´t turn a blind eye, just keep this for yourself, mate.

Because, now they have me on their tail.
And I will make them wish for the day they can give me the license.

For this means the end of their agony, misery and pain!

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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 are saying (and I want to answer to that, because, although it is quite extreme a standpoint, others might not say the same but think) that if you start making exceptions everything will go to chaos and the country will drown in it. "


Correct.

Well, that´s a clear shaped standpoint I respect, sort of the law and order approach, but obviously not mine. Now, lets get pi_ssed.

Joking, not only am I in Germany now, I am also very, very sick, it is not getting any better. I am starting to get a little worried.

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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.)

Go see a doctor today.

B & H ain't worth dying for......

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

No, it sure isn´t and don´t think I am a fanatic and a licensing issue is not the independence of India.

(Although the structures behind them are quite the same, the state gives a wrap about small people and their rights for the glory of the Empire and the posse of millionaires around sodding Cameron. I mean, look, same thing, same spirit with the Grand National, 35 horses dead by now, they don´t want to change the regulations!!)

I want to add the following: law and order as such is not a bad idea, but if a law is faulty it must be altered and if a person can claim being discriminated by a faulty law it mustn´t be to his disadvantage, there should be a compensation in form of an exception, until the faulty law has been altered and is right again. But we all know how Thatcher-types think about that.

PS: Well, Gusmac, there is not a lot you can do about a flue, so I go see a doctor tomorrow, if it´s not better. (Thank God, I still have a way with women or it would, Germany or not, still be the tent and arctic temperatures or hospital, for I don´t have a room here anymore. )

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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.)

Jochen, go see the Dr asap, there is a lot of Pnemonia and Lukemia floating around the UK right now and ask for a Sepsis blood test as that has been knocking ppl over from all ages, and it's lethal if not detected in time. GWS.

Don´t worry, I am better now and what´s more I know my body and it´s signs. So it is just the worst bronchitis for some time now and I had them since I was little, when I was adolescent it turned into asthma. So, I had health problems all my life.

But, see, that´s the point.
Who´s health is a 100%, of the drivers?
The average driver nowadays is in his fifties - who´s health is a 100% ok?

But do they care?

There are a lot of lobbies in the UK and elsewhere, very strong here the lobbies of the millionaires and also very strong the lobby of the semi-militaristic wheel-chair mafia. God, can they be a pain in the a... can´t they? Now, they want all cabs wheel-chair accessible...

But do they want to pay for it?
Who pays the extra fuel for those tanks?
Can´t those people just accept that God has meant some hardship for them, in decency, without letting it out on the rest of the world, why, it´s almost like why don´t they want every damn single house in the city refitted with an WA-elevator! Christ!

But I sure know there is no lobby whatsoever for an honest chap, who just wants to make an honest living and who´s life just might not be all roses too.

Edit: Juuust love that: "Conservative MP Nadine Dorries accused Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne of being "arrogant posh boys" with no understanding of ordinary voters." I mean, how would they?

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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.)

How I will fight HCO over the next years

- an important point is that not only in HCO, but basically in the whole of Brighton & Hove City Council nothing ever works. How could it, when there is no mayor, when the councilmen don´t get paid? The whole system is inefficient and is neglecting the basic needs of the people. Moreover, the whole chain they developed to give people the right to complain does not work, because the system is defending itself, criticism is not tolerated, that´s why my complaint was ignored by the superior of HCO´s Head Officer, was ignored by the Standards and Complaints Officer, was ignored by the Local Government Ombudsman. The system defends itself.

- I, personally, think that B&H is, in terms of bureaucracy, stubbornness and sovereign attitude THE worst HCO in Western Europe (where-else do you have to use a phone first to talk to them and is a sign saying that abusive behavior is not tolerated, I´ve never seen this anywhere else and there certainly is a reason for that, that people are not satisfied with them!), but I want to know this for sure, so I will use my member-ship in cab-forums in so far four countries to actually pose that question, who is the HCO in Western Europe with the worst bureaucracy, and will only propose B&H. I will encourage a live discussion and there will be links to the other forums so that you can actually talk to them about this and have a discussion.

- HCO treats their clients not like people to be licensed, they treat them like cattle to be brandished. If they are not willing to make an exception in a situation which not only calls for an exception, but shouts, they are not willing to spend any thought on anyone. Yet at the same time they practice a system of endless self-perpetuating work, a bureaucratic monster called annual renewal, which is only there to ensure that there is enough work for the licensing officers and this in the dire times of public deficit! So, the whole thing contradicts itself, there are not there for the people because this would be too much work and at the same time they create superfluous work to keep them too busy to be there for the people. (Same with the DSA-test, which only ensures the drivers ability to drive like back in driving school for half an hour, instead of a test that ensures the ability of professional driving under stress, which could just be proven in the final road test, there is no need for an extra test.) I also very strongly believe that their neglect for the people is systematic, I think that they actually are going so far as to despise drivers and talk bad about them behind their backs, so that I will lodge a disciplinary complaint, accusing them exactly of this.

- Like I said, the licensing process is altogether not really good to separate the wheat from the chaff. Instead of annual renewal there should be even stricter licencing terms in the form of continuous checks of knowledge and language. That goes for other problems too, especially that there are too many licences on the market and there is no tool to remove them from the market again, once they are superfluous. Moreover, there should be a smart tariff, encouraging people to take cabs for a longer distance and not just for round the corner with three suitcases and no tip. The fact, that in B&H the meter doesn´t count up for the first, say, 500 yards, is not smart tariff, it´s stupid tariff. In Freiburg it´s the other way round, so there is basically no trip below 8 Euros anymore, even if it´s just short distance.

- I will try to involve as many drivers in this as possible and make them show solidarity, as this is nothing but any other random act of official arbitrariness the council has shown before and basically a result of the pointless process of annual renewal. For this I want to emphasize that I just want to be treated like anybody else. I may have tried the approach with HCO before that I am a special cab-driver who deserves some special attention (like I basically tried everything in the book to make them change their minds), but I do see now that this is clearly a blind alley. In this case I want to be nothing but an ordinary driver who is discriminated because of stupid regulations and stubborn bureaucrats, who are not doing their job and this is in no way different from other ordinary drivers who are victims of any official arbitrariness. The bottom line is we all can get into a mess like this and many have been already.

- I will try everything possible to get maximum public and media attention for this. From time to time I want to visit Brighton for certain activities that will ensure that. I will go to the ranks and try to talk to as many drivers in person as possible, I will let them know about this and I will ask them where they personally had trouble with HCO before. Some actions might be quite spectacular, depending on my mood at that time, it might very well be that I will dress like a historical person that has already been quite a pain in the arse of the English authorities, but I can´t promise. Following that line I might also be inclined to point out that English authorities have always been quite generous with rules and regulations, when it meant to invade countries (Iraq) and send destroyers to others (Malvinas, in case this word is unknown (which it shouldn´t) the Falklands) than they are inclined to make exceptions for small people.



- In any case, a very important column of my resistance will be the super-knowledge I have already announced. By now I already have the town-map of B&H in my head, I am capable of drawing a sketch of almost all the roads that are asked in the tests, in detail, within the next year or two I will be able to do this in every perfection imaginable, with all the little alley-ways and little specks and dots listed in the A-Z Street-finder. Like I said, I want to claim this as on official world-record, as the best cab-knowledge there is, in a major town and per square-mile and try to get into TV with this. (I know the London chaps still have done more work, but of most London areas they only have a rough idea about.) Anyway, this is just the “Brain vs Bureaucracy”-approach that will ridicule them sufficiently, on one side the bean counters of the council, on the other side sophistication and cosmopolitanism, Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer, generously and casually showing off some super-knowledge on the side just to make a point and them look ridiculous. Looks to me like I can only win and they can only lose, looks to me why should I drive a cab in Brighton, when I can get more attention as a writer this way, thanks indeed, B&H HCO.

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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.)