Taxi

To say that a banana is like a phallus inevitably implies that a phallus is like a banana.  The fact that gondolas have often been called the taxis of Venice therefore tells us something interesting about London cabs.

Both are as black as hearses, and unique to their respective cities.  Both remain aloof from their fellow vehicles: the gondola from the vulgar motor boats and hulking vaporetti which are used for more mundane tasks of transport, and the taxi from the cars and buses which surround it.   Both professions are studiedly closed; the gondolieri are family institutions, while London cabbies often pass on their venerable machines within a narrow circle.  Both above all, are mysterious and luxurious.

Taking a cab is always an adventure; it is never a crass matter of going from A to B.  For a start, the London traversed is never your London.  Apart from the routes and manoeuvres denied lesser mortals in their lesser chariots, cabbies seem to inhabit a city which is structured like a huge Swiss cheese, with curious and useful holes throughout its fabric.  These they use like science fiction wormholes to transport us in strange unknowable ways.  Perhaps there is a conspiracy between them and the map-makers; this would explain the long, almost masonic ritual of initiation called - aptly enough - The Knowledge.  Instead of some tedious and improbable learning by rote of a few routes through London, cabbies are in fact committing to memory the wormholes in London's inner space.

The London cab is invested with mystique not only by virtue of its curious journeys and unusual construction - what other vehicle accommodates five passengers in such a confined space in such luxury? - but also by association.  Taxis are always used by special people and for special purposes.  The constant rubbing together of cabs with the extraordinary has promoted their further use in this way.  Today, the act of hailing and taking a cab is almost like the ritualised start of an Arthurian quest.  To arrive in a cab at an important event is to bring a huge black rabbit's paw, and a way of sanctifying the business of travel.

Cabs thus become holy chariots, carrying a new priesthood who bless and are blessed.  In the past we could recognise them by their tightly furled umbrellas and immaculate bowlers.  Today, it is more likely to be a discreet Filofax or cellular phone.  But the great virtue of taxis is that however patrician their tradition and true clientele may be, they are fundamentally democratic in their availability.  As such we may all taste the illicit pleasures of this mode of transport; for a few pounds we can imagine ourselves one of Them, the powerful ones whose vehicles we have borrowed for a few hours just as a noblemen of yore might have lent his carriage to a plebeian for an afternoon drive.

Taxis are at once personal yet unattainable limousines which are the acme of motorised travel, and at the same time negations of that movement.  From within its curious, womb-like interior, you can almost believe that it is the world that is travelling not you.  As a symbol and vehicle of power, the taxi, like its close cousin the gondola, offers the ultimate trip.  And in this respect it is rather like a banana.

(27.5.86)

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