Go on, next time you are in London and you get one of those chatty ones, ask him something - anything, especially the best way to get somewhere of course. They know everything. I'm often blown away by their erudition! Some of them are far more schooled in stuff than me. Far more.
Bad luck though if you get one in a grump.
I wondered what it was about the construct of the mind of a cabbie that enables them to do this. I thought it might be the little yellow light bulb that is glowing constantly above their heads. Maybe. And then of course it struck me, right or wrong, (they would know) that they are wired to triangulate, to shove a framework of reference around everything – at speed. That is how they do it. They can bring images and words, features and random stuff together in a flash. Their mind just goes immediately into how to solve the riddle of how to get there from here. Wherever.
They structure, they visualise and that makes them think.
And in the process they can chat contentedly away at you for 20 minutes about everything that is wrong with the world, why we as a species will never learn, what ails us about the current government, the last Mayor, the stupid two-way system around Piccadilly and any 'what' or 'not' about the capitals football teams and their wives or girlfriends/boyfriends. (Soccer to some)
Speaking of light bulbs - there is a wonderful light-bulb joke on the familiar subject of just how many this or that does it take to screw in a lightbulb. For taxi drives the joke is posed thus - "How many taxi-drivers does it take to screw in a light bulb?" - the answer - "What, all the way up there!?" - told with a cockney accent and probably not at all funny unless you come from the big city.
Anyway - so if you ask them anything you can hear literally their heads (from the back of course) whirring brilliantly with all this data, all the structure they place around it, all the criteria slotting seamlessly into place. All the many decisions about the journey and why and why not and whether this time of day or pot holes or road works or new one-way streets, which café on the corner, what bridge, or what would Jim do, or when did they last eat and what's for dinner.
Then within 5 seconds tops - 'ping' - they come up with the best answer you could get about anything. OK it may cost a bit more than the underground but what an experience. They are a mobile education.
Maybe we should call it the Knowledge!
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