Joan.

Its 2am and I’m picking up an elderly lady from the hospital to take her home to a nearby town, she is quiet and thoughtful, you sense that some people should be alone with their thoughts. A few minutes go by; the night is especially dark as it is a new moon. I hear the start of a little choke that precedes a cry, something I hear a lot. The already low volume of the radio is silenced as I switch it off.  I ask if she is ok as gently as I could. “My husband, he passed away tonight” I just listen.  “We were married for sixty one years and I have never been alone, never slept alone and never been in our house alone in all that time.” We sit outside her house for quite a while, I hold her hand and she makes eye contact with me for the first time and sees me being a bit tearful and I apologise for my silliness, eventually she plucks up courage to go into her own house. I told her I will be with her till all the lights are on. I end up making ‘that’ call to her daughter and she is on her way. I leave. I do not belong there. The house is now full of activity; neighbours are knocking, even at this silly hour of the morning. Its 3.30am she isn’t alone and I drive away, I forgot to get paid again, but it doesn’t really matter. Not really. I finished my shift soon after, got to my own car and find it smashed up by vandals. I had a bit of a cry.

The Extraordinary Coolness of the Ordinary.

I’ve seen many things whilst doing my job. Batman and Robin arguing outside a pub about who had the fags. Someone punching my cab at thirty miles an hour and hearing his hand crack. I’ve watched disastrous break ups of woman-woman, man-man, man-woman, trans-man. Casual sex being agreed upon and settled like a business transaction for just the one night by most of the above. Y’now, ordinary.

  The above is de rigueur on any drug and drink fuelled night out in any town. Acts of carnal contract and agreement will be told and reminisced as being quite cool by many. A badge of coolness. If your famous enough, your particularly weird animal acts of copulation may even make the weekly magazines. It’s not really cool though is it? Nah! Not cool at all.

But I have seen, truly, the coolest of things…

  I watched, recently, standing by my cab door an incredibly attractive, tall woman tell her husband the marriage is over, she went on to remove her rings, bracelets and hand the keys to the car to her mocking, argumentative soon to be ex husband. I’ve heard all that before, many times, but what separated it from the others was what happened next. She went on to step out of the dress she was wearing and hand it to her husbands already full hands. Did a twirl in her immaculate and heart stopping underwear as if to say this is the last time you get to see this, open my rear door, got in and I drove away. She sat silent, no tears, no fear, just wistfully looking out at the world that was passing by. No doubt pondering a new happier future. I got her home, she paid me and she walked up her drive semi naked holding a small handbag and a smile. This small movie played itself out in front of me.

That was cool.

  I’ve seen a young girl wearing a short skirt, legs covered in eczema going for a night out in the town, not giving a toss for what others will think and the comments she WILL get.

That was cool.

  I’ve seen a paraplegic man punch a bloke in the nuts for disrespecting his girlfriend who was dutifully pushing him in his wheelchair.

That was cool.

Some people are cool because they have an attitude to life that is impressive beyond words…

  I took an elderly man home from the hospital he discharged himself from. I dared ask why he did it, he told me he had terminal cancer and had at best a couple of weeks left and didn’t want it spent in a hospital or hospice bed being fawned on. We chatted and laughed for about fifteen minutes as I slowly, deliberately meandered my way to his home, he was smiling and more alive the nearer we got there. When we arrived he paid me and I helped him out.  It was uncomfortable to watch a man in such pain. His wife at the doorway never budged, willing him on but knew the walk to his own front door had to be his own.

  They held each other in the doorway not letting go, he crumpled slightly, I went to run to grab him, she held her hand out and stopped me, I walked back and stood by the cab, it was twilight and crispy cold, the sky a wonderful deep blue above their bungalow, just my headlights lighting his well kept and proud front garden, I was transfixed and tearful, knowing that this union in the doorway will soon fade away into just a memory…

That was cool.

  I was privileged to witness a similar moment with a Mum and her teenage son who, equally and stubbornly discharged himself from hospital, his time short. A big bag of pain relief in his hand and holding a small bottle of oxygen, small tubes strapped to his nose. His Mum cradled him in the back of the cab, he was thin and very frail and I made an effort not to hit any potholes or bumps in our badly kept roads for him. She told him he could have whatever he wanted and whomever he wanted to come and see him at home right up till his time. He paused, took in a struggled breath and said “Can I play Xbox when I get in?” She then sighed and said “No you’re having your tea first” He then angrily replied, OH! FOR FUCKS SAKE!! “Right no Xbox for swearing!” she huffed, and so the exchange of bartering went on till I got them both home. She practically carried him to their front door and they were both still arguing. The normalcy of this typical conversation between parent and teenager was both comical and sad, knowing that a mother and child would soon part. Forever.

That was REALLY cool.

  I sometimes see cool things. In a split second glance as I drive by, I see an elderly man helping a young mum with a pram get up some steps. I see a smile as a door is opened for somebody and a laugh coming from a chance meeting in the street with an old friend. I look at the ordinary and see something extraordinary, not all the time. Life is crap and I know we are all busy with our own lives, I have to look hard myself through the dross of ordinariness. Sometimes though… When I really open my eyes I see small very cool things just… Happen.

Poly Styrene Oh Cancer! Up Yours!

Today is my birthday and last night the plan was I'd wake up at whatever time, have a big breakfast and sit in my garden and ponder whether I can be arsed to write something, anything that an editor might be interested in reading. That was the grand plan for today.

I wear a nice silver bangle on my right wrist, haven't taken it off for years. I awoke earlier than planned because I smacked myself in the mouth with my bangle so hard it drew blood and made my lower lip swell.  Well, I did wear it, but after it being chucked at the bedroom wall, it is now sitting on the chest of drawers being taught a lesson.  I slid downstairs and after opening my birthday cards, (I got a lovely one from the Mrs) the kettle was on for a cuppa, I got twenty messages on Twitter full of well wishes, made me smile, nice of them to make the effort I thought.

A tweet on twitter caught my eye by Kathryn Flett, a fellow Random-on-Sea inmate who is more than a little bit good at the writing and journalism thing. We talk...or more accurately  tweet random polite bollox every now and again.  The tweet said...

"Am saddened by the death of (Random-on-Sea resident and punk icon) Poly Styrene."

My day came crashing down. Punk Icon Poly Styrene of the X-ray Spex,  someone I have known for years, had died. She lived a street away from me, she came back to the seaside to look after her mum she once told me a long time ago. She was someone a bit special.

She was someone that waited two hours for me to pick her up from the airport years ago because she didn't want to pay silly money for the airport taxis to take her home.  Someone that craftily negotiated a good deal on some chairs in a second hand shop we were in.  Someone that could dress so innocuously, you wouldn't have given her a second look in the street. (The fame thing, by choice wasn't really that big a deal for her.) Someone that could dress so stunningly she would blow me away.  Simple and classically expensive twin sets with an edge only Poly Styrene could pull off.  Hair so amazingly glossy... well, you can tell I was more than a bit enamoured by her.

There is a lot I could tell you about Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, but I'll keep that to myself out of respect for her family and friends.  I will tell you she launched her new album "Generation Indigo" from her hospice bed nearby, she wrote, recorded and promoted it dying from that cunt cancer.  Something we both battled and I, have made it thus far...

She was truly someone born to make a difference, to influence, her legacy is... Well, Google away to your hearts content on that one and judge for yourself. This isn't really a eulogy about a career and a true Icon of our times, it's about a little lady that lived around the corner from me in a place affectionately renamed by Kate Flett as "Random-on-Sea." A place that Poly styrene knew could be magical in the morning and frustrating in the afternoon.

This is a clip of Poly Styrene explaining her new album track by track, important to note her back was broken in two places and she was heavily medicated and dying of cancer during the filming of this interview. If this little piece means anything to anyone you will know that positivity and courage is something she had an abundance of.

  Poly Styrene, Punk Icon. Marianne, Daughter, Mother, Friend.

3 July 1957 – 25 April 2011

I Hate Football...

Hackney Marshes,
Europe's largest playing field.
1,500 players every Sunday.

My father Martin lived and breathed football.  From the age of five until I was eleven years old, he took me to nearly every home game at Spurs in Tottenham.  I saw, yawningly, every apparent so called master of the game from 1963 till 1969.  My dad was also in a Sunday football league club who's stupid name I cannot remember and played it down the Hackney marshes and practised it at the London Fields in Hackney every Thursday evening.  I was at every match, helping with the kit, ball boy and orange cutter upper and hander outerer.


I remember the smell of sweat, liniment and the heat that came off my dad and his mates.  All this boredom took place crazily in mid winter, when a fall meant a bloodied gash on your legs from a frozen solid ground.  I recall twenty two men creating a fog of steam on the pitch from breath and body.  I was immersed in football, a grounding in the game that would make other kids jealous. But, I fucking hated football.  I didn't get it then and I am in as much in the dark about it now.

Jimmy Greaves

Kicking a football seemed such a mind boringly dumb thing to do. At the spurs ground one Saturday, Jimmy Greaves nearly took my face off and knocked me over during a heavy tackle that pinned him to the fence I was leaning over, y'now the bit they put adverts on for chav football kits, drinks and fags.  Why didn't I move as this herd of power grunting and cursing came hurtling towards me and nearly took my head off?  I wasn't paying any attention.  I was looking at the green grass.  We didn't have much of it around the towered hamlet that was the cockney cultural centre I lived in called Bethnal Green. A stupid name for a worn away permanent bald patch of a scabby part of London.


Someone recently asked me in the Cab what did I think of Spurs, and to deliberately stupefy this eager and drunk football fan I told him I had no interest in horse ephemera, he paid me, called me a cunt and got out. All that happened when I deliberately antagonized this fan of overpaid and over here football playing egotists, was to enforce my belief further that punditry and fandom for football, is at best a distraction from sorry little dramas in their lives.

I miss my Dad, he hadn't been to Spurs in many years. he couldn't afford it and to my eternal shame I couldn't afford the time.  I should have took him. I should have stood with him in the same spot we occupied faithfully come rain or shine all those years ago.  I never did.

Recently, sadly, my brothers, sister and family members were standing outside the City of London crematorium by the hearse carrying my father. It was resplendently covered with flowery footballs, personal tributes and the Spurs insignia, all faithfully crafted and recreated in carnations.  One of those inexplicable moments happened that can never be explained in life.  Spurs manager Harry Redknapp walked on by to visit a loved one, he looked over, clapped and saluted my Dad and then continued on his walk to his own private destination of remembrance.

I missed this final poignant little tribute to my Dad, a footballer and lifetime fan of it.  I was looking away staring at the wind making shapes in the green grass, reminiscing...


I hate football...

Published in Sabotagetimes.com