Beware the minicab, my son.

I've been away on a stag do for the last couple of nights. I can't talk too much about it due to the Law Of The Stag (the saying of which should always be accompanied by raising your pointed index fingers to each side of your head. Like a moose. Or indeed a stag). I am able to speak of some things though. This is lucky, as otherwise this would be a very dull and short post. It could still end up being dull, but I promise it won't be too short!

On arrival in Hayes, the town where we were staying, I had to get a taxi to the hotel. It's possible that I could have got a bus instead, but it would have been too much like hard work to find the correct bus and then get off at the right place. I had expected to find a taxi rank outside the train station. My expectations in this respect arose mainly from one thing: Every Train Station Has A Taxi Rank Outside It. This is a fundamental rule of train stations, because travellers need to get from the station to where they are going, and they often do not know the way.

If you don't have a taxi rank outside the station then what will happen is that travellers will arrive in your town and then just stand in confusion by the road. Their numbers will increase steadily and eventually you'll have to bring them food and water. As more people arrive, they'll start to spill into the road itself, and will be a hazard to traffic. Ultimately the road will become blocked and the town will grind to a halt and slowly start to die.

Hayes does not have a taxi rank outside the station. This is complete insanity. And the only conclusion I can draw is that it doesn't need one because nobody visits the town. Because it's a bit rubbish. I'd never even heard of it until last week. In my head it was a quaint country village. In reality it's a small dull town, just like hundreds of others all over the country (just without the taxi rank). This did then pose me something of a problem: I needed a taxi to get to the hotel, but there were no taxis! Arrrghhh! Don't panic...

I even walked round the town centre a bit, but there were none there either. I had found a minicab shop near the station, but it looked both dodgy and closed, so I had ignored it initially. However, I spotted someone going in to it, so I figured that it wasn't closed and was going to be my only option. It was very scruffy inside. I very rarely order a cab from inside a little shop - I normally use a phone. I wasn't really sure what to do. I worked it out, and I've put together a little guide for the rest of you in case you are ever in the same situation:

1. Find a minicab shop.
2. Enter the shop.
3. Look through the slit in the wall which separates the waiting area from the place where the mad woman sits. It's about a metre off the ground, so you may have to bend down a little.
4. Ignore the scary girl who is sitting in front of the slit.
5. Say "I'd like a taxi to the Travel Inn on Uxbridge Road" please in your best understandable voice. Feel free to use different words here if they would be more appropriate.
6. Give the mad woman your name when she asks. Or use someone else's, it doesn't really matter.
7. Go outside and get in the car that has no indication anywhere on it that it is a taxi.
8. Repeat where you want to go to the driver several times. Eventually get the piece of paper from your wallet that has the hotel name and address on it and point at it.
9. Be a bit scared through the journey because the driver might be a psychopath and you have no idea whether he is taking you to the hotel, or to a field where he will kill you and chop you up and jump up and down on the pieces.

That's it. Following these steps should mean you have successfully ordered a minicab.

I got to the hotel eventually. My fears that the driver was a serial killer proved to be unfounded. And it was only five pounds, which wasn't too bad.