Wet Jumpers

I went out for a couple of pints of cider after work tonight and decided to get a taxi home since I was running slightly late compared to when I said I'd be home by. I went to the taxi rank near the Minster and it was clear that there was some kind of kerfuffle going on down towards Lendal Bridge. The road was closed off from the crossroads near the theatre, right down to the one on the other side of the Bridge. There were police cars and a few milling people.

The closed off road was right on my way home. When I got in the taxi, the driver said he'd heard that there was someone trying to do some jumping, presumably off of the bridge. Now that's a pretty daft place to jump from. It's not particularly high and at the moment is less high than normal because the river's up. If you want to jump it would be better to go up the Minster Tower or the Yorkshire Wheel or similar. From Lendal Bridge the worst you're likely to get is wet.

But the main problem was that the taxi had to go the long way round. This cost me at least an extra pound. I was quite upset. The blame here is obviously on the Jumper rather than the taxi driver so I'm considering going through the small claims court. I just need to identify the right person... maybe I'll get the local paper tomorrow and see if anyone is named. Even if they're dead rather than just slightly wet, presumably I can still sue their estate...

Taxi!

I did something today that I've never done before - I went to the supermarket and got a taxi home. In the past I've always either walked there and back (and used internet for beer shopping) or (been) driven there and back when a car is available.

It's K's birthday today and she's having a minor party this evening so we needed to get food and drink. Unfortunately the car is currently in a garage for its MOT and to fix an oil leak. We therefore had no transport and due to poor planning, no time to use the internet for heavy stuff. Therefore we were left with the taxi option, or go hungry/thirsty.

It works really well. There's a little phone in the supermarket lobby. You pick it up, press a button, speak to a little man and a taxi comes for you about five minutes later. Magic. The taxi man even helps you put your shopping in the boot.

It cost about six quid. So I've worked out that if you do a shopping trip once a week and get a taxi back, total annual costs are about £300 (I used a calculator for that one). If the supermarket is the main thing a car is used for then this feels like a much cheaper number than running a car - the garage bill alone will probably be several hundred pounds.

The only other thing we could thing of that a car would be needed for would be going to dancing class. So this means we're in a slightly surreal situation of only being able to justify having a car so that we can go dancing. Doesn't feel right to me :-)

But I've now thought of some other things we use it for:
1. Buying Christmas trees
2. Taking Christmas trees to the Christmas tree recycling place (somewhere...)
3. Ram raiding the local shop
4. Moving belongings
5. Visiting places that don't have trains (none spring to mind but I'm sure they exist)

But I reckon with judicious use of further taxis and car hire, we could get around these things too.

Message and moral is therefore "Kill All Cars". Nasty smelly things, they are.