Cabbie with a Dangerous Mind by Karl Wiggins

It's like, Karl's reactions are very personal, and he seems to sum up someone's whole personality on the basis of one, very short meeting, with a very specific purpose and power dynamic. I've been drunken and stupid in a taxi on more than one occasion, and yet I don't feel that makes me a c**t. I mean, like you, I found the pieces made for effortless reading and were enjoyable, but I could also relate to some of the passengers. Perhaps a little reflection would be nice. I think it partially stems from the skewed power relationship - there is a certain type of person who feels, because they are paying you, they are under no obligation to treat you in a civil or reasonable manner. I suppose I was interested, Tony, because being someone who has basically only ever worked menial customer service jobs (shop assistant, bar tender, etc) I feel I can relate to that slowly burgeoning sense of hating the idiocy and general nastiness of the public. I think it's closer to my own personality than I like to admit. Whatever the answer, it definitely resonates with me.

I felt frustrated and I wanted the narrator (don't know if it's actually verbatim stuff that's happened to you, Karl - I presume so) to pull his socks up and stop effing wingeing about what t.wats people are, but at the same time, I could understand his feelings because the job sounds so bloody miserable. I'd like to know how other people felt about it. I'm sure this is genuinely felt, but my god, uncharitable or what? What hope is there for us if a taxi driver steadily cultivates an increasing hatred for the human race with every passing day? To be fair, there's some less than pleasant comments about the general public in my own golf hut diary, which is probably why it struck such a chord. The narrator comes across as a misanthropic asterisk-mouth every other person's a c**t or an a**ehole. The only thing was, I found myself becoming more and more depressed as I read them. The anecdotes are great - they have a real throwaway, conversational quality to them, as if they were in fact being related to you by a cabbie over his shoulder - ooh, meta! The dialogue is really snappy in places - 'yeah, always ducking and diving' gives rise to a smile every time I think of it.

Rightly cherried, I read these pieces as they appeared on the top 100.

Cabbie with a Dangerous Mind by Karl Wiggins