Call Sign April 11:Call Sign April 11
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April 2011 Mike Son asks DaC drivers and staff: Would you like to be in an orchestra? Mike Walsh: Fifty years on DaC! Call Sign April 2011 Page 2 NASH’S NUMBERS From Alan Nash (A95) April’s increase is an average of 2.7% (or with the increase in fuel prices more like a 2.7% reduction)! Below is the mileage table and a guide to run-in and waiting times. Further down the page is a ‘What’s On’ guide… ! " # #$ %&'$ $()* # + + #+ + # + + #+ + # + + # + + #,-$ + . # ,-$ + . # ,-$ + . # /0 %1 2 , #$ $! %3 4 5 6 #$ $! %3 4 # $ $! %3 4 78 3 4 $ %$ % Some ‘What’s On’ events in April 2011 ! "#$ # %& % ' ( )( * % + ( , - ' . / #)012+ ' ' % &$' ' 3 ' + ' % &$' ' 1 # #$32 ' 1 " 1 &" %)*" 4 ( )( * " 1 &" #) *"52/ % 4 "#$ 6 ' 5 &" # 12+ ' + &" # "12+ ' + I have added The Troxy at 490, Commercial Rd E1 to the ‘What’s On’ list this month. For the full 141 list of events you need to log on to the website at www.myfav.co.uk. If you not already registered, click the ‘Register’ button, enter your details with the word ‘taxi’ as the unlock code. You will be automatically sent a password, click ‘Log On’, enter your email address and pass- word and the button ‘TAXI’ will appear instead of the padlock symbol. Click it and loads of useful taxi related icons will appear including “What’s On” and the UID parts. Plus you can win the monthly £100 prize simply by recommending the site. Win- Win or what!! And it’s great to have as your ‘Home Page’… Call Sign April 2011 Page 3 from the editor’s desk how he refused to speak at his Appeal and hand- Taxi chat sites… ed in a 7-page statement instead, going on about At the beginning of 1998, Call Sign went online how DaC “refused” to give him relevant infor- – one of just a small number of UK magazines of mation about cabs and jobs so he could make a any industry to venture along what was still proper defence against being expelled after not excitingly referred to as the World Wide Web. doing 40 jobs a month at a time when it was still Soon after, thanks to our internet wizard busy. He then claims that I abused my position Vince Chin, Call Sign began advertising the UK’s first taxi chatroom where anyone connect- as an Arbiter by publishing an article before the ed to the taxi business and who actually had Arbitration deadline, which I apparently knew internet connections, could discuss anything they was wrong and how I refused to retract it or wanted to that might improve the industry. In publish a correction on the rule about it being an addition to drivers, members included garage average of 40 jobs and not a straight 40 per proprietors, radio circuit leaders and even Jamie month. He goes on to talk about how I give Borwick, who was soon to become the Chairman “preferential treatment” to BMs and how “Call of Manganese Bronze and is now Sir Geoffrey Sign is censored by Rice.” Robert James Borwick, 5th Baron Borwick – or According to Mark White’s rant, Brian Rice regu- Lord Borwick for short! larly called him to say he couldn't publish his arti- The chatroom was called Discuss and it soon cles without verification of facts and figures as he became a huge success. No one hid behind email was ultimately responsible as the publisher. Well if Several years ago, I published some emails he did, that’s news to me. Why didn’t Mark White addresses because if you wanted to join, you from a previous list because they were about gave your name. However, within a few years, just write to me direct – unless he was hoping to myself and DaC. The uproar from its members make a point? In another email he boasts that he Discuss had become so popular that it became was deafening. They were going to consult solic- the norm to just sign in with your email address still has a DaC terminal in his taxi after four years. itors with a view to stopping me doing it again Well bully for him – even though it will soon be the and soon a new breed of user came along – one and tried everything to get me to reveal who had who realised that the internet provided ways of only one of its kind! They used to call that stealing, sent them to me. I even received a solicitor’s let- making up false identities behind false addresses now it’s obviously just something to boast of. No ter. I took no notice then and neither do I now. as you went along. The emails began degenerat- doubt DaC could have wasted money chasing him If it is a closed list and it acts like a sensible one ing into slanging matches and discussion soon and played his childish games, but they obviously discussing trade politics, then drivers won’t feel became impossible. Original members began decided he wasn’t worth spending the money on. leaving and soon after, Vince Chin announced they have to send emails to me. I could go on, but sadly Mark’s words get more that he was closing down the site as “the inmates Some of the posts are quite amusing in their and more cockeyed and bitter. They are either were beginning to run the asylum.” ignorance. One writes of “the increasing panic twisted or incorrect from what I can see. Call Sign Another site sprung up soon afterwards, later from Rice and his propagandist, the Crawl Sign is completely uncensored except in the mind of to close and become reborn several times - editor…” Yet someone who responded by saying Mark White. I always published his letters in their including one by the late Cecil Selwyn from that “…if the members want to get rid of this Mr entirety each time he sent them in – and believe which I was banned. Rice chap, then they can all vote him out as me, most were extremely long. The only com- We have now arrived at the latest one – The democracy allows, but the drivers don't so they ments I got were from drivers who begged me to London Taxi Drivers Forum or LTDF. Ever must be content and that’s their business, the stop as they found them to be so boring. But I since being banned from Cecil’s list – with no same as it's their circuit,” was castigated for his published them because they were a driver’s point reason ever given – I have not bothered joining views. Another response refers to me as a scab – of view and as such deserved the space. I notice any of its’ successors, although I have been a I assume that’s why he is picking on me! All the from the 20 or so LTDF emails I have been sent, member of the American Taxi-l list since 1989. LTDF posts do is to make me smile and be glad that again his are by far the longest-winded ones. Strangely enough – or perhaps not - having I don’t have to see that rubbish on a daily basis. I never asked anyone if it was ok to publish his recently been sent a whole bunch of emails from Yet another masterpiece was written by some- Call Sign letters because I don’t need to. If a let- the LTDF list, I have been told that there is even one whose style I recognised immediately – a for- ter isn’t published – and there have been a hand- an Alan Fisher on there, although it isn’t me! mer driver who made two visits to an industrial ful in 14 years – it’s because I have decided that Neither am I someone called Wicksey, who tribunal to try to regain a place on DaC, the organ- they are unfit for publication. rumour also suggests is me! So what is the point isation he “dislikes” so much! It came in response Mark White undoubtedly had personal problems. of this editorial? Well it’s just to ask all those well- to a Call Sign writer who actually uses a familiar In fact I spoke with him many times, not with meaning drivers who send me emails from the list name and who obviously – and strangely for that answers but just as someone who listened to a fel- when they mention either Brian Rice, Dial-a-Cab, site – doesn’t mind being identified. The subject low driver’s problems. I haven’t a clue why he dis- likes me so much, but neither do I worry about it. Call Sign or myself, not to bother. Thank you referred to the expulsion from DaC of someone All I know is that if I wanted to read all the rubbish anyway, but had I thought for one second that this who is now the Chairman of a trade organisation. that comes from the LTDF site, I would join. list served any purpose, I’d have joined and taken This charming fellow’s response said, referring to However, it would be pointless because there seems part – but as Alan Fisher. But having read some of the Complaints Committee that expelled that to be little in the way of discussion, just a general the stuff emanating from the LTDF, I can’t see the chairman: “People being thrown off by peers! slagging off of anyone not liked – with Brian Rice point. It is filled with emails from people who What, peers such as Fisher and you? Peers, my and myself seemingly coming in for much of it.