Taxi Drivers versus the Financial Times

I have been in Liverpool for a few days to visit a ship and came back with the impression that Britain is not really in the grips of a recession at all. I couldn't find a hotel in Liverpool, seems that everybody wanted to go there and the place was jam-packed with shoppers all carrying bags filled with recent purchases.

After four days of work on the vessel I left from Liverpool Lime Street on a train bound for York and then home and as the journey progressed I managed to dispel the images of crazed shopping, of a population desperate to spend every penny they have and more on credit before being maxed out. To further this return to supposed reality I gave my self a liberal dose of the Financial Times newspaper. I sweated page after page of trauma and desperation, of woe and collapse. I drip fed my brain with words like recession, retrenchment, redundancy and rationalize and I gave myself a suppository of bank and retailer projected failures over the coming months and years. I overdosed on worldwide unemployment growth statistics and swallowed large pills filled with 'experts' freely giving opinions on 'how deep and long', of 'historical comparison' and 'record breaking firsts' before finally feeling sedated with a check of my shares which have now all but reached Australia in their downward plunge.

I was just drifting off to sleep when a loud voice behind me interrupted my happy induced state. The loud voice emanated from a young hyped-up girl in the seat behind and her conversation went something like this:

"It's really "s**t" you know, my whole world has fallen around my ears. I've lost my job, really s**t you know. It just suddenly happened without warning, shit, nobody f**k told me, as the bitch in the office said to me, your fired!. I've packed my bags and left. Anyway, next day I had to take a mortgage out on our second house to cope, s**t, and then anyway, I'm so stressed that I'm going to our holiday home up North to chill out and think about things. S**t, f**k, might take the horse out for a ride and try to forget all about this. Lost my job and I don't know what to f****g thing anymore - will I be able to go on that holiday to Barbados - was taking three months out for vacation and its all paid for - s**t. Might go and get that Guchi bag I like so much to make myself feel better. Anyway; I got the caviar and champagne for tonight - its gonna be a great party." S**t though, my world has fallen apart.

She had with one simple phone call presented me with 101 good reasons why its hard to accept that Britian is reportedly in the middle of a recession. Here was a young lady that represented all that is bad and all that needs to be cured in the UK. To me she was not the victim of the downturn but an example of the cleansing that needs to be done. Not sure if I would have hired her in the first place but anyway, she managed to destroy my happiness for the rest of the journey. I have no doubts that she will survive well without having to dispose of the holiday home, change caviar for cheese or champagne for wine and I'm sure that she won't be out of work for very long - she just needs to stop swearing for ten seconds for daddy to be able to work his magic on some other poor and unsuspecting employer.

What puzzles me is that the only signs of recession (although this has not yet been confirmed yet) that I can find is that given freely in newspapers, on news channels and from the occasional little miss rich kid who shouldn't have been employed in the first place. Daily life around is one crazed arena filled to overflowing with open wallets and elbow-barging shoppers with manic gleams in their eyes.

Then there are the Taxi Drivers who are typically excellent barometers of current situations
and without doubt they are a superb source and indication of economic turmoil and upset, locally and nationally. Being self-made spokepersons on the state of the UK without much asking Taxi Drivers often give me lengthy reports on topical matters that have occured down-the-road or acroos the pond yet over the last few months the many cabs that I have had the pleasure of sitting in have not reverberated to the sounds of woe and misery and lost trade due to the lack of freely flowing cash hanging around. And why is this so? I have often asked a driver who allows me to get a word in edgewise about the credit crunch and how it has affected trade and the response has always been muted or along the lines of "business has been good guv" or "not around here mate". A woman driver in Liverpool even said "been busier that usual love" and then proceeded to tell me all about the ten-bedroomed family home that she was restoring back to original.

Are we really in the midst of massive downturn that drastically affects us all or is this just another massive journalistic train journey of hype and drama that has been blown out of all proportion? I think I'll treat the Financial Times as excellent fiction and tittle tattle and spend more time listening to the wisdom of the cabbies.

The Granny and a Virgin Train

This morning I pulled myself wearily onto a Virgin West Coast Train to work my way down to Ellesmere Port near Liverpool, suffused with cold and cough, frozen from the sudden onslaught of winter and sad to be leaving my wife and son back home.

Five minutes into the journey I was back in usual form, watching and learning from those around me, wandering where we all are and where we are all going (in-life I mean as I know that I was heading to Ellesmere Port on the 1051 Virgin West Coast Train, change at Warrington Bank Quay).

They overheat these trains you know. I initially took off my coat. Then when I started to perspire profusely, to the discomfort of the summer-dressed granny perched primly next to me, I took off my vivid-yellow mohair polar neck jumper with all the farm animals on it. Five minutes later as I sat there with my large rucksack between my legs (I had mistakenly thought that I could put it on the luggage rack above but they build these things for coats only these days) I felt the need to take off further layers before I fainted. I could see granny looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She sniffed expressively as I sat immovable and unable to see as the rucksack, the jumper, a sweatshirt, an extra t-shirt, a scarf and some gloves kept me securely in place.

The train was totally empty. I fail to understand how The Train Line with whom I booked my ticket manage seat allocations but there was me squashed against the window in 39A, the granny perched next to me in 40A and lots and lots of unnocupied seats. I wanted to mention by-the-by to granny that she could move to another seat but did not want to risk frightening her with my gravelly voice that was liberally enhanced with the rigors of coughing too much.

And so we worked our way down to the borders and into England, through areas of snow, patches of hailstones, sun and rain and ice and onward to Warrington Bank Quay.

I got off and so per chance did granny!

Due to an unforeseen delay most likely caused by snow on the tracks I had missed my connection and so I sensibly repaired to the only coffee shop around for a cappuccino and a bit of warmth for the next hour of waiting. Seems that my double-generation-apart companion was on the same track as me! And so we sat next to each other at the only table available, not saying a word and seemingly lost in our own little worlds, oblivious to the presence of the other. My train eventually pulled up. The 1502 from Warrington Bank Quay to Ellesmere Port and off I went to hop on.

The train was strangely full but I manged to find one empty double seat further up the carriage and so I plonked myself down before anybody else spotted it. A couple of seconds later a wrinkled and wobbling hand under my nose indicated that somebody wanted to sit down, a subtle hint that I should move my rucksack off the seat beside me.

It was granny.

We passed another half-hour in companionable silence, she in her summer dress on the edge of her seat and I sweating profusely in my six layers of clothes, insistant that I could grit my teeth and bear it in preference to undressing myself again.

Whilst preparing to get off the train, she by covering her summer-dress with an equally flimsy coat and I by trying to cool myself down by wafting air up my t-shirt, she turned around to me and said "nice jumper".

And so we parted our ways. I wonder if I will meet her again on the return journey. Perhaps not but I will be prepared. One T-shirt and a coat should work!