notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

Death of a London Icon

This is a London taxi.

It’s iconic, and suited for London’s streets. It has a short wheelbase and hence a tiny turning circle; handy for the City’s narrow roads. The shape is internationally recognised. Sadly, they’re no longer all black - advertising wraparounds did for that - but they’re still a design classic.

Unfortunately, nowadays, this is also a London taxi.

This is a Mercedes van, compete with a horribly ugly stripe paintjob. It doesn’t have the same narrow wheelbase, and it certainly doesn’t have the iconic design.

This isn’t exactly a new change, though. I believe the regulations were changed to allow Mercedes to enter the market at least a year ago. Nonetheless, there’s been far less outcry of this change than there was when bendy buses replaced double deckers (sometimes, replacing the much-loved Routemasters on the same lines).

Personally, though, I’m far more annoyed by the presence of these ugly new taxis than I ever was by the (now doomed, thanks to Boris) bendy buses. At least they still looked like a London bus (since there’ve always been a few single-deck services, admittedly more commonly outside the centre). By contrast, t here’s something offputting about these new taxis.

I wonder what accounts for the lack of complaint. Is it the fact that taxi drivers are each their own little companies, so there’s no overarching bad guy (TfL, or London Buses, or Ken) to pin the blame on? Perhaps it’s the aforementioned dilution of the homogeneity of the taxi, because of advert wraps and different colours, which has been going on for a couple of decades? Is it that the new taxis are accessible? (If so, there’s one hell of a double standard there- bendy buses are far better for wheelchairs and pushchairs than Routemasters, and generally better than modern double deckers). Probably it’s a combination of all of the above, and other factors I haven’t thought of.

Still, every time I see a non-standard taxi, a small part of me sighs, and I suspect it always will.

Attaining Hampstead

While researching the proper way SCREEN$ load on a Spectrum, I was distracted by somehow running across an old adventure game.

Hampstead was by Melbourne House, who put out a fair few classic text adventures in the 1980s. As the instructions put it:

Hampstead is a quest, but not for gold. The aim of it is to reach the
pinnacle of social status, and acquiring wealth is only one part of
the problem. If you wish to go up in the world you also have to gain
the admiration and respect of your fellow men, and there's more to
that than a fat bank balance.

There’s been a flickr of rediscovery in the past: Aleks Krotoski wrote about it in the Guardian Gamesblog in 2007, as did Anna Black earlier this year. Personally, I find it interesting for a few reasons. For one thing, it’s one of those games during the flowering of 8-bit home computers that tried to reflect everyday life, and perhaps even comment on them (as did Manic Miner and Skooldaze/Back to Skool). For another, there’s this comment in the Crash preview of the game:

It is different to most adventures, in that its purpose is to amuse people rather than provide a hard adventure. Indeed, the adventure is extremely simple, which the authors say is so that anyone can complete it, and so reap more enjoyment from it.

That’s a sentiment that’s getting traction again these days, at least amongst certain people I know. Perhaps I’ll even download the game and give it a go. After all, who doesn’t want a bit of Hampstead once in a while?