Oxymorons

You've got to laugh, haven't you? Well at least, I did this morning walking through Westminster on my way to another of those interminable government meetings. I saw three things that ordinarily would have made me smile quietly to myself, or chuckle, but in the way of things comic their effect was cumulative, so by the time I came across the third I laughed out loud:

1. London cabs

Some of these have now started sporting the strapline "London black cabs - so much more than just a taxi" (or something like that). But are they though? No, not really. A taxi is a taxi - except of course for the legal difference between a hackney cab and a private hire vehicle. Why in today's world is it necessary to employ whizz-kid marketeers to tell us that something is "so much more" than it really is? I know what a taxi does. I know what it looks like. If it's raining, or I'm in a hurry, or where I'm going is too far to walk, I'll hail a cab. Otherwise I won't bother. I know how it works and what to expect. Why should I have to expect "so much more"? What else is there? Is the cabbie going to start offering me financial advice? Make me a BLT with tangy mayo to go? Cut my hair? No. Well, apart from the financial advice of course. Cabbies have been offering this unsolicited since time immemorial.

2. Scotland Yard.

The Met have employed the strapline "working together for a safer London" for some years now, but it's been a while since I've walked past their HQ. Last time I was there it looked quite accessible, but in the interim it has been surrounded by a steel-and-toughened-glass blast shield that could probably withstand the force of a Saturn V rocket from three feet. On top of that, the main door is protected with half-a-dozen of those thick concrete blocks that crop up in semi- permanent motorway repairs because they stay standing when hit by an articulated truck doing 60mph. So, lads, are we expecting trouble? Not QUITE achieved "a safer London" yet, then?

3. City of Westminster Cleaning Department.

My walk was briefly interrupted by a reversing council refuse collection vehicle (in the days before Political Correctness, we used to call them bin lorries) . This sparkly new vehicle was emblazoned with the words "Clean Streets" in two-foot-high green letters. As the driver completed his reversing manoeuvre, he flipped his cigarette butt out of the window onto the street, which heretofore had, presumably as a result of his colleagues' efforts, been Clean. Physician, heal thyself.