Re: Best Museum - Bovvy, transport

From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Sun Oct 06 2002 - 23:24:00 PDT


Hi Doug,

>I think I can guess, but please explain?

Like most big urban areas in "civilized" countries, London has very
strict laws governing taxi cabs. But at 2 or 3 in the morning it is
pretty tough to find a legit cab since most work in the day and sleep at
this time. So some folks pop around to the dance clubs and other after
hours places and illegally transport people for money. They are commonly
called "shadow cabs" because they are not legal but do perform the role
of a cab. And let me tell you, a typical February night in London is
miserable to be standing around in with only a light jacket and no
umbrella so these guys have a market!

The typical scam is to drive you around and around the wrong way so as to
rack up the time on the meter (some do in fact have meters of some sort).
 Others drop you off "just a block away" when in fact you are more like
5-10 blocks away. Basically, this is why London has laws regulating cabs :-)

I only took one. We were overcharged compared to a legit cab (this is a
given), but we went fairly directly home and were dropped off where we
asked to be. It was FAR better than standing out with a hundred others
waiting for the 4 cabs in the area to come around!

>That they are. It didn't half take some educating Andreas as to what
>a Schmeisser was (MP-38/40). He kept insisting that the term means "to
>throw" as in rocks and has nothing to do with guns. It was only after
>I asked a few other English speakers "what was the WW2 German
>sub-machine gun called" and they answered "Schmeisser" that I managed
>to convince him. What clinched it was when another German said he knew
>the term too, but from Anglo-Saxons, not other Germans! Beats me, every
>war comic, war movie, collector etc refers to them by that name. Just
>not the Germans!

That is because the Germans don't like making mistakes. Calling it a
Schmeisser is just that, a mistake :-)

Hugo Schmeisser was one of the founding fathers of modern automatic
firearms. But he did not design the MP38/40 submachinegun. And thanks
to his ego, did absolutely nothing to try and correct the record. The
real designer was another titan of small arms development, Heinrich
Vollmer. Allied intelligence apparently got it wrong (like so many other
things), and the name found its way to being forever incorrectly
associated with it as most WWII gun nuts will quickly point out (as I
just did) :-)

Steve



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