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Unsure about rickshaws

I'm teaching just off Aldwych on a Thursday night and walk back across the river to Waterloo station. At around 8.45, there are a surprising number of empty rickshaws on the road, touting for business. I've been very close to giving one of them a try. After all, I've been on my feet for a couple of hours talking about marketing and advertising and suchlike, so I deserve a bit of comfort. The problem is that I don't know anything about rickshaw etiquette. Do you hail them like a taxi? Where's the meter? How much does it cost? Can they charge whatever they like? Do they want a tip? I just have no idea how it all works and this rather puts me off.

I suppose like all these things, once you've done it, you've done it. And then you know how it works for ever more. I remember trying the internet for the first time about ten years ago and not knowing my Ask Jeeves from my elbow. Now I'm a dab hand with the old blogging and whatnot.

I have another five or six weeks teaching this course and I'm determined that I'll rickshaw my way back to Waterloo on one occasion and supply some photographic evidence for readers of Washed and Ready. The conversation I can already picture. "Blimey, guv. Weather's taken a turn, hasn't it? So much for global warming, eh? I had that Ken Livingstone in the back of me rickshaw the other day..."

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