Manganese Bronze, the leading manufacturer of the distinctive London black taxi, announces it has been informed that the Board of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited (“Geely”) has decided not to proceed with the Proposed Placing.

Geely has confirmed its commitment to the joint venture with Manganese Bronze, Shanghai LTI Automobile Components Company Ltd (“SLTI”), and it has confirmed that future operational plans remain unaffected. SLTI will continue to supply Manganese Bronze with components for its UK manufacturing operation as well as producing lower cost London taxis for international sale.

Notwithstanding Geely’s withdrawal from the Proposed Placing, and as announced at the time of Admission to AIM, the Board of Manganese Bronze reiterates that: “The board of directors of the Company have no reason to believe that the working capital available to it or its group will be insufficient for at least twelve months from the date of its admission to trading on AIM”.

The Company remains well positioned to continue with its international expansion plans for the iconic London black taxi.

John Russell, Manganese Bronze Chief Executive, said:

“We look forward to our continuing cooperation with Geely. The decision not to proceed with the placing should not affect the future of our joint venture or international expansion plans.”

Wednesday 11/08/10 by Steve Emment

Late last night a handful of London cab drivers met Oona King.

It’s been in the pipeline for several weeks but last night it turned into reality, it was arranged for Oona King to be picked up outside LBC radio in Leicester Square and then driven around central London.

For those of you who don’t know who she is, she is one of the candidates for the forthcoming Mayoral elections.

The former Labour MP Oona King will be challenging  Ken Livingstone to become Labour’s candidate for mayor of London in 2012.

After last nights debate with Oona King and Ken Livingstone on LBC’s  Lian dale show, she was picked up and driven around  central London and was shown all the troubled hot spots and bottle necks that cause London to be chocked up night after night, then afterwards was shown a few taxi ranks outside London’s night clubs that were being abused by minicab divers, then it was back to the City to meet a handful of cab drivers who were patiently waiting outside Sweetings cafe in Queen Victoria Street.

There’s  me with Johnny and Len looking on.

I managed to muster up a few cabbies last night who were only to pleased to meet her, they were Jim Thomas, Johnny Tsang, and Len Martin.

When Oona arrived along with Nigel Howard of the  of the Evening Standard, she came straight over and shook our hands.

After about 10 mins I brought them a cup of tea and a plate of Banana cake of which the owner Jamie’s wife made, it went down well.

Me Oona and Jim

We talked about Satellite offices to Law enforcement and cab drivers trying to negotiate Londons traffic.

After about an hour of chatting and posing for the camera, it was time to part.

I took one of  Oona’s PR men home to Clapham, while oona was driven home by one of the other drivers.

RMT London taxi branch

August 2010

Transport for London/Taxi Private Hire.

The parliamentary agents for Transport for London and Westminster City Council have made contact with the RMT London taxi branch regarding our opposition to “clause 19” of the London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No.2) bill. The RMT and its London taxi branch is opposed to the “voluntary registration” of pedicabs and concerned authorities wish to give these dangerous objects ranks/bays.

www.rmtnoto19.blogspot.com

Continue Reading »

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

By Magdalene Landegent

Victor Gale, a licensed London taxi driver, dips his bicycle tire in the Missouri River in Sioux City before embarking on his first RAGBRAI.

Gale left his cab in England and brought his bicycle to Iowa after making friends with people from Merrill and hearing about the ride.

A Merrill connection drew a British man to Iowa with his bicycle in tow.

Victor Gale, a London cab driver, came to the United States this month to ride in RAGBRAI (the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa).

He decided to come after hearing about the cross-state bicycle ride from Merrill resident Sara Jane Hauff while she was a passenger in his cab.

“I got enthused about the idea of dipping my wheels into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers,” Gale said. “I didn’t know it was such a big ride. It’s a massive ride, really.”

Since Gale’s work is driving his cab, his vacation usually involves two-wheeled transportation.

“Every year I go away somewhere to bicycle. Usually I go to the Alps or to Italy,” he said. “This year I thought I’d come to America.”

So July 25 found Gale on the banks of the Missouri River in Sioux City.

He sported a jersey with the English Flag, a red St. George’s Cross, and wondered what it would be like “being basically a lone Briton among 10,000 wild Americans.”

Continue Reading »

Thursday, 5 August 2010

London’s Black Cabs have come out top in a quality survey of taxi services in the world’s biggest cities.

Fifty-six percent of travelers surveyed by Hotels.com said that London’s cabs offer the best service, followed by New York and Tokyo.

Taxis in Berlin came in fourth place, whille Bangkok’s Tuk Tuks came fifth, jumping from seventh place in last year’s survey.

Respondents said that London drivers were both the most knowledgable and the nicest in the world, beating those in Paris and New York, who were considered the least nice.

Taxi drivers in Rome were voted the world’s worst in terms of driving, while New York taxis were seen as the most readily available.

Hotels.com surveyed 1,900 travelers around the world in May 2010.

The world’s best taxis

1 London 56%
2 New York 28%
3 Tokyo 27%
4 Berlin 17%
5 Bangkok 14%
6 Madrid 14%
7 Copenhagen 11%
8 Dublin 11%
9 Frankfurt 10%
10 Paris 10%

Source of info the Independent

Listen to John Kennedy Talking to James Whale on LBC Radio, Click on the link below.

record03

Bond No.9 are no longer the only fragranced London Taxi on the scent route: Penhaligon’s have just unleashed five cabs on the streets of London.

fragranced london Taxi

Hail a Penhaligon’s ‘Scented Carriage’ and embark on a stimulating olfactory journey, during which your trained driver will be able to answer any questions you have about Penhaligon’s and their fragrances. Each cab is scented with one of five fragrances; Artemisia, Blenheim Bouquet, Endymion, Malabah and Orange Blossom.

Inside, the air will be heavy with scent, and passengers will be entertained by a new ‘Merchants of Attraction’ campaign developed by DHM London to promote Penhaligon’s as a contemporary perfumer with a long established heritage. Mock-Victorian visuals and tongue-in-cheek copy promote the fragrances to modern dandies and ladies alike (see below).

At the end of their scented journey passengers can also pick up a receipt offering 10% off purchases in Penhaligon’s boutiques and via www.penhaligons.com

Penhaligon’s are due to launch a new men’s fragrance by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour in October 2010.

Source of info Basenotes

Next time you’re in London and need a cab, you might like to try tweeting @tweetalondoncab for one.

Richard Cudlip, Karl James and a small circle of tech-inclined cabbies have spent the last year building up a black cab service on Twitter, and while Cudlip says they don’t handle more jobs than in their street-hailing days, it’s the data the service generates that is the really interesting part.

You can spot a tweetable London cab thanks to the @tweetalondoncab window sticker.
There’s now 100 cabbies using tweetalondoncab and nearly 7,000 followers, which means they are nearing a critical mass where the service starts getting really useful with enough cabs to match the number of punters. The drivers are self employed and tweetalondoncab is a voluntary, cooperative project, but the founders want to build it into a business and are looking for funding. They’ve already met Channel 4’s 4ip.

So what’s the real advantage? The account acts as an aggregator for requests, and cabbies can also flag up their location. Interestingly, isn’t too far away from the courier update service idea started Twitter in thefirst place.

“We’re getting more and more bookings, and the quality of bookings is better, with longer trips,” said Cudlip, who says a few minor celebrities use the service because they find a direct message more discreet than flagging down cabs on the street. All the drivers are full licenced black cab drivers with ‘The Knowledge’ – and they now have a tweetalondoncab sticker in the window.

The surprise has been the real-time data, and the value of aggregating and sharing information about demand or surplus around the city – a tube line down for an hour, or too much of a queue at St Pancras. “We didn’t even think of that when we started,”said Cudlip. “In two years, I’d like us to rival the black cab circuits like ComCab and RadioTaxis. We want more information to come in so we can share it with more people, and that information might be useful to other people in the same way TFL’s data is shared.”

The data challenge is quite a temptation for developers – three have already approached the team and suggested a mobile app – but there’s a problem compiling data between a few hundred sole traders that has put developers off so far. Twitter has been the best solution to date, although a couple of developers are experimenting with Foursquare – setting themselves up as a virtual taxi rank and checking in when they are on duty.

That’s pretty smart, but with clued-up, GPS smartphone-enabled cabbies spread across the city, surely that’s just the start. It’s a classic business ripe for disruption. Is anyone up for helping with the challenge?

Source of info The Guardian

The sound of squeaking plastic parts is a minor irritant as the black cab surges into a sharp corner, its body leaning heavily.

Normally, at high speed, the rattling would have been drowned out by a rumbling, whining diesel engine But this taxi is different.

This is the first hydrogen-powered London cab, developed to showcase zero exhaust emission vehicles during the 2012 London Olympics.

The taxi has been put together by Lotus, a UK company more famous for its Formula 1 team and for making sports cars such as the Elise.

Continue Reading »

01/08/10

Hi everyone It’s been all fun and games in old London town.

It was running nice a smoothly for the best part of the night apart from a few problems, firstly drivers not paying attention to road signs.

they have now closed Goods way East bound from Pancras Road part of the kings cross development.

The first incident was a car drove East up Goods way, past the no entry signs, how much clearer can you get.

Earlier on in the evening a car did a u-turn in Piccadilly one way, for all you drivers in the know, you would know that there’s a contra flow bus lane heading West.

Lastly while heading South down Shaftesbury Avenue, following behind a minicab, he turns left into high Holborn, as you know it’s a one way street.

Around 8pm I took a break and met up with @jasTHFC  aka Jason, Markthecab aka Mark of course, @leevonleft aka Lee and Divyesah63 aka Divyesh, we went to the Camley Street Cafe.

I and had myself a delicious Stake and Kidney pie with Mashed potato and veg, that place has defiantly gone up in my estimate.

Continue Reading »

Hi everyone, London is in the grip of a cycling revolution.

You must have noticed by now The Mayors super blue highways  and  Cycle bays scattered all over the Capital, Which kicked of on the 30 July, the London Bike Hire Scheme was launched allowing people to access bikes 24 hours a day from 400 docking stations in nine boroughs and several Royal Parks in central London.

Apparently a total of 12 superhighways are planned for London, which seems like an ambitious plan, and on first glance, a damn good thing for cyclists.

Are they safe ? do cyclists feel like they’ve got their super highways to them selves, I for one think the mayor was a bit premature  in introducing so many bikes without proper segregation but it’s to late, they’re here.

It is hoped that the 5,000 cycles spread over 315 docking stations will increase the number of bike journeys taken on the capital’s roads.

For you Knowledge boys and girls what a great opportunity when doing the Knowledge.

When you approach the docking stations you’ll notice the information boards,take a look they are full of useful information.

Check the board for Local streets, buildings and places of interest.

While you’re there why not use one of his bikes to do the knowledge on, an opportunity not to be missed, it would a lot more fun in  getting round those tricky alleys and Cul-de-sac’s, especially in Soho and the City.

There’s even somewhere to put your lunch box on and clip your knowledge board to.

Be lucky, Steve.