Last week I met with Russell Hall, one of the founders of Hailo, a free smartphone app that gets you a licensed taxi without needing to hail one from the street. He’s a very charming cabbie and I love the app because I can usually get a cab within 5-10 minutes and they don’t know I’m in a wheelchair until they accept the job. So no more frantic waving from the side of the road like a scene from Taxi Driver……..
They operate in London, New York, Ireland, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Madrid, Barcelona,Washington DC, Montreal and Osaka. Hopefully they’ll come to a city near you as the app ensures that both passenger and driver are accountable – it’s efficient, safe and most importantly stress free. Going out is now less like a military operation.
Talking of stress free I also went to a birthday dinner with Ann (the Lieutenant who wrote a series of articles on access in Vietnam). We went to an out of the way restaurant in Richmond’s churchyard – La Buvette. The food was french and not overly complex, I had scallops with fresh broad beans followed by a beautiful sea bass cooked ‘en papillotte’ with black olives and tomatoes. Now, even though I had to be carried down 2 steps to get to the inside dining area (there’s an outside patio as well), the staff were excellent, very friendly and obviously strong. Unbelievably there was also a disabled toilet (up the steps again but fully equipped) and in such a small restaurant this made my heart soar! So a well deserved 2.5 BBS Ticks.
However, my stress free week ended on a sad note with the debacle that is Man Utd. I can’t say anymore I just hope Pep Guardiola or Jose Mourinho realise there’s a great opportunity to become the ultimate saviour!! (No disrespect to Jesus but football is a religion too). I think we need a good looking manager, we’ve never been a team of ‘lookers’ since we lost Becks???
See you next week with tales of a new play, Birdland and our visit to NAIDEX (the epitome of style & good design – let’s see….)