Thanks to all!

Remember the Wikipedia picture I asked everyone to vote for? Well, the ballot box stuffing worked, and I am proud ss proud can get of my friends.

You may see it here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

What a long, strange trip

They trotted down he driveway from the upmarket apartment complex in Barton, he in a suit, she in a tight black dress, carrying a present wrapped in silver foil. Saturday evening, and obviously we were off to a wedding reception.

I almost got out of the cab to play chauffeur and hold the door open for her, but he beat me to it. "Nice legs," he said as his wife slipped into the back seat.

"Who says romance is dead?" I chuckled.

"Not with this one!" she smiled back.

He eased himself in beside his wife and cocked an ear at Ella Fitzgerald, my latest attempt at finding the perfect taxi music. "This," he explained, "is the new taxi music system. They use the GPS to work out which suburb we're in and download some appropriae music. This is a Barton song."

"Oh yeah?" she twinkled. "What about Kambah?"

"AC/DC"

"Belconnen?"

"Anything Italian. Currently it's Julio Iglesias."

"Tuggeranong?"

We passed the Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside Old Parliament House.

"Hey, hear that?" he said as Ella changed key. "Just a beat of Yothu Yindi there."

"Treaty?"

"Yeah. If we'd stopped we would have got the whole track."

I often smile to myself at some of the things my passengers say, but by now I was openly laughing. It wss only a short ride to the Hyatt and I enjoyed every second. "I wish I was coming in with you," I told him. "Sounds like you're going to have a wonderful evening."

He gave me a tip and escorted his wife inside, leaving Ella and I to smile off into the dusk.

For as long as I've been driving cabs - just over three months now - I've been searching for the perfect taxi music. My first cab didn't have a working CD player so I was limited to the radio. At first I'd turn the radio off so that I could hear the directions of my passengers without distraction, and then as I gained more confidence, I hunted for a radio station that would satisfy everyone. Including me.

Tough job. I prefer golden oldies - the older the better, and I'm talking 1940s here - but even the best station played a lot of rubbish, and I really couldn't countenance the inane chatter of drivetime radio or the ads. Blowed if I'm going to use up my precious driving time by listening to adverts. They tend to be loud and stupid, anyway.

On the other hand, at peak hours I like to listen to the traffic reports. Getting a heads up on how the traffic is flowing can mean a lot, and there are always road closures and accidents to avoid. So I listen to FM 106 in between passengers.

There's a classic radio station, and I tried that for a while. Problem is that I have no control over the content, and while some classical music is good background music, a lot of it is either so soft that it's inaudible over the road noise, or so loud that it's a distraction. However, they have a jazz program now and then which I enjoy.

When I switched over to Taxi 165, I was delighted to find that the CD player worked. I still wasn't sure of what to play, but I thought I'd try a compilation CD given to me by some friends. It had a weird mix of music, but two tracks I liked in particular: an instrumental piece that was soft and melodic, and a gentle vocal by Gary Jules.

"There's no poetry between us"
Said the paper to the pen
"And I get nothing for my trouble
But the ink beneath my skin"

I played these pieces over and over, getting some favourable comments in the process. I really enjoyed driving through the mellow evenings with some soft and gentle music playing. Not enough to discourage conversation, but enough that we could drive along with something to listen to.

And then one evening, I dashed into Starbucks. "A family-sized cappucino," I said to the barrista, my hands indicating something with enough caffeine to keep me going into the middle of next week. She smiled and prepared their largest size, and while she was busy at the coffee machine, I browsed through the rack of CDs they had nearby.

One title caught my eye. "Riverside Jazz", a compilation of old jazz tunes, currently marked down to $19.95.

I bought it on spec, and tried it out when I returned to my cab. Great stuff! Driving around Canberra of an evening with a huge cappucino, cool jazz, and an open road, well, what more could a cabbie ask for?

The compliments began to pile up, too. Passengers would get in, say how nice it smelt (a combination of air freshener, my Zegna splash-on, and fresh coffee) and listen with approval to the soft jazz. I do my best to provide safe, efficient, clean, comfortable and pleasant transportation, and the jazz certainly helped with the last item. Happy passengers means a happy cabbie.

Over the next few weeks I bought some more jazz CDs from Starbucks, and I usually choose one disk per shift, putting it on repeat.

I've tried other music. Some Acker Bilk, which was bright and bouncy, but perhaps a little too much jazz in one hit. Henry Mancini, but much as I love Moon River, most of his other tunes are a little too stagey and intrusive for relaxed cabbing.

On the recommendation of my day driver, I even tried the Blues, but BB King wasn't quite my style.

I played my favorite Grateful Dead CD a few times. Some wonderful songs:

Driving that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you better watch your speed.

Come round the bend you know it's the end
The fireman screams and
The engine just gleams

Goddamn, well I declare
Have you seen the like?
Their walls are built of cannonballs,
their motto is Don't Tread on Me.

Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street
Chicago, New York, Detroit it's all on the same street
Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.

Sometimes the light's all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been.

Great stuff, but it just seemed to blow past the passengers. Only one even recognised the source.

So it's back to jazz in the cab. Which has earnt me any number of favourable comments, some wonderful conversations, and some good tips.

Maybe not everyone likes jazz, but very few actively dislike it, and when someone complains about the "elevator music" and asks if they can change the channel, I tell them "Hey, you're the DJ! Find something you like and crank up the volume!".

It's all about keeping the customer satisfied. And when they get out, I change the music back to something I like.