Opening lines

THE taxi-driver’s fury is obvious but he restrains himself admirably. He just clicks his tongue and furiously taps at the taxi-driver-touch-screen-thing on his dashboard. It happens again half a mile later and the latest infringement ellicits nothing more than a barely audible tail-end “...ck’s sake”.

It’s a cyclist. In this case he has attempted to overtake a slowly moving bus and is now perilously waggling in between the bus and a line of cars. Drivers on both sides flinch as they proceed – like a man pushing a shopping trolley through a crèche.

While all of this is going on, I shrink into the back seat of the taxi. I have been that cyclist.