I wonder if there is a guy in south london actually called joe baxi who gets calls from irate customers of errant or late taxis...

I refuse to get a directory and look...

Smiley face... It made me laugh hysterically

Directory enquiries call says no available listing for a 'Mr Joe Baxi'

I feel strangely disappointed...

Nice to see how our educational standards are improving year on year. Well done NuLab.

Can someone stop the world please? I'd like to get off now

Alien, because they can probably speak our language better than most London residents.

Absolutely fantastic. Kudos to the operator for having a sense of humour (hopefully). :)

Absolutely fantastic, I havent laughed so much over a Reg story in ages - funnier even than Phorms' shared taking a smacking, and thats saying something!

Big up da' wesside Staines massive :)

That is the funniest article I have read in a long time. Fantastic. About time some chav got caught out in this sort of way. Utterlly brilliant.

I would of made her keep the cabinet and only returned the money on condition she went back to school and complete the 5 years she clearly missed out on.

Dear oh dear, talk about make a right Aristotle of yerself...

Mine's the one me trouble an' strife always tries to 'arf-inch offa me.

I hope that the ignorant little chav now realises that speaking like a tw@ doesn't get you anywhere (literally).

Paris, because she knows how to use her mouth properly.

If you're based in London, surrounded by major airports offering cheap flights to everywhere, why on earth would you need to fly from Bristol? Bristol only offers a small selection of destinations and is far more expensive than Lahndun airports, as we West Country folk know only too well...

Could have been far worse, she may have ended up with a rack full of servers delivered to her door, (Cab/rack delivery is typically fairly cheap its all that lovely stuff they put in it that makes it expensive ;)

...I'll grab my Ye Olde English Scholar coat...

...I could come up with something humorous to say, but I can't. That's just priceless. Mind, it sums up a mail I got from a friend yesterday that they'd ripped from one of the news websites. It detailed the new lists of names being given to children. All of them mis-spelled, missing vowels, letters replaced with apostrophes...

Remember when it was just the Americans that did that? How many ways can you spell "Sonia/Sonja/Sonya/Soniah...." anyway?

Paris, because she'd not know how to ring for a cab (innit), either.

No, handles for forks, innit.

I've been waiting to hear a story like this!

I like the idea that she actually paid £180 for a taxi too! Where the hell was she going?

Who cares if that story is true or not, its hilarious and will no doubt be making it's way round the internet and email.

I would love to hear a recording of the conversations.

i mean the polish workers round here speak better english than most londoners.... its bloody embarassing....

i also dont think londoners now annoying their accent is anyway... :)

for clarity i live in the east midlands - neither north or south - so my accent is very neutral. so much so that hardly anyone can ever guess where im from :)

and why is this on El Reg?

I am starting to think I am my parents after hearing the 'young folk' speak. I do worry about the inability of people to communicate to each other. Slang simply doesn't do it. I interview graduates for work and find they often struggle to speak coherently, 'innit' does seem to be used as a comma and they often cannot string a logical sequence of thoughts into a sensible sentence. And these are graduates, not drop outs from a deprived part of London. I suspect the drive to put 50% of people through higher education means that a good chunk of them are simply not up to higher education.

I blame Thatcher for all of this... or Major... or Blair...or Brown. All middle class tossers who should be shot.

Paris as this has as much relevance to her as the story does to IT.

...if there are any recordings of these phone conversations...

Alien icon, because she was obviously speaking another language.

``I would of made her keep the cabinet and only returned the money on condition she went back to school and complete the 5 years she clearly missed out on.''

I suggest you accompany her during the more advanced classes - you might get to learn how past participles work.

If she was willing to pay £180 for a flight from Bristol then:

(1) The Bristol flight was damn cheap

(2) She's a complete donkey for not wanting to use the train

(3) She had it coming

If the operator had been a bit smarter at interpreting "Baxi", she could have ended up dropping several hundred quid on a Central Heating boiler.

This is obviously a PR stunt to get 'Displaysense' in the paper. Quite clever though. Gave me a giggle.

That's incredible. Thank you, El Reg, for I shall now laugh every time a taxi or cabinet appears on Eastenders..

Isn't avoiding Heathrow Terminal 5 worth something?

Middle class?

Right.

"...suggested that maybe she should speak a bit clearer on the phone."

Perhaps "more clearly" would convey his meaning with improved efficacy.

I've never heard of a joe baxi but if someone asked me for a cab I'd have a fair idea they wanted a taxi. The call center is probably in India and the bemused operator just typed it into the computer and read out the first thing on the list.

Reminds me of the woman who rang 192 and asked for a guard dog firm called "Beware". She knew it was called that, because she'd seen the sign up saying "Beware Guard Dogs". I know the guy who took the call.

BTW, how did the Reg miss this story?

"Beleaguered Dell breaks customer’s laptop, sends replacement full of pubes"

http://consumerist.com/374402/photo-dell-breaks-your-laptop-sends-replacement-full-of-pubes

Nuff rispek to da homie oo is kepin it reel n street.

Sayfe man.

We'll all be conversing in grunts soon. Why is it that important things like air / sea transport, medicine, jurisprudence and such are regulated by expert bodies but Ejakashun is fiddled with endlessly by politicians?

Yeah, I know, VOTES.

It seems to have escaped some of you that "Joe Baxi" is Cockney rhyming slang for "Taxi", hence the utter confusion.

Hard to get much more middle class than a grocer's daughter from Lincolnshire.

At least she didn't pretend to be working class while sending her kids to the Oratory, like the penultimate tosser in No 10.

er yeah, except if you're not used to 'foreign' (or street) then someone saying cab innit very quickly sounds like cabinet (specially with a saarf london accent), which isn't a taxi is it.

>if someone asked me for a cab I'd have a fair idea they wanted a taxi

The caller wasn't asking for a cab. They were asking for a 'cab, innit'. Try saying those words out loud, and try to imagine how this confusion might have occurred. Enlightenment should soon follow.

Cost of a call to Directory enquiries: 50p

One Displaysense cabinet: £180

Being able to tell your mates about it over a pint: absolutely priceless.

Hmm, anyone else smell a rat? I suggest a little creative word play the Displaysense marketing department. There is no way on earth two people could get through the whole process of ordering a cabinet without realising they were talking at cross purposes.

You should of, could of, would of asked an adult for some help with your post.

If only she'd said "It's a taxi innit." Wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny though. How much further does it need to go before we have a completely new language called Chavish? We'll end up with teachers being encouraged to give lessons in it, innit. Much like Ebonics in the States: http://members.aol.com/midevlman/ebonics.htm

...I'm a bit suspicious of how the call to Directory Enquiries got put together with the Cab innit company, except by reference to the person making the call and I'd have thought she'd have insisted on her 15 minutes of fame...

Still, no need to let the truth stand in the way of a good story...

Gotta love it. This story has "completely invented" written ALL over it.

Keep up the good work, El Reg. Or should I say El Regurgitator.

I really can't believe you guys are actually talking about this as though it really happened...

It's not real. I repeat. It's not real. Go read a text book on Public Relations, you fools.

This is simply not true. Well done on being suckered, guys.

So contrived it's not even close to believable, what a bunch of horse crap.

Bristol airport? Where's that to my babba?

And £180 is approximately the taxi fare from central Bristol to so called 'Bristol' airport aka shithole flying cheap and nasty airlines to cheap and nasty destinations. Gold sovereign rings compulsory.

say "cab, innit" out loud.

Now remind me, which is which among J Arthur and Jack Arthur? I'm sure mistakes could be even funnier than this but avoid it by not knowing anyone who actually talks cockney day to day.

Is this a London thing then? that you pay for a taxi up front with a credit card ? Not something I've ever come across, but you live and learn...

As a Bristol ex-pat I wanted to use that heading!

I all fairness I think her paying for the taxi is the safest bet. If she can't cope with using the telephone then I fail to see how she will get on in Bristol with our unique dialect - and the fact that many people in Bristol still call the airport Lulsgate, which is the name of the village where the airport is located.

It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.

Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.

If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do,

Why, you might be selling flowers, too.

An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,

The moment he talks he makes some other

Englishman despise him.

"There is no way on earth two people could get through the whole process of ordering a cabinet without realising they were talking at cross purposes."

Four Candles!

Four Candles?

Four Candles.

No, four candles!

Well there you are, four candles!

...

Your accent is neutral, but your punctuation places you back in South London ;-)

Maybe you should HAVE some help with YOUR post. You could HAVE asked for help, I would HAVE!!!!!!!

It;s HAVE HAVE HAVE not OF OF OF, since when in the world did the word OF follow would, could, should, etc???!?!?!?!?!?!?