Taxi going from the Melbourne hotel to the airport. Driver large and Anglo. We get in and he starts talking.

I hate this. I mean, when I pay my money for the taxi ride, I shouldn’t have to listen to the driver explain the way the world works. It’s all too common, but this particular lecture was more, ah, ironic than most:

“What were you here for?”
“The poker tournament.”

That does it. He sets about telling us how his mates play poker, he plays occasionally, doesn’t much care for it, etc. Then the clincher:

“After all, it’s all luck, isn’t it?”

That was a [quintessentially British/Aussie] rhetorical question. I keep my mouth shut.

Then he goes on to talk about online poker and how it’s “dodgy” and he’s watched his mate play four of six seats in a sit-and-go using four laptops and four IP addresses.

“After all, the whole online poker thing is completely dodgy, isn’t it?”

That was a rhetorical question. I keep my mouth shut. But I do look at the list of “Passenger rights” glued to the window to see if “A quiet ride to the airport” is in there.

Then he starts going on about being sure to get licensed taxis, though he explains that doesn’t do you any good because [fairly insulting racial diatribe about how they're sharing licenses and it's not like you can tell one of them apart from the other]. The ironic thing here is that his rant strikes a cord – Lisa and I have noticed that many of the cabbies we’ve encountered do seem to be well and truly clueless. Right down to being unable to operate the GPS units in their vehicles. In 5-6 cab rides, we’ve been dropped at the wrong address twice and had to give the cabbie directions to a major beach-side restaurant once.

But all in all, I wish that, when you climbed into a taxi, the driver would at least ask you if you wanted to hear his perspective on life for 45 minutes on the way to the airport.