Just returned from a brief visit to the UK. When you arrive in London, if you have £20 you can take the Heathrow Express (travel time 15 minutes) to the city; if you have £28 you can go first class. The spiffy train interior makes Acela look frumpy. When did the British get so good at design? The original London black cab was the Austin FX3, introduced in 1948. It had plenty of room for luggage, flip-down jump seats, and rear-hinged doors for the benefit of the passengers. The latest model of black cab, TX4, still has those useful features (except the rear-hinged doors), as well as a diesel engine, air-conditioning, ABS braking, a wheelchair ramp, and MP3 compatibility. It carries five passengers and is 2 feet shorter than a Ford Crown Vic, the New York cabbie’s favorite. And it still looks like a black cab.
I despair when I return home. The train from Philadelphia’s airport to downtown is cheaper ($8) but it takes longer, makes local stops, has all the charm of a 1950s subway car, and people struggle to find a place for their luggage. It’s still better than the taxis, though, old sedans that are uncomfortable, beat-up, and driven with reckless abandon by drivers whose newly-acquired knowledge of the city is minimal.
The British have developed an enviable ability to innovate without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In 1971, they decimalized their money, retiring the halfpenny, threepence, sixpence, shilling, florin and half-crown–not to mention the guinea. The smallest paper money now is a five-pound note, and there are sensible one-pound and two-pound coins. The coins still carry the monarch’s image on one side. We can’t even get rid of the penny, let alone introduce a dollar coin. The US Army has adopted metric measure for distances, but the nation seems unable; after a half-hearted try in the 1970s we remain one of only three countries in the world to resist metrication (together with Burma and Liberia). The UK completed metrication more than 40 years ago–but in a very British way. Food is sold in grams and kilos, but people still weigh themselves using that mysterious British measure, the stone. The London Underground counts distances in metric but speeds in imperial. And while gas stations use liters, pubs still serve beer in pint glasses. Cheers.