I use and endorse Zam Zam Cars (020 8682 4321). Over the last few months I've found myself switching to this newly launched Tooting minicab service after becoming jaded with the workmanline but unbloggable services of Savoy Cabs (020 8672 6595). Savoy have a more promising name – suggesting quality, excellence, cabbage – but, sadly, a fraction of the enthusiasm. You could argue that it's tough to build up any kind of enthusiasm for transporting a fat boy in a stripy shirt from one part of London to another in the early hours of the morning, but nevertheless, if I'm going to fork out 18 quid, I like to be made to feel special. Zam Zam provide this, in spades.

Last time I used their services, they sent a cab driver from Lahore (by which I mean he was born in Lahore, he didn't wearily sling his car into first gear before commencing a 4000 mile journey across Asia) who spoke Flemish. By co-incidence or by design, yesterday morning's driver also came from Pakistan, and spoke Flemish. He was delighted to hear that my final destination was to be Brussels. “I live in Antwerp 14 years,” he told me. “I speak Flemish.” Of course he spoke Flemish. This is Zam Zam Cars' Language Promise. But before he could tell me about his wife and children, as I knew he inevitably would, there was the small matter of getting to Waterloo. “You go to Waterloo?” he asked me. “Yes please,” I replied. “OK! Please write 'Waterloo' on this piece of paper.” He handed me a small card, on which he had already written the word “Waterloo”. I didn't understand. “Uh… sorry, what do you want me to do?” “Please write Waterloo on this piece of paper,” he confirmed. I stared at the word 'Waterloo', and rubbed my eyes, wearily. “You've already written 'Waterloo',” I told him. “Yes, please write Waterloo,” he said, breezily, turning the key in the ignition. I didn't understand. I didn't know whether he was asking me to mark his spelling, or testing my ability to copy his florid script. “Look, you've already written it,” I said, pointing it out to him. “Ah yes, Waterloo,” he said, reaching for the GPS gadget on his dashboard. This would, if correctly programmed, give him the optimum route for getting from Tooting Broadway to Waterloo. He started typing the word “Waterloo” into the computer, loudly announcing each letter as he did so. I interruped him. “Actually, it's just a straight road,” I said. “A24 all the way to Kennington, then left. Easy.” He looked disappointed. “Oh. You show me?” I confirmed that I would. We moved off. “Left here,” I said. He turned right, straight into a dead end. He eyed me suspiciously, all trust in my navigational abilities having evaporated.

We turned around, and set off northwards. He wasn't happy that the GPS system wasn't operating, so as we sat at traffic lights, he attempted to get it going again. A list of over 30 Waterloos appeared, dotted around the length and breadth of the country. “Oh no,” he said. “Sometimes this thing doesn't work.” He chose one, at random. It was somewhere in East Anglia. “No,” I said, keen not to end up traversing the Fens, “that's not it.” The lights changed, and we moved off again, but he became increasingly keen to get the bloody thing working, even if we were overtaking another car at the time. He decided to try typing 'Waterloo Station'. As he reached the end of the word 'Waterloo', I saw London Waterloo on the screen. “There!” I shouted. He swerved suddenly to the left, suddenly drawn back into the real world and convinced I was giving him directions. “No,” I said. “You missed it.” “I missed a turn?” “No, you missed Waterloo, on the screen.” “Oh.” We set off again, and he started wrestling with the gadget for the 4th time. Finally, he found Waterloo Station, and selected it. “Waterloo Station, Liverpool” read the display. “229.6 miles”. His eyebrows shot up. “It's not that one, either,” I reassured him. “Look, really, it's a straight road. I'll show you.” After a couple of miles, he seemed happy with our new arrangement, and settled back into his seat. “I have a wife, and three children,” he said over his shoulder, proudly.

EDIT: I forgot something. Towards the end of the journey, there was the following exchange.

“How is the friend of your wife?”
“Sorry?”
“The friend of your wife, how is she?”
“Uh…”
“Your wife has a friend?”
“I'm not married.”
“I pick up a girl from your flat two weeks ago, she go to Gatwick.”

“Ah yes. That was my girlfriend.”
“Oh! Your girlfriend. Not the friend of your wife.”
“Er, no. I don't have a wife.”
“But you have a girlfriend!”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”