Thursday, January 25, 2007

Belfast ... it's in Scotland, at least according to Milton Keynes taxi drivers!

Doing a whirlwind tour of London - Milton Keynes - London - Ipswich at the moment. Got off the train at Milton Keynes Central yesterday lunchtime and hopped into a taxi to get across to the training centre.

It's about a 15 minute journey. Chhatted with the driver about the snow that had fallen overnight and caused its traditional travel chaos in the South East of England.

"So where are you from with that accent?" the driver asked.

"Belfast"

"Ah ... I once went up to Scotland. Visited one of the bigger cities."

But the funny thing was that today I headed back to the station in another taxi. This time the driver was rejoicing that the snow had brought him extra business the day before and that the work had been constant.

"So where you from?"

"Belfast"

"Ah, no snow up in Scotland. Just down here in the south"

So it's official. Two out of two Milton Keynes taxi drivers - both wonderful characters, but geographically confused. Either that or they've a bet on in January to try and confuse Irish visitors!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How peculiar. Did you have the nerve to correct them?

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

I did reply with a "No, Belfast's over the water in Northern Ireland", but neither seemed that bothered.

More focussed on the parallel/perpendicualr geography of Milton Keyne's road network I suppose.

CW said...

Maybe it's the accent. People in the south of England tend to have trouble distinguihing them.