The weekend's TV

This lovely film captured what being a cabbie is all about - and why they're so grumpy
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I don't often take a taxi in London, especially not now with the credit crunch and all that. But the other night, coming home late, I wasn't in the mood to be vomited on and almost certainly stabbed on a night bus, so I thought I'd treat myself. Two, three, four black cabs went past, yellow lights illuminated, on the other side of the road, as I hailed and waved ineffectively from my side. Oh, they'd seen me all right, but it had reached that time of night when taxis only go in one direction, become buses effectively - small, extremely expensive buses. Ha, I thought, I know a way round this: I'll make out I'm going their way, and then surprise them at the last minute. Cunningly, I crossed the road, and immediately a taxi stopped. Down came the window. Dollis Hill, I said, reaching assertively for the door. The taxi drove off, leaving me to step into a space where it had been. And they wonder why we hate them.

They hate us, too. "The object is to be as nice and as pleasant as possible," says Roy, one of the cabbies featured in Arena: Cab Driver (BBC4, Saturday). "Even though you hate the sight of the people." Roy's been driving around London in a black cab, hating people, since 1938. Then there's Harry, who has a look of Travis Bickle in his eye (it's no accident that Bickle was a taxi driver). And Len, who hates everyone in London, including himself, and who ended up standing at Trafalgar Square, apologising to the whole city. I'm sure I've been in the back of Len's cab.

Perhaps it's not surprising they're so grumpy, being cooped up alone in their tin boxes all day long. I don't think many conform to the old stereotype - ranting, racist Essex Freemasons. I've noticed many more non-white black-cab drivers recently, women even (what is the world coming to?). But I think it's fair to say that most aren't exactly full of the joys of life.

Here they are, in their cabman's shelter, those funny green boxes where they go for group moaning sessions. About minicabs, mostly. They hate minicabs even more than they hate everything else.

On the night I failed to get a taxi, I ended up walking to a minicab office, and a nice man from Nigeria drove me home for about two-thirds of what it would have cost with Len, Harry, Roy, or the one that wouldn't take me. My minicab driver may have never heard of Dollis Hill (who has?), but his little machine had. Satnav has virtually made The Knowledge redundant. Three years on a moped, for nothing. No wonder the cabbies are grumpy.

This fine film was much more sympathetic than I am. Actually, it didn't judge at all, it merely observed - in taxis, that green shelter, the canteen where they hang out at Heathrow - and in doing so it beautifully captured the essence of what being a London taxi driver is all about. Not only now, but then as well; chopped in with Roy, Harry and Len, were archive clips, plus scenes from Carry On Cabby and other films that feature taxis.

A soundtrack of suitable cabbing songs was laid over the top. It had rhythm; it's not often you can say that about a documentary. But this felt more like a ballad than a documentary. It was actually a bit like spending an hour in the back of a black cab, driving round the capital. Better than that - because my television doesn't have a meter that goes up at a sickening rate. And it stops for me.

That aside, it was an undistinguished weekend for television. Heartbeat (ITV1, Sunday) returned, inexplicably. Maybe it's because they both feature cops, but watching Heartbeat, I found my thoughts wandering to The Wire.

It's a very different game, I thought - policing contemporary Baltimore and policing the village of Ashfordly in North Yorkshire in the 1960s. And this led to an even more profound thought: The Wire and Heartbeat are quite different. One is contemporary and relevant, real, moving, poetic, powerful, epic, beautifully written and acted. The other is twee and stupid, dated but without really capturing the period it's set in. It has loopy plots and is badly written and acted (surely this is the final stop for actors before they jack it all in and retrain). And yet, while only 11 people watch The Wire, billions watch Heartbeat. It's big in Scandinavia, too, I'm told. You idiots.

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