While it would be foolish to assume that there is any simple connection to be made between decorative excessives of the interior of any given taxi and the character of the driver, it is equally foolish to ignore the fact that a connection might exist between the two. No one, as far as I am aware, has undertaken to research the possible correlations. A thin, lean, greyhoundy kind of nodding dog need not imply that your driver will speed around the streets as if on a greyhound track. Neither does a podgy, contented, doe-eyed Labrador suggest that your taxi driver will roll over and expect you to tickle his tummy. The symbolism of these accessories, which may well maketh the man as much as manners ever did, is likely to be far more subtle, far more roundabout than that.
Nothing is more dangerous than to assume the obvious.
So what better place for these simple interiors, which are at the same time a complex exteriorising of a primary, expressive need, than the contemporary art gallery, a site that has for many years now insisted on obfuscating the obvious. The crushed car of the '60s could very easily be replaced by its post-modern equivalent, the Cairo taxi interior, an installation that, from 1 January this year, would have at least one mandatory feature, the seat belt, an object which those who choose to ride in the front of a car are now legally bound to don. Not that the seat belt is in anyway a neutral object. It, too, has become a focus for the exercise in ingenuity. Only this morning I was strapped into a taxi by a nylon sports bag handle, attached by clips to two hand beaten semicircular hoops that may well have been fabricated from old fork handles, one welded onto the side of the car, the other attached by a piece of string to the metal supports of the passenger seat.