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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 7:16 pm 
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jimbo wrote:
A 35 year old man has been arrested in Lincoln in connection with drink spiking incidents.

Hope the police don't leave their coffee cups unattended during the interview process.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:08 am 
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jimbo wrote:
A 35 year old man has been arrested in Lincoln in connection with drink spiking incidents.

I think 2 were also arrested in Nottingham for similar things.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:01 pm 
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Well, Jimbo, if you haven't read this gushing piece about the 'disco taxi', then I would look away now :badgrin:

Article has an advertorial feel about it, but to be fair there's no mention of her circuit here or any numbers/branding on display, so can't really see much in the way of how this would directly market either Carol or her office, particularly if she's just another driver on the circuit, and doesn't do any of her own work.

Anyway, there's also a video on the website, which is worth a look (and there is a bit of 'Direct Taxis' marketing there.)


We took a ride in Lincoln's "disco taxi" and are far from disappointed

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news ... xi-6102025

What a way to start or end a night out

After we brought you the story of Lincoln's famous "disco taxi," we just had to take a spin in the unique taxi ourselves this week - and we were far from disappointed.

Carol Houchin, 45, has been a taxi driver in Lincoln for the past 20 years.

On Wednesday, October 20, I asked Carol for a ride in her disco taxi and got far more than I ever expected.

Image
Image: Eleanor Maslin/Lincolnshire Live

The first thing I noticed was the "disco taxi" stickers on the sides of the car, as well as her customised "disco taxi" floor mats.

We then took a journey around Lincoln high street, with some of Carol's party tunes on in the car, which appeared to be mainly house and techno music.

It wasn't long before we had some party tunes going, and disco lights that changed colour and lit up my boots even throughout the day.

I didn't even feel like I was in a taxi, I felt like I had been transported into a nightclub.

Carol had such an infectious, bubbly personality, and I can certainly see why she is so popular for people going on nights out in Lincoln with her feel-good vibe.

Picture this - a dull, drizzly Wednesday morning, and then Carol turns up the tunes, dazzled me with her disco lights, just like my wish was her command.

She made me feel pumped up for a night out even though the gloomy grey skies were sighing around me and it was only mid-morning.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better I found out that Carol's taxi number is 101, just like the Disney film 101 Dalmatians, AND she was wearing a dalmatian shirt and even a spotty scrunchie - absolute dedication.

But it got better - she actually has a dalmatian called Pongo herself.

Image
Image: Eleanor Maslin/Lincolnshire Live

Carol is the kind of person who stands out from the crowd, which is exactly what she told me she set out to do, right back when she first had the idea to be the disco taxi.

I love how Carol has made her role her own, and strives to bring that extra bit of joy to people's nights out.

If you're taking people on nights out and can't go on one yourself, why not make the taxi a nightclub aswell? Absolutely love that.

People like Carol will never be forgotten and she is a great credit to Lincoln.

I certainly know which taxi driver I'll be requesting on my next night out in Lincoln.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:02 pm 
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Anyway, I can get that the journalist thinks it's all a bit of fun, but I just can't get my head round how the driver can be doing nights for twenty years with this 'disco taxi' vibe going on, yet she still thinks it's all a bit of fun and her glass is still almost full rather than nearly empty.

I suspect there's maybe more to this than meets the eye (I mean, the perfect carpet mats in the front footwell, for example :roll: ), but I suspect the vast majority of night drivers just can't identify with this kind of thing at all.

And, I mean, she's picked up five victims of drink spiking in a week, yet it's all a big laugh? :?


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 3:53 pm 
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years ago there was an 8 seater locally done out with glitter ball disco lights etc. it did used to attract a lot of work on a Saturday night until the firm running it disappeared (boss ran down and killed a motorcyclist ending up in jail)

it's all very well but don't think I would want to work with flashing lights and loud dance music distracting me

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:19 pm 
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Yes, and I'm sure in some circumstances licensing councils would say that in fact this kind of thing might amount to a safety hazard.

But as regards the whole spiking thing and freshers' week etc, looking at it from the whole freshers' thing here (or 'orientation week' :roll: ), I'm surprised many of them could actually notice their drinks had been spiked.

Or at least been properly aware they'd been spiked without having their drink (or blood) properly analysed.

But which might explain why some articles have mentioned victims saying that they noticed their sore arm later, rather than when they were actually pricked with a needle. I mean, wouldn't you be more likely to notice when it actually happened?

There's no doubt spiking does go on, but I suspect there's a bit of an unjustifed panic going on here.

But if it all means that women pay more attention to possible hazards then it can only be a good thing =D>


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:20 pm 
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Of course, my final paragraph above is what many would call 'victim-blaming', so maybe shouldn't have said that 8-[

Indeed, Kirsty Blackman, MP and ex-Aberdeen licensing councillor, has managed to get a newspaper columnist 'cancelled' for a column which said that, “Surely it is the responsibility of the individual to keep themselves safe?”

Which is a clumsy way to put it, but in the context of the column overall wasn't in my opinion worthy of the Press and Journal dispensing with his services.

Anyway, anyone interested can read the whole column here and make their mind up:

https://twitter.com/KirstySNP/status/14 ... 2641640454


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:43 pm 
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The “taxi” signeage has to go.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:00 pm 
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Well spotted, Jimbo - I was too busy clocking the immaculate carpet mats to notice 8-[

Meant to reply to your earlier post about the taxi/private hire car thing as well, but would take too long, and can't really be bothered going through what's been rehashed on here hundreds of times over the years.

But that's why I was a bit surprised some of the old hands on here like you and Edders made a point of it, because the vast majority of articles about PH drivers and vehicles simply use the word 'taxi', at least where it doesn't really matter, like crime stories, for example. But I suppose it's different if it's an article about what's happening in your own backyard.

But I doubt the terminology used by the press really makes a huge difference as regards plying for hire and the like. Even if the press did always use the correct terms, I suspect most people wouldn't realise the significance of the words anyway. Probably more important is the likes of the door signage in the photo, which of course many punters won't bother about anyway if it means getting an immediate and convenient car home :?

As for people asking you if you're for hire while you're waiting on an official rank, again I doubt if press reporting is the main factor here.

I think a lot of folk are just naturally uncertain about how it all works, even things that look perfectly straightforward to us. For example, they may have come across a cab on a rank who won't take them, either because the driver is effectively brooming them, or because they have a booking and should be off the rank. So to that extent they're always a bit wary about whether cabs on the rank are immediately available.

Of course, it's all further blurred in areas like mine that use saloons. Some drivers, for example, don't plug their rooflights in, or don't replace duff bulbs, so some people think that means they're not for hire.

The students here are particularly wary about the whole street hiring thing, and a lot more inclined to knock on the window rather than getting straight in, for example. And they'll frame their request as 'could you take me to...' rather than just saying where they want to go.

But I think this wariness is down to stuff other than press reporting and the misuse of the terminology.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:01 pm 
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Anyway, only really revisited this thread to post this, for what it's worth.

This guy is an academic in Dundee, and isn't particularly popular with the PC/woke/progressive mob already, as this piece further demonstrates [-(


Are we really in the midst of a nightclub drug-spiking epidemic? By Stuart Waiton

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics ... rt-waiton/

PERHAPS before we terrorise a generation of young women and demonise all young men as sick, potential drug-spiking rapists, we should make some attempt to assess the scale of the problem of the needle ‘epidemic’ that it is claimed is sweeping through our cities.

Having jumped on the story of young women being drugged by injection in pubs and clubs, the media are now starting to write less prominent or headline-grabbing articles about sceptical experts who are questioning the feasibility of this phenomenon.

We don’t know what has happened in these individual cases and drug spiking does occur. But medical experts are now questioning the feasibility of injecting a person without them knowing; the actual difficulty of administering an injection; the specific difficulty of injecting date-rape drugs, the size of the needle that would be needed, and the length of time – up to 20 seconds – that the needle would need to be in the body.

The director of the Global Drug Survey Adam Winstock suggests that there are very few widely accessible drugs that could be used in this way.

Emergency medicine consultant David Caldicott says: “The idea that a clubber would do this to a fellow clubber seems highly unlikely to me”.

A critical care nurse has suggested that the likelihood of drugs like ketamine being administered is virtually zero. Even in Nottingham where there have been 15 reported cases of needle spiking the police force has identified only one case where the victim’s injury “could be consistent with a needle”.

Hopefully, anyone who has used a needle in this way is caught, convicted, and seriously punished. But we still need to question the extent of the problem, especially as clubs look set to introduce a new stop and search regime based on the anxieties about drug spiking.

If the extent to which we should panic about needle spiking has been questioned, similar questions about drink spiking have also been raised within criminology.

The idea that your drink could be spiked with a date-rape drug is now an accepted idea amongst young women in Scotland, many of whom claim to have either been spiked or to know someone who has been. Considering the apparent scale of this problem, which could rightly be called an epidemic if all these claims are true, it is surprising to find that between 2013 and 2018, the number of convictions for drink spiking in Scotland was zero. Not a single conviction.

As far back as 2009, the British Journal of Criminology published an article that noted the “stark contrast between heightened perceptions of risk…. and a lack of evidence that this is widespread”.

They concluded that the anxiety about drink spiking, that developed in America, had been facilitated by TV soap stories, health agencies and a safety industry that promoted the problem and created what they called a “socialising etiquette”, where young women were essentially educated into a culture of fear.

Much of the discussion about drink spiking occurs online. This was how the recent Dundee needle spike incident went viral. The pub in which the incident was meant to have occurred initially raising doubts about the case and called the young woman an “alleged victim” rather than simply a victim. The subsequent pile on in social media for not calling the woman a victim forced the pub to change their tune, apologise, and to insist that they will be increasing their security.

Demonstrating their reactive nature, within days of this reported case, Dundee University sent an email out to all students about the “extremely distressing events” that were “unacceptable, reprehensible and ultimately life threatening”.

But without actual evidence of the “ultimately life threatening” cases in question, or a genuine understanding of the scale of the problem, I would suggest that it is the media, politicians and institutions like universities who, by helping to further terrorise young women and escalate the idea that all young men are potential rapists who need to be stopped and search, are behaving in an unacceptable and reprehensible, indeed in a dangerous and reactionary way.


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