Hey! Taxi!

Online taxi company Uber is controversial the world over, largely because of its impact on existing local taxis. Each time we climb into one, I feel a pang of guilt thinking of Joe, our best man and London black cab driver (now picking up fares in heaven.) But it makes our life here manageable; trips to the shops, swimming pool, anywhere really.

We do enjoy watching the little car head toward us on the map, sometimes apparently making handbrake turns and slaloming sideways.

It's fun to meet the drivers, who come from all over Southern Africa, so far including one woman and one white guy. Only once have we felt nervous, late at night with a driver playing gangsta rap on the radio. "You're gonna die tonight!" proclaimed the rapper. We didn't.

There was one tense incident outside Park Station, when our driver was accosted by two angry local taxi drivers. Thankfully, two Afrikaans policemen intervened to calm things. We walked alongside the Uber as it drove to an agreed place down the road, and then climbed in.