THE TRAVEL Company’s managing director David Whittaker is used to dealing with difficult film stars and picky pop bands who want him to tend to their every travel need.
But, put him in front of one of those car windscreen-washer types who pull up at traffic lights and he’s all of a quiver.
After bow-tied Whittaker had told Backchat about a recent encounter with one of the said entrepreneurial washers, we can’t help but sympathise.
Poor Whittaker was driving home along the A40 from The Travel Company’s central London head office one evening when, with the usual traffic almost at a standstill, up popped a bloke armed with bucket and window-cleaner’s squeegee.
As he moved towards Whittaker’s car, the MD tried to signal that he wasn’t interested – after all, he’d just had his motor professionally valeted and T-Cut and it gleamed like new.
But it was too late.Soap suds had been slopped on the windscreen and Whittaker felt he had no choice but to let the bloke finish the job.
He then scrabbled around the dashboard for some spare change and handed the cleaner a £1 coin.
No sooner had Whittaker wound up his window but the cleaner appeared again, fiercely shaking an Indian 10 rupee coin in front of Whittaker’s eyes and shouting: “Not legal tender, not legal tender”, prompting Whittaker to put his hand in his pocket and part with another £1 before driving off.
Two minutes down the road, Whittaker realised he had been duped.
He said:”There was no way I’d have had Indian currency in my car. He had ripped me off.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, moments later, the driver of the vehicle in front squirted his badly-adjusted windscreen washers – all overWhittaker’s screen, leaving a dirty smear.