Alexei Sayle: Sting in the tale of the Scorpio driver

I was doing a photo session the other day for the Radio Times and when I came out of the studio I found my bicycle had been run over and the front wheel was all twisted. The magazine very kindly ordered a people carrier to take me and my mangled bike home.

Just by way of conversation the driver asked me if I had an account with any private hire company and I replied: "Well, actually I do, in fact with your firm, but do you know I never ever use it?"

It's not that they aren't a good firm because they are, they have over two thousand modern cars and you get an itemised bill and everything, but still it never crosses my mind to call them up. Rather some compulsion always makes me turn to dodgy minicab firms and I think after a great deal of psychotherapy I've finally figured out why.

Just as it was Freud who first pointed out that compulsive gamblers are not gambling to win but rather they are seeking the lacerating pain of losing, so with these minicab firms I'm not looking to get somewhere, I'm looking to get nowhere.

What I'm seeking is that vital taxi reservation, the minicab that's booked to take me to the hospital for a crucial operation, or to the Dorchester Hotel where I'm about to pick up my Pulitzer Prize because I know, at that point, the minicab firm will undoubtedly let me down.

How do I know this? Because let you down is what they do. Years ago I had a friend who who managed a massively successful pop band, because they were round the corner and because they seemed reliable he used his local minicab firm. As the band's success grew so the firm got more and more work.

My friend became close to the owner of the firm, he attended the guy's daughter's wedding, he became godfather to their first-born son and yet on the day of a flight to Australia my mate waited and waited for his cab to come. He made increasingly frantic phone calls to his pal the owner who repeatedly sat there in his office and fed him lies.

First of all the firm's owner said the cab was stuck in traffic, then he said the cab had been sat on by a circus elephant in a parade but he'd dispatched another one which was on its way but that one just had to stop off to deliver a kidney to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital – then it'd be right there.

In the end my mate missed his flight to Australia and he now always takes the train to the airport because the train is actually more reliable. But he doesn't blame the minicab owner, my friend knows it was simply in the guy's nature.

It's like that story. There's a flood in a river in South Africa near Yonkfonberg and a scorpion and a lizard are trapped on an island in the middle. The scorpion says to the lizard: "Oh please Mr Lizard I can't swim, let me ride on your back to the safety of the bank or I'll drown!". "But you're a scorpion," says the lizard, "you'll sting me." "No no," says the scorpion, "I'd be crazy to do that, please help me."

So they set off with the insect on the lizard's back and half way across the river the scorpion suddenly starts stinging the lizard who wails as they both go under the raging waters: "Why did you do that? Now we're both going to drown!" "What did you expect?" says the insect in reply, "I'm a scorpion."

Well, when my friend confronted him the minicab driver said more or less the same thing, he said: "What did you expect? I own a minicab, I drive a Scorpio."