Soho Chauffeur Service

Hemmed in by Oxford Street, Regent Street, Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, Soho packs in more restaurants, bars, private clubs, editing suites and small offices than any other block of the West End. Its character turns over by the hour: media and production while the sun is up, dinner from seven, and something a good deal looser after ten. Passengers we carry are usually out for the evening, or working in the film and music trades that still occupy the upper floors of Wardour Street and Dean Street.

Nearly every street in Soho runs one way, several take no cars at all, and Old Compton Street along with parts of Dean Street and Frith Street have at times been handed over to outdoor dining, which wipes them off a driver's map completely. Meeting points that work are all on the edges: Golden Square, Soho Square, Brewer Street, Great Marlborough Street, and those Regent Street kerbs where stopping is allowed. Soho lies inside the congestion charge zone. Come a Friday night, the pick-up corner is agreed before you go in, never after.

Dinner brings people to Soho, so do the theatres ringing it along Shaftesbury Avenue and towards Cambridge Circus, the members' clubs on Dean and Greek Streets, and the music venues that run late. It is a working district as well: a screening, an edit, a recording session, none of them with a finish time anyone can name. Either case wants a car on call rather than a fixed collection, and a chauffeur content to hold position two streets away.

Once the immediate grid is behind you, a late journey out of Soho moves quickly: Heathrow generally takes 40 to 70 minutes after midnight, 50 to 85 in daylight. Gatwick comes to 60 to 100 minutes. Leaving a Soho hotel for a morning flight, we normally go by Regent Street and the Westway instead of wrestling with Piccadilly. More often, though, the request is a run home to Hampstead, Chelsea or the suburbs, and the car is there whatever the hour.