I love anything open late at night. Never mind ‘the sigh of midnight trains in empty stations’; even mundane activities like filling up with petrol become enjoyably Edward Hopperish after midnight. Often the places are so quiet you wonder why they bother opening at all.
But it is a strange psychological fact that opening a shop 24 hours a day often pays, even if nobody ever buys anything between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. Somehow the knowledge that the shop never closes means people are far more likely to shop there at conventional times. This quirk also explains why the most successful coach firm between Oxford and London runs services all night: not because people really want to travel between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., but because they like to know that they can.
This, I think, explains the anguished reaction of many Londoners when it was suggested Transport for London may refuse to relicense Uber. It isn’t only that people like using Uber; they also like knowing it exists.
A case in point: ever since Uber cars became established in London, I barely drive into London at all (I live just outside the M25). Previously I did so once a week. This wasn’t by choice (after all, if I wished to recreate the experience of driving in London, I could sit in a stationary car at home while stabbing my head repeatedly with a fork). No, before Uber, I was forced to take my car into London simply because if my event overran or if the trains went funny, or if it started raining and the black cabs were all taken, or if I was in that 90 per cent of the city where black cabs don’t go, then I was irredeemably stuffed.
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