Glad to hear the cabbie is doing well... if memory serves, that's the very likable kid who started out with the intention of becoming a jockey, then ended up living in a tiny house with a bulbous wife (who forgave him his infidelities) and about 200,000 kids. The 7-Up series is fucking brilliant... great concept, perfectly executed. The fuckers who dropped out of the series in later life (generally those from the upper echelons, as I recall) should be nationally ostracized... if the unsuccessful people have largely had the gumption to stay with it, surely the toffs should have as well.

Save for my love of Monty Python, I had never been much of an Anglophile, but the 7-Up films also had the curious effect of making me Like The Brits. Most of the kids/teens/young adults/adults came across as quite unpretentious, hard-headed, pragmatic, honest and thus rather admirable.