JOHANNESBURG LETTERIt's horrifying to consider the number of people we happily told to expect a Germany v Uruguay final

RESPECT. Say what you like, but The Irish Timesknows how to keep a taxi driver entertained. Questions which show a genuine interest in the man behind the wheel both shorten the journey and smooth the passage of kinship.

(Some of the journeys which The Irish Timesis too lazy to make on foot are so short a snail with a slow metabolism wouldn't hesitate to walk the distance. In these instances it is only the smoothed passage of kinship that keeps the atmosphere light. Taxi drivers who have been sitting in the rank for such a long time their brains have atrophied often fail to see a very short journey as a challenge to friendship. Like speed dating with the meter running.).

"Ya busy?" The Irish Timeswill ask briskly as if he too drives a taxi, has just knocked off and is now making a comparative study of degrees of busy-ness, and not actually just too lazy to walk back to the hotel from the speciality doughnut shop on the corner.

Special touches are important. Often in South Africa The Irish Timeswill pleasantly startle a taxi driver by not merely inquiring if he is busy but by honouring him with a special form of address and a supplementary question.

“Ya busy, brother? Much out there?”

The smile of pleasure which such originality and cordiality brings to the face of a cab-driving man is a joy to behold and virtually ensures the stranger won’t be driven for more than one or two laps of the new ring road if the journey is an unfamiliar one.

Having inquired if the driver who has just been engaged is in fact “busy”, The Irish Times will then follow up with a series of questions designed to showcase his interest in, and knowledge of, his new companion’s profession.

“Ya out long? What time did you start at?”

“Hmmmm. What time will you knock off at?”

“Hmmm. Long oul day, brother.”

“How long you in the taxi game?”

“Are ya a cosy?”

“No, I mean do you share the cab with another driver. Calm down. Ah please, drive on. Brother?”

A disappointing aspect of African taxi banter is the drivers don’t have the conversational resources to create long-playing records about black fellas taking all the cabs. They don’t indemnify themselves against all dissent with the fail-safe words, “don’t get me wrong, I’m not a racist, but” before threatening to tell us racist stories about “the black fellas” which would make our hair stand on end, had we enough hair.

Nah, they just politely drive you to your destination, knowing perhaps they wouldn’t cut the mustard in the big league ranks on O’Connell Street and College Green.

For the South African taxi driver it is a joy, of course, to have a polymath like The Irish Times (the thinking man’s Stephen Fry is a description that often occurs but is seldom accepted) riding shotgun. It also delays the onset of inevitable questions from the taxi driver, the first of which is always, “World Cup? You here for the World Cup, sir?”

Having confirmed the nature of your business, the next item on the agenda is to inquire coldly as to how your team is doing.

“Oh, we don’t have a team here.”

“Where are you from, sir?”

“Ireland.”

Nothing registering on the face of driver. No sympathetic look or slow, horrified mouthing of the words, “OMG, Thierry Henry survivor”.

For diversion, at this point it is normal to revert to type and hit him with series of jokes and observations about the Irish weather. This being our summer and the South African winter, but South African winter being so much more pleasant, well, we could swap, ho ho and, eh, ho. Dull look of recognition and stifled yawn from driver. The look that says, “another one of these”.

(Except, and The Irish Times can swear an oath this is true, on Wednesday the cab driver slammed on the brakes, turned and shook The Irish Times’ hand and thanked him for everything, starting with John O’Shea and working back through the Neil Mellon Project and all the way to Dunnes Stores. Wordlessly, The Irish Times tried to convey the impression that, yes, he was personally responsible for it all – but it was actually a genuinely moving and proud moment.)

Anyway, the next question is always the worst. It’s the prediction question.

“Who is going to win the match today, sir?”

Now, in print and on the record are several previews of matches we have made and had published in the newspaper. We have a pristine record of having got 100 per cent of those predictions wrong. One number should come up every now and then. But no.

This is quite a whupping to give to the law of averages, but the taxi driver is talking to somebody who (albeit involuntarily) is tied up in a scheme which (oh the mortifying shame) involved placing a decent chunk of money into the care of a bookie – the big dividend to be paid out if, well, if England won the World Cup.

The underlying theory, which seemed suspect even at the time, was an England win would trigger a period of worldwide mourning and depression against which we would be inoculated by virtue of having taken a little taste at 9 to 1, guv.

The argument that when England do win the World Cup it is likely there will no longer be bookies or a civilisation as we now know it was dismissed as a mere cavil. Bah.

And so on the basis of The Irish Times’ preposterous prediction we fall into conversation.

Horrifying to look back on this and to consider the number of people we happily told to expect a Germany-Uruguay final. We then switched, for Wednesday, to a Netherlands–Germany final, before the Germans showed up semi-comatose to play Spain.

Yesterday, on the way to the airport in Cape Town, we switched tack.

We went through the ritual. World Cup? Yeah. What country? 33rd. Who will win?

At which point The Irish Times replied he hadn’t yet studied the possibilities as regards the final but that he was hoping for a Spanish victory.

“You like Spain?”

“Well, I have a large sum of money riding on New Zealand going home as the only unbeaten team.”

“Really?”

“Yes, yes. Ya busy, brother?”

As Rodney Dangerfield, the old-time comedian, liked to say, “Don’t get no respect, from the day I was born, no respect – my fadduh tried to breast-feed me”.

G’wan, Spain.