Rip-Off taxies

At 6:35pm on Christmas Eve after a few drinks I caught a taxi from the main Taxi Rank in Harrogate, its only 1 1/2 miles to my house (no comments about how lazy I was... I was pissed) and I wanted to get home quickly to put my daughter to bed.

To my utter shock I was told it was double time, and to even step foot in the taxi cost me £5.40, of course I was 300 yards down the road when the taxi driver told me this, I of course complained like hell but still took my ride home, which cost me £9.20 to do 1 1/2 miles, as the taxi driver said, he doesn't make the fair, the local council do, not that he would be complaining about earning more money, after checking the council web site, the Christmas Tariff comes into force at 6:00pm Christmas Eve and runs until 6:00am on the 27th December.

What annoys me about this is that Christmas Eve is NOT a public holiday, everybody works on Christmas Eve, OK so I got a few sneaky hours off to have a beer or twenty with the boss, but I was still working, also I was not getting paid anymore than normal, so why should the bloody taxi drivers ?