Cliff comes to town

New offices in Hatch st.

Well another week over and Kerry are the GAA football champions again.

A busy week and the weekends matches helped. But you know when the traffic is gridlocked you cannot do much work. But it was a good week overall.

I brought a man from Japan to Blanchardstown last week.
Or should I have said. I brought a Japanese man from his hotel to Blanchardstown.
The former would be a world record taxi fare.
He told me that he was visiting a factory which was celebrating 20 years in business.
He told me about coming to Ireland 22 years ago and they hired a car to search for a location for the new factory. They hired the car in Dublin and drove to Shannon and it took them 7 hours. "No motorway".
It was a culture shock for them at the time, but he was very happy to see all the good changes which have taken place up to the present time.
They looked in Cork and Galway before setteling on Blanchardstown.
He then managed the company for 10 years. The company has now been in operation for 20 years. So he had a birthday cake.
It is good that any company would stay here that long.
Often when the concessions of tax are over the companies pull out and go to cheaper countries,like Dell leaving Limerick to go to Poland. In 10 years time they will be off to somewhere else with better tax advantages.

One of the new headlines in the oapers was the fate of the Capital Bars group.
They owe the AIB bank he more than € 25 Million.
A few years ago the O'Dwyer brothers split the company and put the properties into one company and asked the bars in the other new the company to pay rent which they are finding hard to do, business is down 20%.
The George and Cafe en Scene and Howl the Moon are now under examinership.
The hotels, Grafton Capitol,Trinity Capitol and the Dragon pub have been put into provisional liquidation.
Perhaps this will herald the end of the €6 pint.

Business is tough now,clothes for example are often manufactured in the worst conditions that you can imagine by children and adults, they are little more than slaves,this is done to give the bosses bigger profits. I would like to see "a fair deal label" this would show the buyer that no child labour was used in its production.

Just a thought.

Next week the Flyers Cafe may close, this place serves the Kesh, which is the holding area for thousands of taxis who visit thee airport every day.
Drivers pay €400 for the "pass" which allows them to pick up at the airport.
It is really anawful place.
The toilets there are soaking in urine and the new toilets have been badly designed so that any spillage gathers in a corner of the floor.You can imagine even a good toilet which is seldom cleaned would be like when it would be used by 2,000 + people every day.

Watch this space I feel a strike coming on.

I had a girl in the car today talking about her fathers funeral. He died on a round the world cruise snorkeling in the West Indies,a lot of fuss bringing the body home etc. I would like to think my folks would have the sense to creamate and bring me home in a nice jar. The cost of bringing a body home must really expensive to say the least.

Though people get into a panic when something like that happens.

Do you ever go on the FBI most wanted sites? or the Interpol one?
Or the Garda one?
The Garda are worried about a Romanian girl who is missing for 19 months.
She vanished around 6th Jan 2008 on Brabazon St A silver Ford Mondeo with a 01 LH number was seen near the scene.
Still if the Garda are serious about finding her they would at least put her on the website.
The crimestoppers site is not any better.

A few years ago I met a Russian guy who told me that I should take care about who I was picking up. When I asked him why he told me that there are bad people in the city.
"No really, tonight I was in a bar in Temple bar and I saw a guy from my home town in Russia. There was a time when young girls would disappear and they would be found dead a few weeks later. Police started to close in on that very guy, then one day he vanished and the killing stopped. So now he is in Dublin today, he may be in your taxi later tonight, so becareful."
I asked him if he would report it to the police, as he was a dangerous person.
"If I went to the police I would be detained and deported, that would be the easy option for them".
No matter what I said he would not budge about reporting him.
Now a few years later I realise he was right, that is exactly what they would do.

Monday brings Cliff Richards and the Shadows 50 years tour.
The Point venue will be bring back all these old has beens, Its not entertainment its a dinosaur show.
It was not sold out.

Have a guess what this advertisment is selling.

Now you get the idea you might as well have another one.

Try this one