Christmas lights.

I told you we were being screwed, well make sure you use a washer !

Liam Carroll is building this huge office block, now he is in the dumps with the banks, who will own it? Guess NAMA will own it, thats you and me.

Well the old recession carries on.
My eldest son lost his job back in the summer and after much coming and going finally got job seekers allowance. Then he decided to do another full time college course and the result was he lost the job seekers allowance.
So he applied for another type of student allowance which was not allowed as the course he was now on was at an equal level to the qualification he already has,(but not the same) now if it was a masters course he was doing he would be OK.

Whats next?

With no benefits he has to come home to live with us again, he has been gone for years.

I hope he will at least wash the dishes, sometimes.

If you see the blog getting prettier you will know that his years of IT training are starting to show.

I know that that last drink driving advert scared the crap out of me, and I saw it before, last year.

A girl from Perth in W. Australia was telling me that the government here would want to get real and tackle drink driving like they did in Australia.

"Coming out of Perth at weekends drivers are breath tested en mass, you know that you will be breathalysed and only and idiot would have one drink..Over here in Ireland guys go to the pub and drink 4 or 5 pints and think nothing of driving home".

At around 2.20 the Malahide Rd was closed off after a car crashed into a group of pedestrians killing one and leaving another one in a very critical condition.

The driver was drunk.

I suppose jail might help, at least his mates might waken up to the reality of drinking and driving.

There is no way in hell that he could say that he could have thought he was safe to drive.



The Christmas lights were supposed to be turned on on Sunday but weren't, I don't know why. But that big French Christmas tree is not up in O'Connell St. yet.

By the way there are loads of bargains in hotels in Dublin at present, seems that we have a big surplus of hotels.. They reckon that one in four hotels must close as they are not viable.

Problem is that the government gave tax breaks to build hotels, now no one said anything about running them, if the hotel closes before the tax break period is up the investor has to pay back the tax.....So super luxury NOW at a bargain price.
(At least I hope so)

Restaurants are playing ball with early bird menus, so eat early and often.

I went to the tax advisor today,,,final day of filing tax returns on the net.
I just can't get my head around the tax system, I rely totally on him to work out the figures.
If I win the Lotto in a big way I hope he looks after me.

2 other girls in the car on Saturday night,one girl really liked the other girl.
Her friend just wanted to talk about work(the other spoke about helping her) and about her boyfriend, about and what a jerk he was.
When the workaholic got out I just had to ask the other girl why she didn't tell her friend that she loved her as a lesbian?
"Was it that obvious"? she said to me.
"I'll just hang in there for a while, I don't want to scare her away, If you could see it that easily ,why can't she"?
She was a very pretty girl from Rio, I fancied her myself,perhaps I am becoming a lesbian too?.
Life can get very complicated.

Another thing on Saturday night was a big party of sorts in the Shelbourne hotel
gents in their tuxes and the ladies in ball gowns, they came out waving for taxis.
Now I have a bee in my bonnet about the "upper class people"

The higher the star rating of the hotel the lower the tip.

No If you give good service you deserve €2 tip.
Honest to God I got a £50 tip more than once and a few €50 tips in my time.

Going back home for tickets or passports, sometimes a lot less work.

Why would a poor shop assistant from Coolock give you €4 tip while a guest from the Merrion hotel paying €400 a night wait for 20 cent change.

Problem is it happens almost every time, the rich do not tip.

Until you learn what you should do, you wait for someone else.

Its just a faze I am going through and until go through it and come out the far side there will be no ball gowns or tuxes in my taxi at least as long as there are working class people waiting for me, who, by the way often tip.

Warming up for Christmas ?

Well I know a few Irish taxi drivers who could give him a run for his money.
Good fun that ,taken from the Anderson shelter blog.(link on R/H side)

Just a word to the Irish drivers. The GATSO van was on the road outside the Liffey Valley complex today taking photos of cars heading into town..
Be warned this is a revenue gathering exersise, no one would crash on that wide road.