Am I changing or is Dublin Changing ?

I lived in Sandymount around the corner from this house.We never met !




What a beautiful VW ! It is owned by a lady I spoke to her a few years ago.
It is hard to believe that it was made in 1968, thats 43 years ago.



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These buggies have been abandoned at the ferry terminal. The people who owned them could not be "Arsed" to fold them up and put them on to the buses. The Social Services will give them new buggies next week!


I told you how that thief of life called time has been playing tricks on me!.
Well Harrods in London has opened its Christmas shop.
Back to school bargains are on the back of the buses and "White Christmas" is coming to the Grand Canal theater.

I thought I saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
But it was just a guy with a miners lamp on his head with 2 buckets of shit for me.

I have a broad back, I can take it.

"Thank God I'm an atheist"

The way things are it will soon be like it is in Australia. I thank my childhood friend Sam for this click here
Over here in Ireland there are hundreds of illegal drivers with forged papers at the garda check they drive away.
Why in Gods name they are not stopped before there is a murder is the question.

Thumbs down

St Pauls London


Corfu Greece


98 FM Dublin


I went to Keith Barry's 8 deadly sins last night.

Sorry lads this did not work for me at all.

There was a lot of sexual content where it was not needed.
The magic and mind reading were great.

But when a Monk pulls up his gown and exposes a long penis, then stretches it out towards a (she said) 17 year girl. Then he lets it go to show it was made of rubber and dangles it in front of her face!.

The entire show cannot go anywhere.

Unless it is for Hen Nights or Stag Nights.

I know the show was over 16. But it lacked direction and taste.

As my old teacher used to say. "Could do a lot better".


I don't know how it happened but time seems to have jumped forward.
I can remember a time before television.

( A thing with black and white pictures and shutters that closed over the screen )

The radio used to be closed off during the day and shut down around 10pm.for the night.
Then we would screw the dial around to Radio Luxembourg.

Later on,how could we forget "the pirates" Radio Caroline being the best of the lot.

Suddenly time has moved on and people download music and films on to Ipods or mobile phones. People walk under buses as they shuffle through their songs.
Kids on bicycles drive through red lights not hearing the ambulance coming through the lights on green!
Youth lives in a world of their own.

New TVs are now linked into the Internet and are as big as a front door, I have an Internet radio which picks up every radio station in every country in the world.

I had a crystal radio set when I was a kid.

Now you can go on the net and podcast TV programes and radio shows from all over the place.

RTE 1 this morning had John Sheehan from the Dubliners on.

He was the non drinker and a great fiddle player.

You do remember the Marino waltz?




When I was just a lad working in Charlemount St. Martin Brennan introduced me to Luke Kelly.
There was a grocery shop across the road "Caddens" and beside it was"Blacks"the home of the fantastic Mary and Francis Black.
I was immersed in greatness then only few of us knew it at the time.

My son David was supposed to be coming with me to the magic show. He had band practice and declined. I rang a friend who has a mentally handicapped daughter. Later on he told me how the whole family were slipping deeper and deeper into despair.
While at the same time as politicians are laughing at us from their mansions.

You can tell the value of any society by how well they take care for their sick and their elderly.

Then tonight around 8 pm there was a great programme about Russian Caviar !
I think that was on Lyric fm.

You think of a thing and Google it, suddenly you have 30,000 reference points and you have it sussed.

There was 2.500 taxis in Dublin 10 years ago, now there are 15,000 taxis trying to fit into the same number of spaces.

Though for myself I think it is time to step back for a moment.

It is not for me to be upset when I let a car across the traffic and they don't give a wave.
Why should I be upset when a blind man is not offered help to cross the road?

Today a guy cut me off at the 5 lamps, I slotted in behind him and then gave him a hoot of the horn as I drove down the bus lane past him by 50 yards.

Perhaps I am turning into an asshole too!
(No, I always was one)

I do suppose that life is all about going with the punches and not taking anything personal.

Bank holiday weekend coming

Birds of prey on display in the Rose garden festival in St Annes park, they are used to keep birds away from airports and rubbish dumps.


Lost Russian sailors




Well here we are, the Galway races are in full swing and so is a photographic event.There are so many things happening that you should look at a few websites and plan ahead.
Tomorrow I am off to see Keith Barrys show in the Olympia, it should be good.

I have known Keith before either of us were famous.

As Paul Daniels once said "I love magic, it's such fun!.
The only way to have more fun is to take your clothes off"
"But in your case John, keep them on"

Anyhow enough name dropping.

Did you know that FISM, the Olympics of magic will be taking place in Blackpool next year?
If you are into magic this will be your Mecca.
It will be massive.


Do you like magic?
I once got a massive tip for showing a client a simple magic trick.

we should all have a party piece.

Do you like this ?


Because both of these are a silent acts they can work all over the world!

I saw an illusion done on TV by a French magician once, he was at Blackpool last year but he was a complete ashole in person. (this happpens)
Anyhow he did this fantastic trick once where he took a piece from a matrix of pieces, spread them out and they all fitted back into the frame,even though one piece wasw taken out. There was no spaces. Then he scattered the pieces again and re assembled them once more.Once again fitted into the frame without gaps. Yet again he had removed one piece.
Fantastic I thought, so I asked and I looked on the magic sites.
I even asked in magic shops when I was in France.
Then my friend David Bishop who lives in France gave me the name of the illusion.."Puzzle paradox"
So I bought it on ebay.
From Indonesia.
It came with a little plastic bag inside, with this message.

"Thank you for buying this product from us. We are graetful that you chose to buy your product from our store when you had the whole world to choose from.
I enclose a stamp from our country as a gift.
May god bless you and your family"

Now isn't that nice ?

Its a lot better than a shop assistant popping your change into your hand and saying "Next"
Or a taxi driver who leaves you 50cent short and drives off with a grunt.

This shouldn't happen like this.

Well things are moving on and now I see an end to the seemingly endless task on which I have been working.
I must have become a magnet for hopeless lame ducks in sharp decline.
I saw her standing there holding on to a lamp post. 60 ish slim and drunk.
Times are hard so I stopped. She was going to a late night chemist on the Malahide Rd. but it was closed.The only other place I knew of that would be open was in O'Connell St.
So off we went and she told me of how bad she felt about being drunk.
"I went back to school at 46 and did a masters at UCC, and I never touched alcohol until I was 48, that was the day my husband of 30 years walked out on me".
I kid you not folks she has had a tough life.
I turned off the meter at €20 but she was insistent that I turn it back on. (You can't restart a meter from where you left off)
What do you want to hear ?
How her father a police man walked out on her mother and 3 kids ?
How her mother used to beat them with a stick, she would take the brunt of the attacks to protect the smaller infants. "After the beatings I could push the blood around which was lying under my skin"

After she got her Masters degree.
She worked as a social worker, helping aids victims, directing help for the homeless.

Then one day she was on outreach for vulnerable children, "The girl was not bad, just wild. I told my Superior that I had gained this girls trust and I wanted to go to her on that day.
My Superior told me to go to Cabra on a non urgent case as it turned out. That was the day the 14 year old girl was killed.
They tried to push the blame on to me. Then I really started to drink"

So now she is in emergency accommodation for homeless people and her life is full of woe.

"I always thought if you were a good person and you tried hard to do the best thing you can for yourself and your family, that things would work out fine"

€5.20 for water ?

Photogenic in Dalkey




Outside the Bondiola Argentian restraunt on Baggott St


The biggest cruise ship I ever saw.

I have not been working much lately.

Remember a month or so ago I fell asleep at the traffic lights?
Others whom I have worked with in the past have had heart attacks.

Time to take notice of whats happening and flow with the current for a while.

I have to supervise a project for a friend who is away, just a hour of work in the morning with the taxi and anyone I can pick up as I pass along my route.

Well that photographer in the last posting had a really good website.
Look at this one. The leaflet came through the door and for once it did not go straight in the bin.
An oriental restaurant should be red and yellow..With Dragons. This one is in black and white it also says that the meat is Irish, and healthy options, we have a cookery school !
That has to be the best idea ever.
It says our kitchens are so clean that you can come in and meet the cook and he will teach you.
The other chef Conrad Gallagher who opened a cookery school has had to close 2 of his restaurants ! He omitted to make a tax return.
Years ago there was a character called Sean Gallagher, he rang a restaurant called the Mirabeau, there was no prices on the menu, "If you have to ask the price, then you can't afford it" He did quite well until the tax man went through the books...He was busted !
Then the memorable quote came into being.
"Sean was a really good cook, meat,fish,game anything. But he was useless when it came to cooking the books". I met his chef one night, an x cruise liner chef he was a really good guy, very entertaining.
On the subject of charging what you like.
I wrote about Blackpool where a Sunday roast with a pint costs £5, well a friend of mine was at a wedding, he doesn't drink himself, so he bought a vodka and coke for his wife and a bottle of water and a splash of blackcurrant for himself. he gave in €20 and looked at the change, when he looked at the receipt he noticed that he had been charged €3.90 for bottle of water and €1.40 for the dash of blackcurrant. He prosted and the manager was sent for.
His attitude was that that was the price and that if he couldn't afford it he should go elsewhere, now Liam could well aford it but, he handed back the water and got a refund.
The managers attitude put a seed of poison into Liam and he went away to the local off licence and bought 2 bottles of Vodka and 2 large bottles of Coke and put them on the table for the guests.
The manager came back and protested.
"Sorry mate this is a private function, unless you can show us a notice to the fact, this is the way it is, and one other thing the VAT has been reduced by 4% since this wedding was booked !
I will be looking that the reduction has been passed on to my sister

Don't try to rob people,it will come back on you big time"

Big panic the other day, a booby trap device under a jeep on Seville place! There is a bit of a conflict with a few families down there.Traffic in a jam, not one diversion notice in sight, Same old crap. You spend 30 Min's. getting there just to be sent back.

What they should do id to DIVERT THE TRAFFIC AWAY.

Wow! I had another girl in the car with a magical voice ! I couldn't place it. But she was French to an English father. But she worked all over the world. I could hear South African, then Indian and a complete seamless blend. I met a guy who had worked on cruise ships for 30 years and something like that had happened to him.
But in this case we heard the Goldberg veriations,her voice was music.

Do you believe in God ? a passinger once aske me.
I do indeed.
But not like your God, my God is female, she would make you smile, she tells me I am the most precious ting to her.
When she is near I am calm and I can smell her perfume.
I canot stand that God who is spiteful and allows his servants to abuse children.

I am glad for you she said.

New Irish

Today I took a moment off to meet Agata Stoinska "Irish business woman of the year". When I read about her victory it got me thinking about the new blood coming into Ireland, these people staffed our hotels and shops at the beginning. Now they are moving up in the world.
Agata was a an architect but then moved to her passion which is photography.

Her studio is above a garage on North Great Charles St. (I had to find it with the sat nav.)
I have brought 4 lots of people to it now.
You can rent a space to do a shoot or rehearse a play.
The studio also hosts exhibitions Plus they do a photography course.

On top of that she makes films and documentaries, here and in Poland!

Agata I am glad you came to stay.

666

Down by the 40 foot





Office workers relax and eat "Al fresco" on the canal Mesbil Rd


666.
I just see the number of posts I have done.
That is the number of the Devil.

Child abuse by the clergy is once again a top news item.

Ian Paisley in one of his rants shouted. "Satan lives in the Vatican"

How so many good people can be misled by corrupt officials I will never understand.
The well being of a child should surely be the most important thing on this earth.

If you believe in the fluffy cloud heaven, then the angels must be crying in despair.

Another scandal came to the surface when a 47 year old traveller woman was sentenced to 24 years in jail for a catalogue of cruelty to her 8 children, beating, stabbing, scalding and starving them over a 12 year period. The poor judge who had to listen to it all could not understand how it was not noticed sooner, or why it was not stopped by someone earlier.

Another scumbag beat up elderly patients in a nursing home. He terrified the Filipino assistants and told them that their working visas would be taken away if they said anything.
I spoke to a customer who had assessed a few of the victims. Well I hope we have somewhere nice to put this scumbag, in with a load of psychopaths who will teach him a bit of respect for peoples personal safety.

I am amazed by mankind's ability to do fantastic good deeds, people like Mother Theresa or Christina Noble or that priest who fights the corrupt officials in Thiland to save young prostatutes.
I am equally shocked and horrified at what evil deeds we are capable of.

Perhaps the way the tabloids tapped into voice mails of 911 victims.

Rupert Murdoch just says he is sorry that he was caught hacking into the voicemail of a murdered child Millie Dowler, or that indeed he is sorry he was caught trying to listen into the voicemail of 911 victims.

WHAT A PIECE OF INFECTION HE IS.

It is so offside to hack into the voice mail of a murdered schoolgirl.

No boys and girls, we must stand by our own principles and not be ruled by the mob!

Years ago I saw a photograph of a beautiful lady sitting on a hospital bench at Loughlinstown hospital in complete shock.

Front page news!

Her husband had been caught in fishing nets and had been pulled overboard.
She had come to the hospital to identify his body.

So some low life took her photograph!

I very very seldom buy that paper.

12 million people facing starvation in Africa, very few people care. (that's not true) but the people who do care are not heard.


A girl once wrote a piece about me .
Gave my name, she told the people how I wrote about the personal details of my passengers, I was so angry at the time, so I asked the people who read the blog if that was true.

What I write about is the human condition, how we are different etc. and how we contrast.
Nothing more.

Back to Corfu. Ken is our MC He is funny, he knows one of the guests, he introduces him.

"HOW MANY RECORDS DID YOU MAKE ? 22 ! THAT'S FANTASTIC"

"We were shite" the lad said

"No 22 that is good"

Ken had a a few great lines in comedy. "Ladies and gentlemen, today we have a big plastic bucket of the finest wine for your enjoyment, I know it it good, because we were using it as paint stripper, but it was damaging the sink! No No it really is a great vintage, at least that's what it said on the tin"

So later on I talked to the guitarist about fame and how some people can't handle it when it comes. He told me that what his limited success had done for him was to allow him to work as a session man for many great groups and to go on tour with them around the world.
He had become great friends with many of the greats including a lead guitarist who had a worldwide 2 times Platinum hit record.

Fame destroyed him, he turned to drugs and descended into the abyss.

The other guys in the group(which I won't name)became millionaires.

Some of his friends helped in the the addicts rescue, the richest ones did not.
Then lets call him Mike decided to try and rescue his old muse, if I told you the name of the song no matter which country in the world you lived in you would know it.
So he was now in Corfu away from his drug pushing "friends" and Mike was taking a cruise with us to have a bit of a chill out.
Mike was saying that he regrets the loss of such a talent to the world.

But that is the cruel side of life, you get one thing and you loose another.

I picked up an old guy who used to work with me 20 years ago.
I instantly recognized him.
"We buried 5 of out colleagues last month" he said
He also told me about a guy who worked with us.
Well this man went off for the day and while he was away his house caught fire. No,it was in the countryside and it burned to the ground.
All he was left with when he came back was the clothes he was standing up in.

Foolish man to say the least, he had no house insurance.

There is always someone worse off than yourself.

I have been working too hard. The pressure of not making any money was stressing me out.
So I'm taking time off for myself and the painting. Doors and ceilings mostly.
No landscapes for me.

In the Kesh where the taxi drivers wait to be called up there is a list of around 6 A4 sheets of paper giving the taxi plate numbers of school teachers who are driving taxis, also which schools they teach in.
The font size is quite small, so there are a lot of names on it.


I was coming home when I was stopped by a girl who has fibromyalgia. Poor girl she is in constant pain and she told me of her ills. Young enough, 22 perhaps her entire life is on hold. Friends who have not sen her for a while pass her in the street as she has changed so much. Indeed her hair is falling out and because she can't exercise she is putting on weight.

Good on her she put my own tiredness into perspective for me.

God bless you kid.

I really hope you get better soon.

Keith Barry

Keith Barry has a show running in the Olympia.

better than Riverdance for sure,