Clearing up and I find old treasures

 I was clearing up and I found a wad of papers from a bank.

Taxi drivers know a lot of people and some of the people we know have power.

I had a mortgage which was paid by direct debit from my bank account, a large payment went through and there was not enough payment for the loan. A little fecker from the bank rang me and gave me hell. It was really rough although once the shortage was brought to our attention the funds were paid. 

Someone said that I should write to the bank with no reply. So I went into the head office and the little girl told me that they do not have a complaints department. Then I handed the letter into my local AIB in Raheny. 10 days later I got a reply to say that they had investigated the matter and found no problem. A customer advised me to write to the banking ombudsman with copies of the letters and times. A few days later I was asked to clarify a few points.

A customer who had been advising me phoned me and said that my case had shone a light into the darkest corners. He had gathered the offenders into his office and had great fun with them.The head manager had not listened to the tape at all.Everyone nearly died to hear how the staff member spoke to me on that day. Then questions were asked for around 20 mins. In the folder that I came across someone had written on a letter.

"This client may have mental issues"

I have made recommendations said my contact and I feel that heads should roll though that is not up to me.

My compensation £1200...

Letting off steam

 ,

Things happen which makes my blood boil, here are a few. 

Two sets of twin boys living in the UK. Neighbors alerted social services that the children were being neglected.They called to the house and the mother would not let the inspectors see the children. After a month or so they dropped the case.

A fire broke out and in the beginning they herd the children calling they then stopped and the 4 bodies were located under the bed upstairs. Unfortunately they were dead.

The mother had gone shopping and locked them in unsupervised.

She got prison for manslaughter. There was a description of the state of the house which was really very bad.

Then there was the nurse Letby in UK again. She is alleged to have killed as many as 15 babies, convicted of killing 7. The manager of her hospital where she worked was afraid of reporting her or the hospital might have been closed down.

And the last one was the Verizon Computer scandal in the British post office.Loads of postmasters were locked up in prison accused of fraud. The computer system was faulty. What did management do?They lied and covered it up. The head of the post office got an honor from the Queen and the saga sails on. The percent Postmaster got a £30,000 bonus which had not been approved, all this while hundreds still have not received compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

Something really good to finish on.

I got a big surprise in my bank account €220 in payment  from Amazon for the book.

The steering wheel university 

By Paul Malone.

The author drove a million miles and met thousands of people and they educated him.

You can download it on Kindle as well

(Theirs 3 spelling mistakes)

Summer yealds to taxing times

 Death and taxes, nothing is surer.

So I had a business and an accountant made a VAT return every month.Now I gave him the figures in plenty of time but he was late filing the paperwork a few times.(forgive me if this is a repeat) The gay from the tax office decided to come and see me at the accountants office on a set time and day. On the chosen day the accountant decided to go and see France warm up on the Clontarf rugby grounds.

The tax man was livid and he said "Because you have a bad accountant is your fault not his.

I will come to your house tomorrow and I want you to hand me £400 cash or I will take your house from you. At that time I was setting up a detective agency and I had high tech recording equipment, I also knew a guy in the tax office and I asked him if he would like to monitor the situation from the kitchen..

He nearly blew a fuse and told me to do nothing and he would call me back.

They nailed him and they very grateful and they came back and went through the books giving me a  £400 refund.

I went to the accountant and he wanted £600 to give me back my books. "I will be down with big posters saying that you are a blackmailer and incompatant. I got the books back.

Doing burglar alarms was full of problems. A young guy might read the spec for an alarm on his lunch break, the next day he is missing and he is installing the alarm with no insurance and he would not be able to certify the installation when he finished the job. The other biggie is stealing, I used to set traps with the serial numbers of the notes to use as evidence.

3 Minuets was the record to catch a guy stealing, but I was lucky.

Anyhow about the neighbors cat.She comes to us most days and the agreement is that we have with her owner is that we will not feed her. She loves us and brings us presents, a little bird (alive) and 3 baby mice that would fit into a matchbox. You have to be quick.

Its a never ending roundabout of life.

Is Summer really gone?

Gosh this summer went really fast. Its no help that one of the supermarkets have rows of chocolate Santas and snowmen on display for Christmas.

It is only a small thing but I had to say it.

Now here is a strange one for you. A cat arrived at our house and my son adopted her with open arms. Around 6 weeks later a knock came to  the door and it was 2 garda at the door.

The owner of the cat had got the law to get the cat back. Now we had not stolen the cat and after much over and back the cat was returned.

This shocked me when I compare it to times that the law let down the victim. John Clarke who worked with me in another life bought a taxi and he had a job going out towards Tallagh. His passenger had a suitcase and as he landed the case on the footpath a small boy of around 7 years old came up to him. He had fair hair and spoke perfect English.

"Mister could you please help me and bring me back to my Mammy and Daddy"

John was taken aback, then a man appeared "He does this all the time, everything is fine"

John went to the local Garda station and to our dismay they just said that unless we get a missing persons report there is nothing we can do.

Poor John he suffered and we went down to where  the house was but he seemed to be gone.

So I was heading to Heuston train station. As I waited at the lights to change a Black carer with wonderful girl beside him. The carer put his arm over her shoulder and fondled her right breast. The look of disgust on her face shocked me to this day and instead of going left I went straight on and around by the prison and over to the massive establishment which looks after hundreds of mentally challenged are "Looked after"

I spent an hour asking to speak to the person in charge

Absolutely no one came forward, I wrote to all the care hospitals in the area and in Palmerstown. I wrote to all the Garda stations. Not one reply. I wrote to the Garda commissioner twice and I got a phone call saying that unless a Garda saw it happen that there would be nothing that they could do. I said that its a  good job that he was not on the murder squad.

A couple of years later a huge scandal erupted at the Palmerstown facility, It seemed that they were taken aback as they did not know that this was going on.

Well that's what happens when you wear a blindfold.

A quick snatch of the cash

 I have 2 debit cards One is the AIB bank and the other Revolut. I never had any problems with either debit card. A few days ago the account was getting low, so I put in €100. The next day it was refusing payments and I checked the balance...€1.60 Things were bought in Milan, but the account was cleaned out. Revolut will not talk to you, its type a question and they type you an answer, but the outcome was FUCK OFF. I guess I was lucky as the other debit cart I have has more than €11.000 on it. I will close off that cash on Monday.

Cold Play are in action in Croke Park to wild applause. Bruce Springsteen is a mighty act and he was playing here in Dublin. I picked up 3 ladies and brought them to a hotel in Ballsbridge.

The step down from that taxi was quite steep so I held out my hand to steady the ladies, when I saw the second girls face I gasped. "Are you Cynthia Lennon?" She was and I asked if I could give her a hug. Then the first girl said we all need a hug. The first girl was Bruce Springsteen They asked me if I would like to join them for the show. It turned out I had been booked. Imagine me sitting there in the VIP box.

What about the Euromillions  €150 Million.

You better know how to keep a secret.

I checked my Lotto numbers once and it said ITS A WINNER ! I checked it again and got the same result. So in the morning I went off to Abbey St to collect my winnings. The whole secret is to keep it quiet, I went upstairs and handed in the ticket that would change my life forever. She popped it into her machine and said. Congratulations you have won a ticket into the millionaire draw.. I said that there  is a hell of a difference between Its a winner and you have won a prize. Nothing changed so I wrote to them saying that I was with the police and my duty is to talk jumpers down and I had spent 3 hours out on Howth Head talking  a man down off the cliff edge. As part of my duty I visited his home a few times. Lovely kids and wife, he could not handle that his Lotto dream was not a reality.

It was changed

New computer coming

 I would post more often but I have been having computer problems.

First let me tell you of 2 strange things I saw in Aldi on the East wall road last week. 

First of all I was going in and I saw a modern car with its side lights turned on. It hit me like a flash. He got out of the car without switching it off, then the car would not lock and anyone could have opened the door and driven away. I saw that before so my mind clicked into play.

A few years ago a friend of mine flew to New York and picked up his sisters Prius. She showed him how it worked and they drove to Boston.     On arrival at his parents house he rang NY to see how to lock the car. "Use the key fob" came the  reply. She had the key in her pocket. They were lucky that they never turned off the engine for all of the journey,

The other one happened in Aldi as well. Recycling drink cans and plastic bottle is a big hit. So people are bringing stacks of empty cans to run through the machine. One day a lady was loading in the cans and when she was finished she pulled her refund docket and put her bag into the trash. I knew that there was something odd in the transaction and it hit me 10 minutes later. The bag she threw into the trash cost her €3 at least and I bet she didn't get more than €2 for the cans she brought to the shop. By the way you are charged for the cans at the point of purchase.

 There was a huge error in the Garda vetting procedure. A taxi driver was convicted of raping 2 girls. When they looked into his past criminal record they found that had raped a 9 year old girl at an earlier time. What kind of research had they done?

A Chinese friend of mine is going through the vetting process for weeks now. At one point they handed him back the form because his references were all Chinese. Even though they were all Irish citizens.

Here is a story that you could amuse someone with.

My Daddy went away with some of his mates to Blackpool in 1962.

When he came back he had box and inside the box there was a donkey about a foot high. My wife is turning on her fone of to check the weather. 

Back then we had the weather donkey, 

all eventualities were covered.

The instructions were to put the donkey in the garden 15 ft from the kitchen window.

If you looked out and you could not see the donkey? Then it was night time

If the donkeys tail was wet.... It has been or is now raining

If the donkeys tail was dry, then it is not raining.

If the tail is moving around... It is telling you that it is windy

If the tail remained still.....It is not windy but calm

Then one morning the donkey was lying on its side. My Daddy consulted the manual.

It declared that there had been an earthquake

Modern science Could you beat it?

 

Highlights: Clare find extra gear to edge Cork in epic 2024 All-Ireland ...

 

So here we are with the hurling final over and a victory for Clare.

Many years ago I picked up an Italian father and son. They had been given 2 tickets to the hurling final. Not knowing what to expect they were just blown away. The dad was jumping up and down all through the trip. When he got out I had to feel the seat to make sure that it was dry. Thank God that he had not wet himself.

One thing for sure is that the Italian connection was well joined. 

The Olympics are here and boys oh boy they are all so fit, fine tuned to within a minute of their lives. Looking great as well.

I lost a day last Sunday. Every day is the same and I have no dates to meet, so time slips by.

I was in Aldi the other day and a lady was loading drink cans into the recycler. When she finished she put a reusable shopping bag into the bin. My mind took an hour to tell me what had happened. The reusable shopping bag was worth twice the value of the cans redeemed. Upstairs for thinking and downstairs for dancing.

On the road for another year

 The taxi licence is renewed for another year. Hip Hip Hooray

While we were waiting at the office I met Mr Robinson, a guy who has been in the business for many years. He is making electric taxis in his garage at the moment while he waits for the next adjustment in the taxi fares. Thousands of meters will have to be calibrated when that happens. He is also the main agent for the electric London taxi. This is the Rolls Royce of taxis.

On the way home I recalled to my son how I bought a Mazda X Garda Car at auction once, I got it at a good price and one of the guys at the auction told me that the engine was blown. I asked around and Robinsons were agents for Japanese engines at the time. IVI engines.

In and out on the same day. We had that car for 4 years and when we sold it we got more for it than we paid for the car and engine combined.

Here is a story you could tell to your passengers as you go along.

My wife is looking at her fone and is telling me what the weather is doing, its very annoying.

Back in the 60s my Daddy went to Blackpool with a few of his mates. He brought us back a box with a model donkey inside. It was for predicting the weather.

It was about a foot high and it had to be placed around 15 ft from the house.

If you couldn't see it it was night time.

If its tail was wet, it was raining,

If it was dry it was not raining

If the tail was moving around it was windy

If the tail was still there was no wind that day.

Then one day it was lying on its side and the instructions read EARTHQUAKE