Sunday, October 01, 2023

October is here. Yippee

 Well Christmas is almost upon us, a few of the big stores have Christmas displays on view and I see the high end perfume people are advertising on the TV.

I was at the recycling depot  and I saw a high heel shoe made of glass. I went back to my car to get a photo of it when one of the workers told me that he had seen one of them one day and he brought it home to show it to his wife. She sniffed the perfume and she just had to buy it. €80 on the internet. He was mad, but she was happy.

Its all the rage this Christmas

So my wife is still ill and I am running up and down the stairs with tea and boiled eggs etc. It is very slow though not fatal. I have not worked for 5 weeks or so,

David my son has passed his PSV test, the Garda have vetted him, the money for the licence has been sent in and he is still waiting.
I was told by a Garda superintendent years ago that the Nigerian embassy will not vet prospective taxi drivers and that the government tells the carriage to pass them out unchecked. I told the union and they said. "There you are "It is upsetting to say the least.

In Spain for example you have to be resident there for 8 years, have no criminal record, be able to speak Spanish. Then you can apply for a PSV licence.


A couple of weeks ago I lost all my credit cards, driving licence etc,

Did you ever hear of a doomsday book?

An American couple 4 years ago showed me their plan. The husband carried the key to his wife's cards and she carried his code,

A list of the credit cards, the numbers, the help numbers just in case and they were covered.

I pointed out that if someone got the notebook they could clean out their account.

"Ah no you see every 5th digit has been increased by 1."

They were very bright.

I hope that you go to Grenada some day.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

The tip like a kick

 So I got a job to the airport with 2 gals from New York. They seemed normal enough except when it came to paying. It was around €25.40. No the payer said. Presenting her credit card. I want to give you a tip. Round it up to......€26.00 a 60 c tip. There is no way to counter this. Did I insult you?

They seemed normal enough, on business expenses. The other put down is to say. No if you are that hard up you can keep it. It cost me more to process the card than the tip was worth.

I loved Cuban music and the Buena Vista social club opened my ears to their magic.So we went there, no kids at the time. If you love vintage cars they have them all over Havana. The second week of the break took us to the Valadero beach resort, really 5 star hotels and great food. Now to get to my tipping problem. There was a girl who cleaned the room and on the Wednesday she said that she would be off when we were going, so could she have her tip now. I really thought it was odd but I gave her around €20, which was a good tip in Cuba. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday she never came back to the room. When we were moving out the leader of the chamber maids arrived and asked me for a tip. Why was our room not cleaned for 4 days? Why were you not doing your job  supervising your staff? Now I have spoken to the manager a few times during our stay and he asked me to report directly to him if I saw anything amiss. Which I will be doing in 10 minutes.

I really did not want her sacked as the Cuban people live in dreadful poverty.  


My wife has been ill for 10 days or so and I have been going over to the Blackrock clinic most days.

You don't know when she will be let out so you have to wait. You would be mad to wait in the grounds so I waited in Cross ave. This avenue has really Wow houses. I walked to the estate agents on the corner and asked him about the house below he really could not tell me more. So I googled it.By the way the house has been extended !!!!!The tragic thing is that the house was built just before the Irish potato famine.

You cannot really see it from the road.

Time to bring in helicopter thing and take a good look 

PROJECT

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Liverpool Lou

ANOTHER UNSOLVED CRIME.

 I got another letter from the police telling me that there has been no action action taken to the report I gave them.

I saw a house in Clontarf at Christmas with the front door wide open and the kitchen door was also open with no action around.

Ten minutes later I rang the finest boys in blue to be told that there was no one available, but perhaps I could go in and take a look. I wonder if I had followed it up with. "Ah sure its a but late now there are 3 bodies on the floor"

You could be sure that I would be arrested. Like everywhere we need a police to monitor the police.

"The untouchables"

A Ferrari worth £4 million was stolen and it was recovered in a container heading for Dubai. (Nice one)

I was showing it to my kids and I said that the car should have had a tracker. "Think for a minute, if you were taking a car like that you would have a detector to find the tracker devices which is giving off a signal and then you disable it." Good thinking.

So a nice job the other day a Scouser (From Liverpool) heading over to the DPD depot in Walkinstown and then to the airport. He works on windmills and he wanted to collect his passport with that all important USA visa stamp on it. Apart from the Beatles and a great movie made in Dublin called Dockers. Full of passion that was. Then the Liver building where one bird looks to see if the pubs are open yet and the other one looks to see if there is a ship coming in .Last of all "Letter to Breisniev" A young girl meets a Russian sailor and trouble follows.

So then it hit me Liverpool Lue, with YouTube we had it playing with the author Dominic Behan singing it,


Monday, September 04, 2023

It feels like treading water

Boys and girls slow down there has been deadly crashes nearly every day.

It is strange how so many of the crashes result in fatal injury.

Still the postman has not arrived with my sons taxi permits. 

Then it will be the armchair for me and cutting the grass not to mention the painting to be done.

Today I picked up a lady going to Abbey St. I sat at the lights turning right for 3 changes when I declared. "This is no good, trust me" we went the other way avoiding the heavy traffic. I dropped her off and then I heard a musical box sound. Her mobile phone, it took time to locate as it was wedged down between the cushions of the back seat. So I told her to go back where I dropped her off and I walked back to meet her. She was very lucky that she had a second phone to call the other one. Yes she was happy.

I heard about a girl who dropped her phone in a taxi last weekend and when she contacted the driver he demanded €50 to bring it back to her. Well she took his details so what is to happen to him we might find out.Blackmail

I think the swallows have gone on their 6000 mile journey back to South Africa and very soon the Barnacle geese will arrive from Greenland for the winter. 

The kids are back in school as well.

Well the Christmas shop is open in  the Brown Thomas store. Time flies.

My sons delay in being passed out annoys me no end. A retired garda superentant who was working in the Garda carriage office told me that migrants coming in from Nigeria cannot be vetted. The embassy refuses to do it. But the higher up people tells the carriage office to give them the licence, while my son who has lived here for 30 years has to wait for months to be vetted.  In Spain to become a taxi driver you have to have lived there for 8 years crime free, hold a valid driving licence, be able to speak Spanish and then you do the PSV test.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Fight the good fight until you hear the bell

 I published the posts below from YouTube. They are shocking examples of what can happen when things are ignored.

Well the news over the week about the British nurse who has been found guilty of murdering 7 new born children in her care. This time her supervisor has been sacked as well this time as her colleagues had reported her, but nothing was done. She may have killed many more.

He was in my taxi this brave man and his story unfolded on the journey.

Are you OK ? I asked

It was like I had fired a starting gun and he unloaded his tale.

I worked for Oxfam and though I was doing  lot of good there was something going on in the background which I could not deal with. For example there was a doctor in one of the hospital who was raping the nurses. Yes! raping the nurses.

There was nothing that I could do.

Imagine how I felt when celebrities were brought in to stay in 4 star hotels, we would bring in reasonably fed children for a photo shoot and the celebs would be flown out at the charities expense.

I fought on and I got suspended from work until I met a small Jewish man on a flight back to New York.

He listened to my story and brought me to his office where he prepared a case against Oxfam, piece by piece dates and statements were taken. I really hated what I was doing but nurses lives were being destroyed with no sympathy. Yes Yes there were other things were also going on.    

Our day in court came after much preparation. The world court of justice came down on them like a ton of bricks. Funding was withdrawn and heads rolled. All the people who refused to listen to me were held accountable.

That was only last week and I could sleep for a month.

Hidden camera investigation: Nursing home abuse, violence (Marketplace)

Hidden camera reveals abuse by care home staff of dementia patient Ann King