Have a safe Christmas

 Below are 3 road safety ads, the first 2 are a little vague until the end







Texting has become so common.

Taxi driver shot in both legs

                           Dublin by night


Well the other day a taxi driver got shot in both legs over a disputed fare,its getting a bit like America with
all the guns going around.
It is always a problem picking up drunk and abusive people at night.
How to handle situations is a hard number to call.
Every taxi driver who works nights has had close shaves, thankfully I was never beaten up or robbed, but I have driven away without being paid to avoid trouble.

Today in the media a group of 3 women have been rescued in London after being held for 30 years in servitude.One of the women is a 57 year old Irish woman.
Imagine being held against your will. No contact with family and friends since 1983!

Then in the Sunday World there is the story of Anna kidnapped in London in 2011trafficked into Ireland where she was sold to hundreds of men in Irish brothels and hotels. Police had the opportunity to rescue her a few times, but the Swedish police finally broke up the gang.and freed her.
You know many many people had a chance to help these four women,
I have tried to intervene a couple of times in Dublin myself but the police were not bothered or did not understand what was going on.
I suppose I will have to be like Robert De Niro in the movie taxi driver and go in with both guns blazing.



For those of you that missed the surprise ending to this robbery here it is again


This is for taxi drivers everywhere.


The Idiots are the ones who drove themselves home.

Tidy up time

 That is one of the things that Hitler used to bomb London with! A Henkel scooter

 Remember the big day out, get your name down now.

  This big boy demands that I tidy up my crib!

You know the face Eddie Jordan,
Years ago on a late night he hopped into my taxi, Eddy ...Eddy Shoemaker he added,
"Whether you are him or not, I would just like to say that what he has done in forming a formula one team and going as far as he did was no mean feat.
After all this is the sport of billionaires, there would be no telling where it would have gone if the sponsors had come on board at the right time and if the Ferrari engines had arrived.
If he ever wrote a book I would buy it"
as he was getting out he said.
"If Eddie wrote the truth about what happened to him in a book the courts would be busy for a year"
And "Eddie"was gone.

You never know what might happen next.


I now have paid my taxes for another year.
At least I know that the money will be spent wisely and not one cent will be wasted.


hahahahahahahah.Perhaps I am wrong.

Things are picking up a bit,small builders are doing a bit, extensions, one off houses.
If you have cash you could buy a cheap house.

Then again on this Friday night the Euromillions is worth €100million

I came across this today.
Vincent Brown asked the question that would all love to be answered.

Well this taxi driver still wants to know why.

Like supposing the guy down the road was good at backing racehorses and the bank advanced him a few thousand and he won again and again.
Only this time they advanced a few billion.

Then he lost everything.

Should everyone in the country have to pay the banks losses?

Not legally or morally.

This is a big con job.





Here is another view !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cry WOLF !

It turned out that the girl who turned up on O'Connell St in a traumatized state was lying.
They turned over every stone to solve the problem, the investigation is reckoned to have cost the state €325,000.
Remember, she couldn't speak and did not respond to anyone. But she drew pictures of horrible acts being committed against her..It was all a delusion from a sick troubled 25 year old Australian girl with a history of mental illness.
Why she was here in Ireland unsupervised is one of the many questions yet to be answered.
For myself I am very sorry for the girl and her parents.
People who cry wolf, calling Police and Fire Brigades out on all kind of hoax errants are a pain in the arse.
It makes the powers that be reluctant to act in the future.
But it is a call for help from her. She was deported back to Australia where I hope she gets the help she clearly needs.

Once in a while taxi drivers come upon nasty female passingers who cry rape if they are not let off the fare..Without cameras you are a sitting duck..
The oldest story I know of a lucky escape from a driver was a man and a woman going to Castleknock, the man gave the girl £20 and she was going on to Cabra.
On arrival the girl gave the taxi driver £20 with "That's all yer gettin" The driver told her if she didn't pay the rest of the money he would take her to the Garda station in Cabra.
"If you do that I will tear my blouse and scratch my face and accuse you of rape, how would you like that?"
So it came to pass as he pulled up outside the Garda station she ripped her blouse and scratched her face and breasts and then ran into the station.
One minute later he walked in after her.
"That's the bastard now arrest him!"
The taxi driver managed to calm the situation by producing a small Dictaphone and then he pressed PLAY, The girl promptly fainted as her words were played back to the assembled Garda.
She was a wild 15 year old as it turned out an her parents were sent for the next day to hear the recording.  The mans name and career would have been ruined but for the tape.

He worked the radio and was having trouble taking down instructions from base controller.
His grandson had given him the dictafone for Christmas to record the instructions.
The story was told later that the grandad sent the family off to Florida for a holiday in gratatude.
He was one of those old drivers who worked a few hours a day to bring in just a few bob and to stay in touch with the world.

Missing girl found

    Farmleagh in the Pheonix park..Once a stately Guinness Home

 The Hallowed grounds of Trinity College.

I keep forgetting to mention this so I started this post as I finished the last one.
The Garda last week found themselves baffled when a girl of between 14 and 16 appeared in O'Connell St.
She was very distressed and spoke no English.
Through drawings they learned that she had been trafficked into Ireland and had been sold for sex in a Dublin brothel !  Today they still don't know who she is and they issued a photograph of her to see if any of the public can help solve the mystery.Click here
Today they have traced her as an Australian girl of around 25years old .She was probably so traumatised that she couldn't speak. You know theese are the things of absolute horror stories.
For myself I reported something amiss once and the outcome after all my efforts was that I was told that  there was no "St.John's Road in Sandymount" !!!!!!
Then I was told that there was no house with that number on that street!!!!!!!!!!!!
The brothel owners and sex traffickers have nothing to fear from our boys in blue.

Probably because they are involved themselves by way of bribes, or higher involvement.

On the top left corner of the blog there is a "Search"  button.
Put in "Operation Quest" and you will see why the bad guys will win in Ireland.
I ran that story twice, the first time was 7 years ago. I will bet you if you ring the anti trafficking helpline now you will still get no reply.

On the taxi front I got at least 7 fares on the trot yesterday, each time someone got out,another person jumped in straight away. Perhaps it that new aftershave?
Who knows?

Last 2week it  was the web summit,this week it is the turn of the drug companies to hold a convention in the conference center. Short trips of around of around €10 mostly credit cards though.

Yesterday a truck broke down on Victoria Quay,thats  Guinness near Heuston station and the traffic came to a total standstill for over 2 hours,as luck would have it I managed to make a detour and stay out of trouble.
The chef from Chapter One restaurant had a book launch last night in the Hugh Lane art gallery and my passenger directs cookery programs. There was €10.10 on the clock when I dropped him off, I said €10 (as you do) "A receipt please?" as I handed him the receipt he put a coin into my hand "This is for you"

A 20 cent coin.
A 10 cent tip!

Things must be bad for him !

Halloween

 With Facebook on your right and Mr.Crosbies house straight ahead,you can see the Board Gas Energy Theater sticking out. That is today's Dublin

  Now that is what I call a professional makeover from LA make up academy.

Well for the present I am a bit like a big ship with no rudder, trying to get work done in the house and still bring in a few € to keep the wolf from the door.
I must thank the "Web Summit" for bringing 10,000 people together to discuss big WEB THINGS..
It all went on for 3 days and it created loads of business.
There was not one free hotel room to be found.
It is quite exciting to think that Dublin has become the "DIGITAL HUB FOR THE WORLD"
Most of the guys seemed quite normal.................But when they talked about internet things a glazed look came into their eyes.
One customer put it very well,
"Like Jehovah witnesses arriving at your door, with the message"
They all had a glazed look and spoke of strange things.

Halloween was a hoot,people let off loads of steam,dressing up and lighting bonfires.

It is an Irish festival.
According to many scholars, All Hallows' Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals,^[8][9] with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic Samhain.^[6][10][11] Other academics maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has solely Christian roots.^{[12]   (Wikipedia)}
Anyhow it went to America where it became really big and scary.

Most people outside Ireland would not know that there was only 2500 taxis in Dublin around 12 years ago.
The plates or medallions changed hands for around €100,000 though it was in Punts back then.
If you wanted a taxi plate you had to buy one from a dead man, or rent a car for the day or night shift!
In fairness there were a few attempts to issue more plates.
Then a few would be taxi drivers took a case to Europe and said that the government had created a Monopoly which was against EU rules. They won the case and the government started issuing licenses without any limits for €5,000 each.
There was a lot of protests from other taxi drivers but no dialogue from government.
Everyone who had no job bought a taxi plate,as the numbers expanded everyone's income dropped and now you can't get on to a taxi rank and illegal ranks are popping up all over town.
At one time it is believed that there was over 12,000 taxis in Dublin.
.... There are 13,237 taxis operating in New York City.
Now that system is operated by the Mafia and the drivers rent their cab by the day. 
A really tough system. 
But no one will tell the Mafia that they are going to treble the fleet overnight.

Well the older drivers lost their investment but they have not gone away.
There were some whispers of compensation but nothing came of it.
This week in the courts they have taken on the government to task and I am told they have the right barrister to represent them, so watch this space.

Wicklow St has the Christmas lights up....though not turned on.

It won't go away you know.

Have a look at "Cash cab" a USA  TV show.





It would cheer up a trip to Tallagh