GOTYA

Denis Segrue got into my taxi and I said something which unchained a story of his which was totally incredible.

"If you don't believe me look for the book"
"The Russians are coming" 
I looked it up and whatever the website did it didn't ask for money! 
I dropped a note and a few weeks later the book arrived.
"No charge, thanks for making the effort to look" 

Now you can buy it in Kindle form for 99c.

Here is the plot.
Denis has a business in Russia where he lives with his wife.
He was building a device to measure the strength of radio signals for mobile phone networks and was doing business with US software and electronic companies.
Suddenly some of his contacts dried up, calls were not returned etc.
So he packed his bag and flew over.

He bought some chips and other bits, he checked his paperwork and headed for Shannon to see his Daddy on the way home to Russia.
He was called to First Class and arrested as being a SPY.

"The biggest spy ring uncovered in US history".

The story about who was driving the prosecution, then the cover up and the lies told is entirely beyond belief. 

Then in the end of the book you find who was behind it all.

The best 99c you will ever spend. 

One thing that brings all this to mind is a high court case which is kicking off in Dublin. 
A Mr.Bright who worked for ESB networks was sacked as a threat and  danger to Irish and British power networks was sacked as a threat to security. 
Now in the courts they must prove it. 

No more favours

The casing which covers the battery

Alll the indivual cells linked together

A "Merlin" engine from the science museum

All the cells exposed and each one metered.

A good friend of mine inherited my old Prius, at the time she was having an awful time, her husband had cancer and he died around a year later leaving her with 2 small kids.
I looked after the car since then and it nearly has 400,000 Kms on the clock.
All good until she rang me on my return from London,"John I have a problem the battery is gone in the Prius"
So I asked her to call over and she said she would be there at noon.
I got home and texted her to come as soon as she could.
I rang, no answer.
Finally she rang around 2.30 she rang me to say that she was in Howth.
She had been visiting some Chinese friends who had bought a house for €2 million.
If I gave you a bill for €70 per hour that I was waiting you would not be so happy.
I didn't say much more as I had used the time to steam clean the hall and sitting room.
I checked it and it was the dreaded battery fault.
So I took off my taxi roof sign and gave her the taxi to go home while I took out my spanners and wrenches and stripped the battery down.
When you are not used to doing something it is very hard work.

Really only one faulty cell and it was only 2 volts down.
But I have a plan.
Where all the cells were bonded together there was a lot of corrosion, I will get a small wire brush and copper grease and tighten all the cells back together and see how she behaves.

By the way you are working with 7.5 volts x28 then there is a transformer, so if you are awkward make your will first.

I bought a cell on eBay for €50 but it won;t be here until Tuesday.

I bet you I will solve the problem tomorrow.

Brian the breeze is coming with force 10 gales

A crane is assembled in Dundrum, a delicate balancing act where one wrong move could be a disaster.

The French ambassadors residence

Are you ready for Halloween?

This flying saucer landed on my lawn..There were no survivors 

The wind has risen again, but we will see.

I was loading up my wifes car when a girl from Brazil implored me to take her into town.
Her second day in Ireland.
Fabiola is her name.
She had no contacts here at all so I got her number and I put her in touch with my Brazilian contacts.
You have to sympathize with her, imagine coming here alone from beautiful sunny weather to this windy wet place.

Every day I travel the world, except the world comes to me.
I like this about the new Ireland.
We once had to set sail to travel the world as there was nothing here.
Thank God that I can support my family not like the unfortunate homeless people of Dublin.
Sister Stanislos Kennedy was at an award ceremony yesterday, she along with Fr.McVerry have given their life's work to helping the homeless.
A new scheme has now been put into place called "Home first"
You take the homeless person and house them add supports then you start to treat their addiction .

The waste of life on Dublin streets is a shame.

" Look into the addicts eyes.
What do you see?
The eyes are the window of the soul.
Can you see? Hell!" 

Every taxi driver who has an ounce of compassion has tales of wasted lives.
One guy years ago before mobile fones became popular used to meet the girls at the Spar in Bagott St. He would look after their bags and money. He would be there 3 or 4 times during the night.
Then in the morning he would bring them home.
The tragedy was that his wonderful daughter once became an addict and died alone after a beating.
For him it was a task of redemption, I am sure he helped some of them a lot. 

Perhaps he turned some of their lives around as well.

One thing for sure don't be too fast to judge other people. 

Quite a breeze

A girl lies on a surf board as her boyfriend issues orders. I told her if he loved her he would be in the water with her.

The WW2 landing craft prepares to enter the water at Surf Dock

Cranes are back in fashion again

The taxi holding area at the airport stands empty.

The storm came and though it was quite a storm it did not live up to expectations.

The army were on high alert and schools were closed. Operations which were not urgent were postponed to reduce the chances of people being hit by falling trees.

Before the storm hit all the birds went silent and a warm breeze arrived 13C.

In Dublin we had a non event about 6 trees blown down while in Cork and Kerry they had more hardship.

3 people died all over which is bad enough though.

I ventured out and found a girl with a broken arm, she didn't know that her appointment was cancelled.

The other young lady I picked up at Clontarf Garda station.
"Did you escape or did they let you out?"
"Is it that obvious, I was held there all night, they beat me with batons and I think I have a broken rib as well"
You might think that in this modern day and age that they would not behave like this.
I have no doubt that she was beaten. I told her to get a friend over and photograph her bruises and to cover her breasts while taking the photos, not to turn it into a page 3 leering display.

Then go to a doctor and to hospital to have an Xray.
Tell the doctor to make notes and tell the hospital that this will be used in an official complaint.

"Jesus mister you must have been through this yourself"

I said no but it shouldn't happen. A little thing could be subdued without any force and put in restraints.`

"I hope you'r not kinky John, you said that like you knew what you were doing"

A big laugh and a €2 tip and we parted our ways..

So home for breakfast and the buses went off.
Not much was really happening and I went home.

The ferry crossings were suspended as well.
Europe was totally isolated.

Around 5 PM I found out that hundreds of people were stick at the airport and any taxi was welcome to come with or without the airport pass.

I did 3 runs but the tales of woe were non ending.

Click here to read about the Big wind of 1839
This was a pivotal moment in Irish history

Batten down the hatches

Spiral staircase at the Gibson Hotel

A mural of the man himself

This is Japanese knot weed a very noxious weed.

Everything to one side!
Tomorrow we are expecting the strongest storm since the 60s
I know Mt Trump that you said there is no global warming.
But don't go outside without a hat or you might take off like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz 
All schools closed tomorrow !

Safe travels if you have to go.

Contact Don

 Every taxi should have the seats covered, on a wet day the seats get wet and on a really bad day a lady might pee on the seat.
I had Dons name and I rang him up.
What a fantastic job.
It has added at least €1,000 to the value of my car.
Dons number is 086 3654615
Click here for his website

When you get a good job tell the world!

Scrapyard blues

 I spent most of my morning looking at cars in a scrapyard.
One of my neighbors was rammed on the seafront ! 
The other driver just said "I looked and there was no one coming"
Still no one injured not like the car in the top photo.
I don't know how anyone got out alive.
There is a craze out around Baldoyle of setting fire to cars.
There is a good case for setting up a vigilante group. 
As we drove away the memories of her now defunct car came flooding back. 
"I used to bring Mam out here in the summer, it was a great car" 
Then delayed shock kicked in and the tears and the moaning came, without any reserve. A dam burst of emotions.
Delayed shock.
I saw it once when I was called to the childrens hospital in Crumlin. God there are far worse things in life than loosing a car.

Now the last photo taken from an iconic poster drawn by an Irishman in Kilkee co Clare. 
Its our new stamp.
Che was on a flight from Cuba to Moscow via Shannon and his flight was delayed, so someone brought him on a sightseeing tour. The artist never got a penny for his work.
But thats life.

Any taxi driver can sympathize with me on this one.
A Spanish girl waved me down near the Mosque on the SCR going to the Spire, she was messing with her fone all the time.
"Why are you going this way? Go along the SCR and down Camden St.   Its quicker."
I say that by going down Clanbrassil St I get a bus lane all the way.
Conversation goes back to normal until we reach O'Connell bridge
"There is the 120 bus that I missed. You took me the long way" 
So I asked her if she had taken the reg of the bus?
There is more than one 120 buses you know.
Her bus might be 2 buses behind that one as they have to stop at every stop to pick up people.

You cannot win anyhow, or can you?

The way to deal with this if it is a short journey and you are not too far into it.
"I am sorry that you don't trust me and that you think I am robbing you,
So I am stopping here and you have to get out. 
Get another taxi if you can and I wish you a good day?"

It works really wonders, all the stress gone.

Las Vegas

I was numbed when I heard of the carnage in LasVegas.
Such a sad sad day.
So many lives cut short for no reason.

Perhaps it is time for the people in America to waken up to the stupidity of the present gun laws.

You would think that after all the other times things would change.

I hope that time will heal the pain.
God bless you all.

As Colombo once said

Just one more thing, As Colombo might say.
I bought 2 cars in Japan and imported them into Ireland, one car had only one key.

I asked around and was told that they were very hard to get.
I contacted my agent in Japan and they gave me a breakdown of €540 or near enough.
This price included a handling fee of €50.
Then there would be cost of shipping and local Irish taxes and no it would not be programmed.

So I soldiered on.

Autokey ! 
This must be the answer to my problem.
I went into their Swords branch where a Polish? guy started to serve me.
Then Darren took over. 
We have those keys on order they should be in next week.

I must have phoned back 10 times, now he called me John when he herd my voice.
Then it was "I will just check, I know they are in and I will ring you right back" 
at least 4 times this happened and he never rang back.

Then one day I rang the other branch.
"No we have no orders in for those keys at all, anyhow, they are not available". 

I was shocked and when I could I went out to Newlands cross to the head office to talk with the boss. 
The key as it turned out was never ordered.
We never got an inquiry for it.
The was no explanation as to why Darren lied to me.

Darren did ring me back later with the most stupid explanation and I wish I had it recorded.

Talking to another driver I found a locksmith in Mullhudart  who said "No problem"
I was away for 4 weeks and when I rang him back he said that my phone was not ringing out for some reason.
"I got that key the next day"

There is no problem getting those Keys Toyota Ireland have them in stock.
So there you have it 
Be sure you have a spare key for these modern cars.
If you loose one it could cost you €3000 to have it re keyed and the locks changed. 

Photo of his shop above.