A missing person comes home

A converted bus brings tea and hot food to the homeless

Finding a dry place to sleep is a big bonus

Thank God Turkeys are just for Christmas

Wow and thank God that the doctor in the other posting just walked into her mothers house safe and well. She had been in hospital as a patient and had bad news coming , her mind must have flipped.
Thank God again she is at home with the people who love her. I hope the future is kind to her.

The other day I picked a girl up in Kilmanham going to Coolock.
"Right I said down by the quays?"
No No No she directed me out to the M50 and over to the Malahide Rd.
She seemed to think that I didn't know the way.
Adding €20 extra to the journey by going her way.
I would never go the M50 It adds miles to the trip and if there is a problem you could be stuck there for ever.
Only Sat Navs bring you that way.

I had a guy from Way up North from Alaska the land of polar bears and fishing.
Did you ever see the TV series Deadliest catch?
Well my lad David stops trawler men going aboard and gives them random drugs and alcohol tests.
A good idea.
He spent the weekend here bringing food to the homeless in the streets of Dublin.
He was a good Christian kind of guy. He really was happy to help.
We have hundreds of people sleeping rough in Dublin.
4 deaths in the last few weeks.

Our government are riding the gravy train and do not give a shit about what is happening to the people who elected them.

No not many people know but the leading country that reads my blog is Norway. !!!
The other day I had 3 Norwegian ladys to the airport. I told them about the blog and they said that they would look me up.
When we arrived at the airport one of them gave me all her €uro change "WE won't be needing this again" Then the last girl gave me the warmest hug ever.
"This has been the best taxi trip ever"

Very glad to help

Look out for someone

This is not the usual missing person.
She is a doctor with 2 small children.
Look around for her, I cannot even imagine what has happened.

So a girl came up to me when I was on the Old Burlington rank and asked me where the Wexford bus stop was? I didn't know and I asked the 3 other taxis on the rank.
The bus was coming so I told her that I would bring her to the next bus stop at UCD.
"But I can't afford to pay you"

Look I said. Just pass it on, make the world a better place.

So as we stopped there the Wexford bus pulled up behind us and out she hopped.
If she had walked back she would have missed it.

The photo shows where the bus stop was on Leeson St...

Now we all know

You would not believe I had the luckiest 24 hours !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whether it was because of my good deed or not is for another day.

A normal day with its ups and downs

A seat to Dermot Morgan of Fr.Ted fame

Back in business.

Avery very rare car  a  Bristol (Google it)

   


Just popping around minding my own business when every parents worst nightmare got into the taxi.
A dug addict!
So you play it by ear, this girl was tripping all the time, talking to herself.
She was tall enough and still had flesh on her bones, teeth rotten from the methadone, talking on and on. "Left here, right there" She brought me up to the flats area of the Coomb, she went to a house and knocked on the door just as the next door neighbor came out, the look of disgust from the people next door said it all. Her brother or who ever came to the door and the expression he gave her said volumes in his looks and silence, then he told her to "Fuck off.".

She was talking all the time barely conscious.. Her eyes going out of focus and opening again.

Don't take it up the wrong way, she could be any of our children.
I just hope this never happens to you or anyone belonging to you.
When she got out she just slammed the door without paying and when I looked down later there was €5 in the cup holder. I know she didn't mean to leave it but it was better €5 for the €9 fair than nothing at all.

She would have seen drugs as she grew up, it's not like she didn't know what would happen to her.

The dealer saw his chance an converted her to the ranks of the living dead.

Still I had other normal people from Boston who made up for it all, even though I brought them to the wrong Hertz car hire!!!!

A walk through Dublin

This is Bram Stoker the author of Dracula

The little museum of Dublin well worth a visit.

Brown Thomas Christmas display

I have a friend who is a taxi driver.
When I see him he says "I think how would my day have turned out if I had turned left instead of right?"
There is a movie called Sliding doors that explores the scenario in great detail.
For myself I take the cards as they come and try to work it all out.
The guy got in on O'Connell St and said Finglas.
As we motored along I said "Is it the village?"
Beside Cappagh hospital he said.
Then we had to ask Mr.Google.
When we arrived he gave me €20 "Wait"

Every taxi driver knows that this is a drug deal going down.
So I turned around and killed the engine and waited.

The security was like a military operation, first of all 2 guys came up.
Then one went away.
Then a car drove past at speed and another  third car made the drop.
He came over and got in. "Right back to the conference center"

You know there is no point in preaching the gospel to him. he has sold his soul and there is no point in taking a bullet in the back of the head from him.

Fuck him I hope he will die screaming for mercy!
The mystery carries on

 So today I took the day off, I got my hair cut, walked over to the Merrion hotel to congratulate the concierge on becoming the best hotel in Dublin
Then over to the MyTaxi HQ with a letter from a very unhappy customer..
She was a nutcase,she even stole my pen. "let me out on the corner" 20 yards further on than a group of people heading for the airport.I circled the block, but they were gone.
The message she gave me  read "Ring me at 8pm Thursday"  Some hope of that happening.

Boys and girls a lot of shops have closed down in the last year or so, 
With soaring rents and wages places are going by the hour. 

Bewleys cafe on Grafton St has re opened  I went there for coffee, A girl asked me if I was looking to be seated. I said no, a take away. 
Then she pointed me to the counter where a guy was buying sticky buns, the choice went on and on.
Decision made the guy looked at me. "I'll be with you in a moment" and he spent forever putting the  buns into a box.
Then it was my turn.  He took the money and told me to stand at the end of the counter.
There was a supervisor type of person there and I asked her if I could had made my order at this end of the counter instead of joining the other queue.
Yes that is the way its done,
Bit the other girl made me join the queue for cakes and wasted 8 minutes.
Even at that the guy knew I only wanted coffee to go, he had asked me.
He could have pressed the button before he loaded up the cake order.
She didn't understand me.

Thank God there are other places to go. 


 

Pity the poor traveller

This place just closed its doors without notice a few weeks ago, a great shop it was.

Irelands biggest Hippocrate, caught hiving money off-shore to avoid tax,

Big guns at the imperial war meusium

30 years since the Enniskillen bombing click here.
Just people remembering those who sacrificed their lives to defeat Hitler and defend freedom.
It is strange how people kill innocent people in the name of their special cause.
The wisdom of it all defies logic.
Whether its in Boston.,Belfast or Beirut.

When you come to stay for a while to visit Ireland you have to prove that you can support yourself for the duration of your stay.
The poor guy that I picked up from Uruguay had come to stay for a few months.
He was moving his base so I popped the seats forward and loaded up all his gear.
He had a tale of woe for sure.
The powers that be want to see real money that you can support yourself during your stay, so he had withdrawn several thousand €uro  in cash to show them.
Now it is not easy to open a bank account so he had the cash on him.
He was robbed, all the money taken.

When we were going over to his new place I noticed that my phone was gone, he rang it for me NO REPLY...So after I dropped him off I retraced my steps, no luck.
Then when I got home my wife was talking to her friend in America on Skype.
I had left it on the table before I left.

Normally I would give him that ride on the house to let him see that there are a few good people around.




Often I stop to tell tourists not to talk on the street with their phone in outstretched hands.

12,000 phones are stolen in Dublin every year !!! 
They think I am mad and they just carry on.



A few months ago I thought how it might be to loose my own fone.
I bought a second hand one and had everything backed up ready to go. 
Not a bad idea at all

If I thought of half the things that happens, or a quarter of the things I am thinking about this blog would span volumes.
So if you are the really cute Brazilian girl. 
Or the nurse from the Philippians, 
Or that really tall French girl.
Or even that funny Greek guy

You are all remembered in my prayers

 

Tango festival coming

Tail of a WW2 German plane, with lots of hits to its credit

An early Google mapping bicycle

Natural history  meusum London


So there I was  at the ferry and a guy walks up to me. "Do you take credit cards?
So I want you to take me to Maynooth."
We had to negotiate with the taxi in front of me.
He was first car so he demanded the job.
Four times we asked him if he took credit cards?
No !
Then he has to come with me.
God but he was an interesting man. He had worked all over the world, involved in positioning oil rigs and drilling platforms, a really clever guy.
During the conversation we spoke about drugs and I told him the drug story I told to Stephen Speilburgh.
Shocking as that story is he topped it.

"My daughter was 16 years old and a rebel, she went to a party and got drunk, while she was in a drunken stupor a drug dealer picked her out and injected her with Heroin, then he raped her and made her pregnant. Her child was the most beautiful person I ever met in my life.
My daughters pain lasted for another 10 years.

Living as a drug addict she overdosed.

I see drugs progress and change and get a bigger grip on humanity.
In the bush kids get hooked on ICE they go from normal people to being robbing prostitutes in a few weeks.

I hope I am wrong but I see an epidemic of drugs wiping out whole continents in the near future"

I hope he is wrong too but society is hollow.
There is very little wholesome thought going on in peoples minds, little loving care happening.

Well I hope we are both wrong. We will see.

Perhaps Mr.President will solve all our problems one way or another.



I am really a simple man, good food, good company, great music and I am happy.
If there is wonderful dancing I am more than happy.
There is an Argentinian tango festival coming to Dublin.http://www.dublintango.com/Click here for details







Look at this for wonderful ease of movement a pure joy to see

Life moves on

Poor Anna from Brazil enjoyed Halloween

The house of our presadent

My son carved this pumpkin

Today we had a huge funeral in Clontarf for our 19 year old suicide victim.
All the whys? have been put away as there is no logical solution to what happened..
You could say it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
All his friends turned up in their hundreds, a very popular boy. Now gone from their company,

God bless you lad may you find peace.

So about work!
The train workers are on strike and it was very briefly mentioned on the radio, foreign people don't listen to the Irish news so they were caught on the hop. 
I managed to pick up 4 different people going in the same direction, as usual they started to argue about how much each person must pay in the end. 
Not fun for sure.
But you can only do one job at a time and the traffic was crap so I gave up early.

A Welsh man off the ferry and I spoke to him about how proud the Welsh are of their language. 
He told me that on the island of Angelsey more than 90% of the people speak Welsh every day.
He also told me that the schools use only Welsh up to the age of 12 years. Then English is introduced. He also told me that in parts of Argentina and Patagonia Welsh is widely spoken..
The poor old Irish language has taken a hammering and is almost gone,

Look at this


The Welsh national anthem is very rousing.


Here is another brilliant safety message from Wales


I have been looking for a line from "View from under a bridge by Arthur Miller"
Its something like a word spoken without thought will take wings.
Those words can never be taken back,
But I bought the play on Amazon and I will look for it. 

A sad sad day on our street

I bounce around day to day not really thinking about tomorrow until something happens that brings you down to earth with a bang.

On Halloween night a young 19 year old lad hung himself from a tree at the back of his house.

19 is an awkward age, his girlfriend had broken up with him and he snapped.

All the questions why ? why ? why ? In Gods name.

He was on life support for a few days and when it was switched off his organs were harvested.
Some small good for others.

So switch off the computer, the telly, the tablet and the mobile.

I am not saying that he was being bullied on social media, but some kids are unbelievably cruel.
In the USA a 20 year old Michelle Carter was sent to prison for encouraging her x boyfriend to kill himself. A spoiled selfish bitch, the look on her face when she was sentenced is priceless.

Just take time to get to know your kids and your loved ones.
Or go that extra mile with a distressed passenger, suggest they ring the Samaritans..

Ring the Samaritans  116123
Email jo@samaritans.org
text  087 2609090
Or the website  www.dublinsamaritans.ie