Thursday, August 27, 2020

Heading back (Well maybe not)

Sadly there was another murder in Clontarf. 

A 60 year old son strangled his 80 year old mother.

It is beyond sad for everyone involved

There has been a lot of problems with no work or pubs and total isolation. 

The shrinks will all be on overtime for sure.

WOW

Every so often you come across something that leaves you gobsmacked.

The party is over so theNTA say and I have to go back to work.

I got a notification that I had to re activate my taxi licence or loose it, so I started the wheels in motion. Getting through on the phone is something else, sending emails was not much better.

Even when I got through I got advice from different people who did not know anything about their job. The website gave email addresses for different departments "info@" which is not an email address at all. 

So next on the agenda was to get an NCT (car testing)

I needed 3 new tyres, so I sent a text to my local garage and was told to attend in the morning.

9.30 I arrive in. I waited for around 20 mins until John the owners son came over. "Could you come back at 3.30?"

So I came back and after another 1/2 hour waiting a mechanic came over and knocked off 3 wheels. Just before he broke down the tyres he asked 

"Where are the tyres for this car?"

The garage owners son said

"Theres no tyres of that size here, we sold 9 of those tyres this morning"

So there I was with my car test in the morning and no new tyres.

So I went into Advance pitstop where I was seen to straight away, wheels balanced and out of there within 45 minutes.

So there is new garage, I will not be going back to the old one again for sure.

Look after your customers and your customers will look after you.

Words from Arnold Clark a car dealer I once met (Look him up on Wikipedia )

You look after a customer and you have a friend for life. 

Treat him badly and he will tell 100 people.

The green stickers on the front and back windows I was told to remove them when I took my taxi off the road, now I have to make an appointment to have them put back on.

How mad is this? 

A few years ago I sold my old taxi and I did not know to take off the stickers. They needed them back! I had to pay to have them re-issued so that they could destroy them €40 Ouch!

Then they were going to fine me for having my licence lapsed.

The car was not in use I said ! After 15 minutes away they said that there would be no penalty, but the renewal would be from the period the old licence lapsed, even though the car was off the road.

So its a new car for next year and I decided to look at a new Nissan Leaf, So I went to a garage in Raheny.

I parked at the showroom, I went and looked at a Leaf, I saw a manager, I saw a salesman

I walked around the car and the salesman walked into the managers office.

I waited 2 more minutes and walked out.

To look at me and the way I dress I dress in the style of Warren Buffet and Chuck Feeney.

They had loads of money.

Paul Daniels once introduced me once as a very very wealthy man

"You don't see him wasting money buying good clothes".

He was such a great magician.

I had a friend from New Zealand who told me about 2 scruffy guys at a machinery exhibition, the older salesmen ignored them. A young lad who had recently joined the company engaged them in conversation and won a £2 million contract for plant. They were the biggest road construction company in the southern hemisphere and hey bought trucks capable of shifting 200 tonnes at a time.  

They were starting a big project.  

As well as his bonus the boss gave him a new car as a present.


You just never know.

 

Sunday, August 16, 2020

VJ 75

 Yes folks 75 years today is the day the war ended in Japan.

The Japanese were very cruel to the prisoners for sure and the war only ended when the atomic bomb was dropped on 2 cities killing thousands of people.

A tribe of American Navajo Indians has a very unusual language. 

The Japanese were intercepting the radio signals and someone decided to employ them to pass messages along the line.

One Indian would be given the message and he would transmit it to another Navajo who would translate it into English. Each Indian had a "Bodyguard"The purpose of that soldier was to shoot the Indian in case they were overrun. After the war they got no medals or pensions, Mr.Obama did make some overtures to them.. If you are living near Las Vegas load up the truck with food and medical supplies, I hear that the tribe is suffering badly with the Covid.

I read a book once called Knights of Bushido by Lord Russell of Liverpool (Its on Amazon)

It talks about the absolute horrors of the Japanese prisoner of was camps


So I wrote a book "The steering wheel university" by Paul Malone.

Full of stories about people I met.

Here is a story with a strange and wonderful twist from the book.

I tried to get the chapter, but it is encoded.

Sorry about this, I am afraid you will have to buy it as my manuscript has been encrypted and I can't copy it.

I will tell you a bit of the story.

I was securing a garage door for this tall Londoner and I asked him what he did for a living.

He asked me to guess, after a while he told me this wonderful tale about how he had been held in a prisoner of war in a camp by the Japanese, the suffering and savagery. He was around 6 ft tall when I met him and he told me that he was only 4 or 5 st weight when he was rescued.

One man who was a medical doctor told him that he had to forgive the Japanese soldiers, if he could do that his body could recover.


Oh go on get the book, its a great story!


He was a really lucky guy.

Thursday, August 06, 2020

John Hume RIP

A true giant of a man was buried yesterday.
John Hume politician and peace maker was laid to rest.
John was the kingpin of the Good Friday agreement which silenced the bombs and guns in Northern Ireland.
He was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his efforts.
Over the last few years he suffered from altzheimers disease which is an awful thief of peoples personality.

The world is a much better place for him having been here.

God bless you John

John can be seen in some footage screaming at the soldiers to stop shooting
they are unarmed.
There was a whitewash enquirey but no one was punished from the army

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