Dublin vs Mayo | 2021 All Ireland GAA Football Senior Championship Semi-...

Like an asses gallop

Short and sweet like an asses gallop as my Daddy would say.

So I worked for a few days and God help me but I was lost half of the time.The mind is a strange thing, if you don't use it you loose it. I spoke to a London cabby and he told me that when he retired he knew every street and building in London, 6 months later he found it hard to find his way home. It was coming back to me though. Before I stopped again.

Licence renewal time again. You have to get the NCT, then go for a suitability test, then get the licence renewed for another year. This year the car passed out  without any faults.Next year I will have to buy a new car. That will be my sons problem as I do not want to keep going.

On Saturday we had torrential rain which drove the punters into the taxis. An air hostess for Delta airlines going to Pennys. Only when she got out did I remember that this is a thing with flight attendants heading for Pennys for clothes. At the end of the day I got a run out to Northwood with a lady from Moldova, gosh what a wonderful person.

It is so hard on the immigrant workers, the loneliness of being away from home and all that you once held co close. Thank God we have Facebook and Twitter to make contact for a few cents not like back in the old days when it cost a fortune to phone home.Still it is not the same as being there.God bless the wonderful workers and Ryanair

My return to driving will have to stop again for now. My daughter in law is expecting a baby in a few days, they live in northern Ireland and if I picked up this covid and passed it on to someone else who might give it to the new mother to be. Now that would place me in a very bad position.

The price of the pint has gone to hell €5.60 now from €4.80. I am not too bright "After all what would a taxi driver know?" But putting up the price will just drive people out of the pubs. Weatherspoons here I come (A cut price pub)

Went up North

We are expecting a grandchild so we went up North to visit as we will probably be needed as foster parents for a few days. 2 hours drive each way, which is not too bad I suppose.

If you ever come to Dublin you can't help but notice the number of drug addicts on our streets. I know they are everywhere, very little is done to help them. My charity money goes to Fr.McVery who seems to be the only person reaching out. But he is swamped.

A couple of years they decided to remove the tents which were along the canal. This is the thinking of a moron. It may be a tent but it was a home to someone. They were using a truck with a grabbing bucket on the back. As the operator swooped on a tent he could not hear the screaming of the occupant, luckaly a passer by ran up to the operator and stopped him. I am almost sure the guy in the tent died.

A few days ago I saw a girl who used to be in a class with one of my lads. She was with a junkie and the fury on his face would frighten a soldier, she looked totally stressed out.

In my book The steering wheel university I put in 2 stories about drugs..I could have filled the book with stories about them and nothing else. 

Now I am getting my income tax in order and getting the taxi passed out for another year.

I would have let it lapse at this moment but I have a son who says that he wants to take it up. He has failed the test twice but he needs to put his head down and do the work.While the taxi was off the road the meter went dead and I went out to Robinsons to have it re calibrated. While I was waiting I spoke to a girl from Brazil. I thought that she was waiting for someone. No she was waiting for her taxi. How fantastic is that! Coming to a land learning the language and the rules of the road..Passing your driving test..Then finally learning the streets of Dublin. Fantastic.

I have said it before the people coming in are just like we were when I was young. Getting up at 5 am, heading off to work in Sydney, NewYork London. Building roads and tunnels and dreaming of home.

Still going strong

 Well I am regaining my knowledge slowly and some days are better than the old days.

I picked a person up at Heuston going to Naas of all places for an agreed price of €50

Well this person was a cross gender. male to female or the other way around it was hard to tell.

I am going to the church of the immaculate conception.

Whare is it? Just outside Naas near Punchestown.

I tried a few more times to get further guidance no result.

Onward and upwards to no avail.

Then at a crossroads near Punchestown I stopped a passing car.

Then and only then did the name of the town come out. Just 10 minutes later and he /she was gone.

The screen between the front and back made it very hard to hear most of the conversation.

I'm going to hell I lived a bad life. 

I was doing the pilgrimage in Knock and the priest stopped me and told me to make confessions to my own priest as he would not take my confession. It must have been very spicy. 

It went on and on like a few pages of Ulysses.

What kills me is that people who have little money tip well and folks with loads of cash wait for 20c.

A wonderful little boy with his mother up from Cork to the childrens hospital in Crumlin,she said that the hospital in Cork did not want to do anything but in Dublin they will operate.

Then she would take no change. I wish them both a long life and happiness they were both lovely people..

I picked up a drug addict on crutches and he was a wonderful young lad.

"Mister your car is spotless, its immaculate. Then on to his horror story. He had found his mother dead on the kitchen floor and the floor was covered in blood, I never knew that blood could be black."

Don't get me wrong he was a really nice lad. Just the drugs.

There was €6 on the meter and he gave me €10

"Just give me €2 back"

I wish him luck and I hope he gets counselling wherever he is going.

One from the rank, the conversation was on tipping. 

Once this driver had a gent in the car who made it a point that he was not going to tip the driver. "Thats quite all right sir, have a great day" he had only gone away for 5 minutes when he heard a mobile phone ringing from the back seat. 

The question is .

Did he get his phone back ?

Well there has been developments in the tipping and bullying scandal in the Edenborough  Michelin starred restaurant of Mr.Kitchen the proprietor who stood accused of taking the staffs tips and bullying. 

Michelin are going to remove the gold stars from any restaurant found to behaving badly.

I have removed the map of the world from the study was and replaced it with a map of Dublin so that my son can look at it and learn. The big world map was bought in Aldi and it was only when I brought it home that I saw that it was in German.

Aldi and Litl are facing each other in E.Wall road also in Rathmines, now they are building another Lidl at Annsley bridge 500 meters from the other one. The Panzer division will take over the world.

Another German owned company is called FreeNow its a cab calling app I joined them when they started off, they were called Hailo and they took no commission at the start then they took 5% and not long after 10% then up to 15% of the taxi fare.

I had old branding on my car from when it was was called MyTaxi and I went to have a screen fitted but the guys took exception to the old branding and charged me €100 for fitting the screen instead of €50. I wrote in 3 times and even explained that I had taken off the word My from the branding but they wouldn't budge. 

So I wrote to the head chief himself. 

No reply.

So I am deleting their app and moving to another company of which there are 4 others now at least.

Here is one for you. FreeNow is owned by Mercedes

Where they manufacture Mercedes cars in Germany there is a taxi rank.

The cars were all Mercedes, polished and shining, driven with pride.

The company brought out a new E class model and to save a few bob had the chip made in China of all places.

Then E class mercs with the new chip would stop for no reason, they would be brought back to the garage where they would reset the chip. Power down and then re apply the power.

Now this giant of car manufacture did not do a recall.

No! we are Mercedes and they let the customer suffer.

As a result of that and in protest the taxi drivers at the factory now drive Lexus cars.

Sometimes big companies make Titanic errors.