October is here. Yippee

 Well Christmas is almost upon us, a few of the big stores have Christmas displays on view and I see the high end perfume people are advertising on the TV.

I was at the recycling depot  and I saw a high heel shoe made of glass. I went back to my car to get a photo of it when one of the workers told me that he had seen one of them one day and he brought it home to show it to his wife. She sniffed the perfume and she just had to buy it. €80 on the internet. He was mad, but she was happy.

Its all the rage this Christmas

So my wife is still ill and I am running up and down the stairs with tea and boiled eggs etc. It is very slow though not fatal. I have not worked for 5 weeks or so,

David my son has passed his PSV test, the Garda have vetted him, the money for the licence has been sent in and he is still waiting.
I was told by a Garda superintendent years ago that the Nigerian embassy will not vet prospective taxi drivers and that the government tells the carriage to pass them out unchecked. I told the union and they said. "There you are "It is upsetting to say the least.

In Spain for example you have to be resident there for 8 years, have no criminal record, be able to speak Spanish. Then you can apply for a PSV licence.

A couple of weeks ago I lost all my credit cards, driving licence etc,

Did you ever hear of a doomsday book?

An American couple 4 years ago showed me their plan. The husband carried the key to his wife's cards and she carried his code,

A list of the credit cards, the numbers, the help numbers just in case and they were covered.

I pointed out that if someone got the notebook they could clean out their account.

"Ah no you see every 5th digit has been increased by 1."

They were very bright.

I hope that you go to Grenada some day.

The tip like a kick

 So I got a job to the airport with 2 gals from New York. They seemed normal enough except when it came to paying. It was around €25.40. No the payer said. Presenting her credit card. I want to give you a tip. Round it up to......€26.00 a 60 c tip. There is no way to counter this. Did I insult you?

They seemed normal enough, on business expenses. The other put down is to say. No if you are that hard up you can keep it. It cost me more to process the card than the tip was worth.

I loved Cuban music and the Buena Vista social club opened my ears to their magic.So we went there, no kids at the time. If you love vintage cars they have them all over Havana. The second week of the break took us to the Valadero beach resort, really 5 star hotels and great food. Now to get to my tipping problem. There was a girl who cleaned the room and on the Wednesday she said that she would be off when we were going, so could she have her tip now. I really thought it was odd but I gave her around €20, which was a good tip in Cuba. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday she never came back to the room. When we were moving out the leader of the chamber maids arrived and asked me for a tip. Why was our room not cleaned for 4 days? Why were you not doing your job  supervising your staff? Now I have spoken to the manager a few times during our stay and he asked me to report directly to him if I saw anything amiss. Which I will be doing in 10 minutes.

I really did not want her sacked as the Cuban people live in dreadful poverty.  

My wife has been ill for 10 days or so and I have been going over to the Blackrock clinic most days.

You don't know when she will be let out so you have to wait. You would be mad to wait in the grounds so I waited in Cross ave. This avenue has really Wow houses. I walked to the estate agents on the corner and asked him about the house below he really could not tell me more. So I googled it.By the way the house has been extended !!!!!The tragic thing is that the house was built just before the Irish potato famine.

You cannot really see it from the road.

Time to bring in helicopter thing and take a good look 

PROJECT

Glenvar

NAME                            Churchview, D'Acort Ville/Glenvar

AREA LOCATION         Cross Avenue
 
MAP LOCATION          OSI map 1898-1913 place it in the townland of Merrion
                                        and it is annotated as Glenvar.

GENERAL                     ​  Originally called Churchview.  A large house was built circa 1856 on
the site for George McMullin initially called D'Court Ville, later Glenvar.  In 1921 it was
described as a detached residence on 11 acres.  It has a concave roof with bracketed eves
which gives it an slightly Oriental look, the high chimneys are an unusual feature but very
typical of one of Mulvany's styles.  It had two gatelodges (one on Mount Merrion Ave and
another on Cross Ave).  One mirrored the architecture of the main residence with a quirky
belgcast/pagoda style roof very similar to the one Mulvany designed for Kilmacud House,
​no image of the other has been found to date.
            
YEAR BUILT               1856 for George McMullin
 
VALUATION              In 1879 the valuation was 115 pounds and on the 1901 census it is
                                     noted as having 17 rooms occupied by family.

ARCHITECT                John Skipton Mulvany

SOURCES                   Thom’s directories, OSI maps, Griffith's Valuation, NAI Census & Wills
                                     contemporaneous newspapers.
  
OCCUPANTS

1834 - 1837                Henry Higginbotham
​1840                            Col Jones
1845 - 1848                Charles Hopes
1855 - 1856                George Reade MacMullen
1862 - 1866                John Barrington
1867 - 1886                Joseph Garratt
1886 - 1916                William Arthur Garratt
1916 - 1920                Mr & Mrs William Dove
1921                            De Valera arrested here
1921 - 1926                (House in Mrs McGarry's name - purchased by The Dáil as their headquarters)
1939                            Houses built on the land
1947                            Edward Kearon
1950 - 1952                Mrs Evelyn Hornidge
1952 - 1989                The Wall Family
2013                            Sold for €5,250,000
       
STAFF
​1848                            Murtagh Ennis – gatekeeper
​1882 - 1883                John Williams - Gardener
1900 - 1901                James Rennix - Gardener living on site
​1900                            Elizabeth Anne Long - Cook
1901                            Charlotte Foote - Housemaid
                                     Ellen Moore - Kitchenmaid
                                     Sarah Allingham - Parlourmaid
                                     Johanna O'Brien - Cook
1911                            Emily Bray - Parlourmaid
                                     Maria Johnston - Cook
                                     Ellen McKay - Housemaid
                                     Lucy Abbott - Kitchenmaid
       
CURRENT                   Extant  
STATUS                     

CONTRIBUTOR         ©​ June Bow & Karen Poff
DATE                           August 2019

RETURN TO HOME PAGE We welcome additions and corrections with supporting proof. Please note that this is a work in progress.  The authors acknowledge the significant contributions to this body of information.  Not all could be cited because of reference limitations.  Source information for non commercial genealogical projects supplied on request.   email June Bow & Karen Poff   youwho@2020.ie​ Copyright  © 2015-2023 YouWho (June Bow & Karen Poff)  All rights reserved.

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Liverpool Lou

ANOTHER UNSOLVED CRIME.

 I got another letter from the police telling me that there has been no action action taken to the report I gave them.

I saw a house in Clontarf at Christmas with the front door wide open and the kitchen door was also open with no action around.

Ten minutes later I rang the finest boys in blue to be told that there was no one available, but perhaps I could go in and take a look. I wonder if I had followed it up with. "Ah sure its a but late now there are 3 bodies on the floor"

You could be sure that I would be arrested. Like everywhere we need a police to monitor the police.

"The untouchables"

A Ferrari worth £4 million was stolen and it was recovered in a container heading for Dubai. (Nice one)

I was showing it to my kids and I said that the car should have had a tracker. "Think for a minute, if you were taking a car like that you would have a detector to find the tracker devices which is giving off a signal and then you disable it." Good thinking.

So a nice job the other day a Scouser (From Liverpool) heading over to the DPD depot in Walkinstown and then to the airport. He works on windmills and he wanted to collect his passport with that all important USA visa stamp on it. Apart from the Beatles and a great movie made in Dublin called Dockers. Full of passion that was. Then the Liver building where one bird looks to see if the pubs are open yet and the other one looks to see if there is a ship coming in .Last of all "Letter to Breisniev" A young girl meets a Russian sailor and trouble follows.

So then it hit me Liverpool Lue, with YouTube we had it playing with the author Dominic Behan singing it,

It feels like treading water

Boys and girls slow down there has been deadly crashes nearly every day.

It is strange how so many of the crashes result in fatal injury.

Still the postman has not arrived with my sons taxi permits. 

Then it will be the armchair for me and cutting the grass not to mention the painting to be done.

Today I picked up a lady going to Abbey St. I sat at the lights turning right for 3 changes when I declared. "This is no good, trust me" we went the other way avoiding the heavy traffic. I dropped her off and then I heard a musical box sound. Her mobile phone, it took time to locate as it was wedged down between the cushions of the back seat. So I told her to go back where I dropped her off and I walked back to meet her. She was very lucky that she had a second phone to call the other one. Yes she was happy.

I heard about a girl who dropped her phone in a taxi last weekend and when she contacted the driver he demanded €50 to bring it back to her. Well she took his details so what is to happen to him we might find out.Blackmail

I think the swallows have gone on their 6000 mile journey back to South Africa and very soon the Barnacle geese will arrive from Greenland for the winter. 

The kids are back in school as well.

Well the Christmas shop is open in  the Brown Thomas store. Time flies.

My sons delay in being passed out annoys me no end. A retired garda superentant who was working in the Garda carriage office told me that migrants coming in from Nigeria cannot be vetted. The embassy refuses to do it. But the higher up people tells the carriage office to give them the licence, while my son who has lived here for 30 years has to wait for months to be vetted.  In Spain to become a taxi driver you have to have lived there for 8 years crime free, hold a valid driving licence, be able to speak Spanish and then you do the PSV test.

Fight the good fight until you hear the bell

 I published the posts below from YouTube. They are shocking examples of what can happen when things are ignored.

Well the news over the week about the British nurse who has been found guilty of murdering 7 new born children in her care. This time her supervisor has been sacked as well this time as her colleagues had reported her, but nothing was done. She may have killed many more.

He was in my taxi this brave man and his story unfolded on the journey.

Are you OK ? I asked

It was like I had fired a starting gun and he unloaded his tale.

I worked for Oxfam and though I was doing  lot of good there was something going on in the background which I could not deal with. For example there was a doctor in one of the hospital who was raping the nurses. Yes! raping the nurses.

There was nothing that I could do.

Imagine how I felt when celebrities were brought in to stay in 4 star hotels, we would bring in reasonably fed children for a photo shoot and the celebs would be flown out at the charities expense.

I fought on and I got suspended from work until I met a small Jewish man on a flight back to New York.

He listened to my story and brought me to his office where he prepared a case against Oxfam, piece by piece dates and statements were taken. I really hated what I was doing but nurses lives were being destroyed with no sympathy. Yes Yes there were other things were also going on.    

Our day in court came after much preparation. The world court of justice came down on them like a ton of bricks. Funding was withdrawn and heads rolled. All the people who refused to listen to me were held accountable.

That was only last week and I could sleep for a month.

Hidden camera investigation: Nursing home abuse, violence (Marketplace)

Hidden camera reveals abuse by care home staff of dementia patient Ann King

A letter from the Garda commissioner

 So I went over to the test centre to renew my licence and he checked it out. "Where is your insurance certificate?" Well I could show him the insurance disc from the windscreen and I had a letter from the insurance company showing the cover, duration and 100 other things. 

No they had to have the certificate.

I said that I could drop home and be back within the hour. Then I heard the most laughable statement of the week.

"If you had come into the office 20 minutes before your appointment we would have allowed you to go home, but not now. So pay another €50 and come back on Monday.

As a wise taxi driver once said. You can't fight it. Just suck it up and move on.

So as I was going through my papers I found 2 letters from the office of the Garda commissioner.

Written in August 2022.

I was going to Heuston station from the Phoenix park direction and I was pulled in at the lights about to turn left There is a place on the right where they look after mentally handicapped people. On my left there was a coloured man with a tall mentally handicapped girl. The guy put his arm over her right shoulder and he fondled her right breast. She squirmed and the lights changed. Instead of going for Heuston I went straight on and over by the jail and back around to the St. John of Gods facility. Looked for them for 10 minutes and asked 5 or 6 people to find who was in charge. No one could direct me to an office. So I wrote a letter to the head of management and got no reply. Then I wrote to 2 other care facilities in Palmerstown and St.Marys in the park

4 visits to the Garda stations .and the best that they could say was. "We could do nothing unless we caught him in the act". Not much chance if they won't take an enquiry.

Anyhow last year a huge sex scandal was uncovered in Palmerstown. Was it my man?

The special needs people deserve protection as a right. Not ignoring letters and endangering those in the care of whoever was in charge.

If I was in charge I would bring in a law that states. If you get a complaint of cruelty or sexual advances being made about someone in your care or control and you do not act on that information you will be fined €80,000.

So tonight I put the letters from the top brass and shred them.

Well at least I tried 

So now I will just suck it up.

Well Well Well

 Well everything is going at a snails pace for me.

My sons paperwork is in the system 3 or 4 weeks now.

I went to renew my taxi licence and with the holidays and delays with the NCT the licence had lapsed and the powers that be have charged me a fee of €500 to renew the licence. OUCH.I will check it when I can.

I had all my documents in a little folder. Driving licence, 3 credit cards, bus pass and health cover card. I had them in the kitchen to get on with the business. Guess what ? they are all gone.

St Anthony must be on his holidays as he has not found them for me. I went to 3 banks today and asked for new cards. Banks have changed so much in the last 10 years. I have been with 3 banks which closed the doors. It is such a pain in the ass tracing the direct debits and stopping payments which are coming in.

By the way look up a thing called a Tile on Amazon. Its a fob which allows you to track your phone, your wallet or your suitcase. The more upmarket ones work worldwide. One Canadian passenger was at the airport waiting for his bag. He went on to the app and was able to tell the airline that his bag was in terminal 4 in Toronto. Lots of hire cars have 2 trackers one hidden the other visible. (Good thinking Boy Robin)

There are saints for every occasion, St Patrick for the Irish St. George for the English 

The patron saint of lost property St. Anthony

Not forgetting St. Fiacre the patron saint of taxi drivers.

A mad world for sure

 So I have said this before and I will say it again.

The world is mad.

I sold my old taxi once and  I forgot to take off the discs attached to the front and back windows.

You must pay for it to be reprinted and then we have to destroy the old discs and issue you with new ones.

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs.Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power

The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the 'milky way'

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause it's bugger all down here on Earth

My substitute is waiting.

 Well, my lad is waiting for the paperwork to be finished and he will step into my shoes.

Its not easy as there are hoops to jump through even now.

Perhaps I will write another book?

You haven't read my other work of art?

"The steering wheel university" by Paul Malone, available on Amazon

Complete with two spelling mistakes.

Here is a story worth telling.

He had a strange accent. Scottish and something else. After a couple of minutes I asked him what he worked at. 

He said I will start at the beginning. My father was killed in a road crash when I was 16 and when I was 21 my mother re married. I did not get along with him and he did not get along with me.

So it was pistols drawn at 50 paces.

They went away for the weekend and the word went out that there was a party at my house and every scumbag in Edenborough arrived at the house. When the police in there droves arrived and cleared the house it was a total wreck. Not really my fault.

But my stepfather put £200 into my hand and told me to get out and not to come back until I had grown up.

So I found a B&B and met 7 guys who were enjoying themselves. The next morning I was a bit hung over at breakfast when a guy came and started counting. One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight..

Great a full crew. Into the van.  I said that I was not with the lads and he said. I have to have 8, can you swim? Fantastic, you are a deep sea diver.

It was a baptism of fire, we lost a lot of people in the beginning. But health and safety helped and we were on fantastic money. We would go into Glasgow and go to a gents outfitters and get kitted out then we would drink and carry on until out leave was over. On going back to the rig we would throw the suit away and get another on our return.

Many of the guys bought apartments and installed mistresses who then took the property from them. So I had a wild time and then I looked around and I began to specialise in ( I forget what he did ) This brought me around the world. I have 6 houses, 3 rooms rented and one for me, soon I will retire. 

I will live on my savings and I will always thank my stepfather for throwing me out.

Off the road

 My PSV licence has lapsed and I must rest up until I get it renewed.

The post below is a hell of a story of how a London cabby drove to Cairo !!!!!!!!!!!11

We lost Sinead O'Connor RIP. A very troubled and strong willed person with a passion for song.

I herd 2 things about her on the radio. During the 90s she went on TV and tore up a portrait of the Pope to the shock and horror of the people. Only then did the general public began to act about the clerical sex abuse towards children.

The other story was how a young waiter lost his wallet with his weeks wages inside. She was with a guy from the press when she found it on the street, a photo was taken and the photo found its way on to the evening papers. When the young lad went to collect the wallet it was empty. He rang the paper and an hour later Sinead arrived at the Garda station demanding all the money stolen by a Garda be returned. All hell broke loose and superintendents arrived.

Long story short the Garda commissioner went to the boys house with a letter of apology and the money..

Her poor son had mental problems and was supposed to be on supervision a few years ago but sadly he took his own life.

God bless them both.

Together again at last.

I Paid a Taxi $10,000 to See How Far it Takes Me!

Emergency Emergency

There was a problem in London and my wife and I had to go. Its a busy spot and there was a lot of coming and going. Taxis in London are a hell of a lot cheaper than here. But the tube and rail are as cheap as chips.

We were in a place called East Ham. This area is settled by Indian and Pakistani people. 

Boys first names in Galway threw up a surprising result. The most popular name for a boy was not Seamus or Sean but Mohamed.

Changing times here for sure.

On the way home I spoke to a very interesting lady from Limerick, she has many irons in many fires and she told me how she guided women's groups into action to get the law into force that you cannot take photographs of female people without their consent.To make the point they sent more than 2,000 photos of women in compromising positions, all the photos were taken without consent.

This situation has now been passed into law and having such material in your posession will land you in jail.

As we were talking she congratulated another girl further back. "Do you not know her? Olivia Rodrigo. Her record is number one in the Irish charts this week"

So there I was surrounded by greatness.

Today I noticed that my mobile phone was bulging. I showed it to the lads  who nearly had a shit fit. "Its going to explode, turn it off, put it into the old saucepan out the back" 

So now I have to buy a new phone. Where does all the fun end.

I had to go to the ferry to bring my son home and it was strange to say that there was no taxis there. So today I got up at 5.30 and popped down. I was the only taxi there and I got a 20€ job, I just kept being lucky and was home by 12 noon.

My youngest son has passed the PSV test and he is doing the paperwork to become either a second driver (A cosy) or I will retire and win the Lotto and go to live in the South of France.

Well you have to have some plan !

I don't like to talk about passengers but I was telling another driver about this coloured girl who is a barrister and she goes to Dun Laoighre, she is from Cork and one day her father rang her when we were on the move. God we had this wonderful outburst of 10 minutes of conversation in her charming Cork musical accent.

So so different. If you could bottle the lilt you would get €50 a bottle.

He has had her as well and we both agreed that it was a pleasure to drive her 

Murder bloddy murder

 The papers come by computer now and I have been getting the  UK Times on line for a few months when suddenly they cut me off !!!!! So I tried to get a paid subscription and they wont connect me.

There has been some awful murders of children in England over the last 2 years. Are we loosing all control over out emotions? I don't know perhaps God is telling me not to read such stuff into the future.

I met another driver who I have not seen since the Covid. He has gone from taxi driver to chauffer. A good car and a sharp suit plus great contacts and the gentry come along. He looks and acts the part very well.

People who have come up the hard way tend to look out for their kids and guide them along. He told me that his lad is a qualified accident claims investigator and he got a taxi from Howth over to Tallagh. Soon all the alarm bells were ringing and he asked the driver to stop. This just made the driver go faster. No amount of shouting would make the driver slow down. In Clontarf the Garda were stopping cars and the rogue taxi turned up the Malahide Rd. to avoid the checkpoint. The Garda gave chase and stopped the taxi.

The driver had no licence and had been given the taxi by his brother, So there would be no insurance either.

At his trial the passenger really explained all the negative aspects to the incident and the judge decided that the best thing to do was to deport the driver who had no respect for our laws.

The other drivers job arrived so I didn't find out how the owner of the taxi faired.

My days are often filled with slices of reality.

Yankee Doodle Dandy - Jimmy Cagney

To all you Americans.

Happy 4th of July.

You have all been missing for the last 4 years, and boys oh boys you are all back here with a bang.

Remember drive on the left and look to the right. Plus when you are renting your car record it with your phone which is set to video. Then you cannot be blamed for the scrape which was there when you got the car.

Great news

 Today my son passed the taxi test !

This means that I can rent the taxi plate to him and retire.

He has done the test around 6 times and failed by just a small percentage points a few times.

So now I look forward to a few days and weeks off at last.

Argos have packed up and gone home to the UK.

|A while ago I stopped for a Nigerian lady with a baby and a fridge. The fridge did not work and she was bringing it back to Argos. She had the baby was around 6 months old in a sling and the baby was singing its little heart out. I had to ask the mom if it was not Tina Turner having come back. The mom said that this baby is the happiest child in the world. 

In Argos the manager would not send out a trolley to bring the fridge back into the shop. She was some strong lady and she gave him a right rollicking, then they gave her the money and took it back from her. 

You never know who you are dealing with that was no way to deal with a customer even if you job is going.

This is the problem when you buy goods from shops which are closing down. No after sales service.

Any proper business would deliver and collect faulty goods.

Coved and Brexit and Amazon have hit a lot of businesses badly.

When was the last time you went into a shoe shop?

longest day/ The shortest night

 Today was the  longest day and from now on the days get shorter. It is a kinda mad how people study these things. Newgrange has a big mound which dates back to the times of the Pharos in Egypt. Its much older than Stone Henge People queue up to see the sunlight hit a marker stone inside the tomb.  As if after all the thousands of years it has been there that it might miss a beat.

I went to the recycling place and there was a woman in her 60s with a nice low slung Mercedes. As you do I congratulated her on the car. She said thank you and then she told me that she had a flat tyre and went to get it fixed and they fitted a new tyre. Then she said that she had the NCT, car test in a few days.

The tyre man must have thought that his birthday had come. He told me that the new tyre was a different size, though he had tried to get a match. Therefore he fitted 4 new matching tyres. She probably is a widow, but I do feel badly for her.

You know if you are honest in you dealings with customers they will come again and they will send friends to you as well.

Perhaps I am wrong. In the 1/2 hour or so that I met this man and talked to him he told me as much.

Did you ever hear of Arnold Clark? Well he started his empire on less than £100 and when I met him he had built up an empire of over 800 garages.

"How the hell can you manage more than 1 garage? " I asked. 

Son Son Son you don't understand. These people don't work for me they work WITH me and there is one hell of a difference. I told my son about him and we wanted to visit him in Glasgow. Flight out in the morning and home in the evening, all good. So I rang his HQ and his son came on the line... John I am so sorry to tell you that Daddy died last week. We are here like orphans without him, he has left a huge void in our lives.

Once I went to a garage to have a tyre fitted and the garage man refused to do the job until he fixed a major job with the steering rack. He would not let me take it out the garage. I went to the phone box and rang the Evening Press, I turned to him and said that a reporter and a photographer were on the way and they are bringing a Garda as well for a charge of blackmail. I got the car back in minutes, nothing wrong, they did print the story though.

So I will fight the battles that I can and "Save my breath to cool my porridge" 

Dodging bullets

 We get the Times of London newspaper, it is really good, finances cannot be beaten. But there is an awful lot of sad things happening. A soldier who was in the guard of honor for Lady Di was found dead from hypothermia. He served in Iraq and returned with PTSD, he had a letter which  would have guaranteed him a bed in a homeless shelter. But for some error all he was given was a blanket and he died of the cold. 

A 10 year old boy was put into a bath of cold water as a punishment, a great looking kid with dysfunctional parents. He also died from hypothermia, both parents in prison now. 

You just have to draw a line under it all and do the best you can in your own life.

Its fantastic to see all the Americans back over here in their droves.

I hope that the hotels and the car hire people are not overcharging.

I went into a local pub the other day €7 for a pint. Temple bar goes to €9.50. 

I buy 8 cans of Guinness for €14. That is 8 cans for the price of 2 pints in a pub

Here is a golden tip for you.

My wife's car was parked with a door ajar.When there is a door open the inside light comes on.

No one noticed and 2 days later the battery was as flat as a pancake.

I put it on the trickle charger (that I bought in the Dandelion Market many years ago)

Next morning it was still dead. Then I remembered this tip.

If a car battery has been totally discharged you need extra power to revive it, you connect a good battery to the flat battery with jump leads and the charger to the good battery. It will get a good flow of power and it will revive the battery.

This tip has saved me a lot of money.

Talking of things which have stopped working. 

My SumUp is a card reader.

Mine stopped working and I rang the helpline in India. 20 questions with no help.

I found out where their office was and I went in on Friday. It was closed. I went back again on Monday and I was told that they "Work from home on Fridays and Mondays" 

So I passed them my details. 

Now if I was in charge I would require that the office be manned 7 days and staff rotate at home days.

But I am a fool what would a taxi driver know?.

I gave in my details but I didn't get a call back yet.

The Bank of Ireland have a card reader and the word is that it is better 

There is an Irish helpline too.

A toxic man

 I picked him up on the North Strand going to Ballsbridge.

I asked if I should turn right at the 5 lamps and he said yes.

Just a tip for you, its better to go straight on and turn left on Shirreff St and left again to go back up to the bridge. But the man had spoken.

He had worked at construction in New York and he was really like a poisoned version of Danny DeVito.

"Why do all you drivers go on with this shite. Put it on a record and play it at home, kos no one wants to hear it" Then he would go back to normal again.

The ligts from the 5 lamps over the new bridge are crap. 1or 2 cars with each change of lights.

Then he fixated on the meter. "You needn't think that I am going to pay that."

But alas in the end I asked for €20 on a €22 journey.

Then he wanted a receipt. No worries all is Kosher.

That man is doing nothing but making problems for himself.

A driver had a job once and the passenger made a complaint that he was overcharged.

He complained to the carriage office who did the journey in a special car with a meter on board.

They got on to the driver and told him that he overcharged the man.

Please give me the date and I will have a think about it and see what it might be.

Ah yes said the taxi driver. That was a bank holiday Monday  Rate 2

Exam times are here.

 Exams begin today for all the students in the state.

Good luck to one and all, but it is not everything. The owner of Microsoft Bill Gates never qualified but as he says himself. "I employ lots of people who have degrees" 

Arnold Clarke who was in my taxi left school at 15 and when I met him he had 800 garages, he had one hell of a great mind.

I am not knocking education but you should never confuse it with intelligence.

Some people say "What would you know? You're only a taxi driver". 99% of the time I can prove them wrong.

Chuck Feeney the multi billionaire told me that if he was starting his life again he would love to be a taxi driver, you hear so much from so many sources. 

Remember it only takes one good idea to make money.

So no matter what level of exam you are sitting. 

Good luck. 

Isle of Innisfree

If you sang this song in Australia, New York or Boston you would bring the house down.

This version is a bit slow for me.

It was written by a garda who was on his way to give evidence in a court case.

The words came and he wrote it down. Later on someone put it to music and a big cheque landed in his letterbox. Recorded by Bing Crosby a worldwide hit. Then MORE money came in as it featured in the movie ET. It had a third wad of money, though I forget where.

Paul McCartney woke up one morning with a tune in his head. He asked the others in the studio if they had heard it before. It was a good tune, but no one knew where it came from.

Later he was sleeping in a taxi going to a hotel in Portugal with Jane Asher. When he woke up the song was complete. The music and the words came to him while he was sleep. 

This song was the biggest hit that the Beatles ever had.

Before they were the Beatles on Spotify for it all. 

So when you have a moment listen to those voices, they might be telling you something wonderful.

Isle of Innisfree

Author: words & music by Dick Farrelly
Copyright: Peter Maurice Music/EMI Music

These are the correct words given to me by Dick Farrelly's son Gerard

I've met some folks who say that I'm a dreamer
And I've no doubt there's truth in what they say
But sure a body's bound to be a dreamer
When all the things he loves are far away.
And precious things are dreams onto an exile
They take him o'er the land across the sea
Especially when it happens he's an exile
From that dear lovely Isle of Innisfree.

And when the moonlight peeps across the rooftops
Of this great city wondrous tho' it be
I scarcely feel its wonder or its laughter
I'm once again back home in Innisfree.

I wander o'er green hills thro' dreamy valleys
And find a peace no other land could know
I hear the birds make music fit for angels
And watch the rivers laughing as they flow.
And then into a humble shack I wander
My dear old home, and tenderly behold
The folks I love around the turf fire gathered
On bended knees their rosary is told.

But dreams don't last
Tho' dreams are not forgotten
And soon I'm back to stern reality
But tho' they paved the footways here with gold dust
I still would choose the Isle of Innisfree.

Theme of the film "The Quiet Man"
It is the melody and not the words that feature in the film.

The Million Pound House

 One thing about this job is that your mind keeps putting away stories and then something triggers the memory and it all comes flooding back. There was an ad in the paper for a €1 million house in Malahide the other day. High spec, well insulated etc.

I had a job one day from beyond Malahide into town and the customer wanted to show me something. It was a house among a development of £1 million houses. Worth lot more money back then. One house was bought by a taxi driver!!!!!

Tongues started wagging and every day he was stopped by the police who called him a scumbag. His kids were getting a hard time in school and his front door had Drug dealers out painted on it. He went to the police who almost told him to fuck off as all this was of his own making.

So he employed a top barrister and the investigations started.

Two solicitors who lived in the development had started this hate campaign. They had not investigated and they had gone to the police who had taken them at their word,

So he was a drug dealer, off to court.

Th judge asked all parties how they KNEW that he was a drug dealer and they just said that they heard, but had not investigated.

The local supernatant hung his head in shame.

Big fines were placed on the 2 lawyers who had put their assumptions in print.

The taxi driver presented his tax affairs to the judge. The taxi drivers brother was the managing director of a large successful company in the UK and when he died his assets were transferred to his Irish family. "All this would have been accessible to anyone who looked" said the judge.

The garda supertendant was transferred and the residents committee had to pay the taxi drivers legal cost to move and to make up any loss in the transaction.

Well I hope that they all learned something, the garda are the worst in this story as they had the duty of care instead of believing in rumours.

King George 1803

 I found a coin in a jar the other day it was a penny from the time of King George 1803.I never heard of him. I was showing 2 French guys what we were passing when I said "These houses are Georgian" and it hit me. Mountjoy square and all the other grand houses on Fitzwilliam Sq. and Merrion Square were built at the height of Irish misery when people were being sold into slavery and the Irish potato famine was just around the corner.

Onwards and upwards.

The tourists are back in their droves. I hope that the hotels pull back on their prices or they will kill it off. Hong Kong was THE tourist destination in the 60s and the hotels and restaurants started putting prices up and up. Guess what people go elsewhere now.

I saw a lady the other day and I spoke with her. It turned out that she was coming back through O'Connell St. the other day and was robbed, cash, phone and bank cards, She could not draw cash from the cash point either. I met her in Coolock and she told me that she was waiting for a friend to give her a loan. She worked in Tallagh hospital and she also had a hotel job.

She was still there when I came out from Lidl so I did what I had to do. I gave her €20."No No No I can't take it" What can you do? Sometimes God asks you to do the right thing. I was turning away when she landed a sweet kiss on my cheek, wow! beautiful perfume.

Loosing your bank card is such a pain in the ass. I lost my PTSB card and I tried to ring up to get a replacement, no luck. I went into the Omni centre and she took my driving licence, 2 weeks later no sign of the replacement. So I went into the Raheny branch. No there is not another card on order and the missing card has not been blocked. New card in 4 days DV.

Perhaps I should keep a notebook, time, date location and name. 

It is really hard to get good help.

We had a big birthday and my wife wanted all her family to come. One won't eat this, the other will not eat that and so on. Cleaning the house from top to bottom. "That toilet brush has to be replaced" Shit who looks at the toilet brush? But it went.

Next time everyone is to bring packed lunches!

A good joke about toilet brushes.

I worked in a hardware store and the motto behind the counter was up sell all the time.

A man looking for shot gun cartridges would be sold 3 types of shot and targets.

A woman came in for toilet paper and I suggested that she buy a toilet brush as well, to tidy it up afterwards.

She was in the next say in a rage waving the brush over her head.

"This brush is far too severe, we are going to stick with the toilet paper"

Facebook or Meta was closed up for the last few days. Now comes the word of a massive fine

€1.2 Billion. I reckon that Mr Elon Musk must be as sick as a parrot

It makes you thing that car you once bought with the bad engine was not so bad after all.

Remember Letter from America? and Tales from the lazy acre? I suppose that they were blogs?

6/5/1882

 On that day Lore Cavendish the Viceroy from Britain arrived in Ireland to take over ruling the rebellious Irish.

As he walked in the park close to the Phoenix monument with Thomas Henry Burke head of the Irish civil service, they were set upon by a group of men armed with sharp knives and butchered..

The enormity of must have hit the whole country in a matter of hours, the chase was on and usual suspects were rounded up. Many innocent people were executed and the complete story is in a book called "The Phoenix park murders."

I was once at the spot and an American special agent came over to talk to me. I am not too sure if he suspected me, but it was hard to tell by his demeanour.

Have a look for the book I saw it on Amazon, it is a strange read.

There are many apps for taxis here in Dublin. I was on Bolt, but now I am independent. 

Why?

Well when you have the app turned on you might have to wait for 2 hours for a job from it.

That job would be quite a distance from where you are. You can see that there might be 10 taxis beside the job, yet you are asked to drive 1km for pick up. Then just as you are dropping off another job comes in. Again nearly 2km away. As you are heading over to pick up there 10 or 15 taxis beside that job. 

So they decided to add an extra charge "Technology" Thank God for taxi ranks.

There is  a big birthday coming in our house and family and friends are coming.

Suddenly there is tons of housework.

See you when things are back to normal.

Hail the King !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 A big day for the British today King Charles comes to the throne.

It is amazing how the British have not woken up to the fact that the Royals are not needed any more.

If I was in charge I would be handing out eviction notices and P45s

But then you ask...What would you put on your stamps ?

Last night and tonight we have Bruce Springsteen playing in Dublin, now there's an act worth seeing. He was on in Dublin and I had a car load of beautiful ladies in the taxi. 

It was a long time ago.

As they were getting out the lady that was sitting behind me caught my eye, it was Cynthia Lennon the ex wife of John. I was delighted to see her and she gave me a huge smile.

"Can I give you a hug" I said "Please please do" She said. She wanted to know how I had recognised her and I just said that we had moved through time together.

It turned that the other 3 were celebrity wives, but my thoughts were with Cynthia RIP

Most of the times these people travel by Limo. My lucky day.

DUCK AND COVER!!!!!!!

 If you remember that you are around 70

In the good old USA the cold war was going on, fear an loathing filled the air. Castro and Breishniev were the bad guys and Cuba was the word on everyone's lips.

Unless the Russian missiles were taken out of Cuba they would be nuked. 

John F Kennedy had spoken and the world held their collective breaths.

The call would go out to children that if the air raid sirens went off they must duck under the desk and cover their heads. Then it all passed in time.

The UK did a test of a warning system last week that works through the mobile phone network. Nearly all the phones went off all over the land and a message appeared on the screen.

Duck and cover is back.

Is the was against the USSR about to expand ?.

I met an exceptional young lady from Brazil again the other day. 

She came to Ireland and worked on her English. 

Then she got an Irish driving licence. 

Then (Wait for it)

She took the taxi test and passed it first time !!!!!!!

That is no mean feat. I know a guy who let his licence lapse after driving a taxi for 20 years.

So he went for the test and he failed it. Then he tried it again 7 more times failing it each time,

sadly he had to give up, by the way he died of cancer this year RIP.

My own son has a few failed tests behind him as well.

Its a changing world.

Another day another dollar

 Most of us give a bit of time to YouTube and Ticktock, I saw a good one the other day.

A person claimed that he had a right to property and he produced papers to the court to prove his point.But someone was not sleeping and examined the papers."So this is the paper that was signed  in 1964 giving you the rights to the property. Is that correct?"

If it pleases the court to examine the font of the document in question.

The font is Callibri which is a font which was not in use before 1971.

Its nice when the bad man gets caught.

There is an elderly (90) retired solicitor who is a hell of an interesting guy. He asked me to do jobs for him from time to time. One day I drover to his house for a 7 AM start. It was stormy and I came across a lady with a flat wheel. No jack, so I told her of a company which comes out to fix the Tyre. She wanted me to take her to Wicklow, I couldn't do it, so I brought her to a spot where there was more traffic.When I arrived at the house my man just said. "Its too stormy I have changed my mind"

He could have rung me hours before and I took the hump! I blocked him. After the job that I turned was over €40.

Two weeks later a number I did not recognize called me. Sorry to disturb you, my name is XXXXX I am the attorney general. A colleague of mine has been trying to contact you and he is very upset. If you could unblock him WE would appreciate it. "You never know when you might need us"

He was unblocked the next day.

The gems of information are priceless, points of law. Did you know? etc

He is made of great stuff, he had a heart operation and was hopping around a week later.

Hi dog walker is like a film star, another lady to clean and yet another beautiful lady to cook.

C'est la vie as they say in France.       

I am not sure if I gave you this one before.

A guy who makes his living from "Thinking of ides"

He approached a toothpaste company. 

I can double your sales figures in 14 months, with no cost to you and you will pay me £1 Million.

It will cost you nothing. The money will be held in an Escrow account, If my idea does not work you get the money back. So really they had nothing to loose.

The guy took a pair of clippers and cut 1/4 off the nozzle and Voila the toothpaste flowed with ease, doubling their sales. He got the cash and moved to the next project

I must think of something quick

The Tripoli Brigade (part 1): anti-Gaddafi forces enter Tripoli

Lucky Lucky me

 The sister of a friend of ours from the Philippians died from cancer. 

She had 6 kids.Aged between 7 and 16. Her husband went off and left the whole mess behind him.

If you are sick or you want to go to school you have to pay, so on top of everything her sister in Dublin and her mother are all trying to keep the ship going. Not an easy task by any means.

Just to say that I contacted a guy who was in the taxi. He wrote 2 great books.

The Russians are coming. Which is fantastic beyond belief and the second book is about attorneys in America and how they behave, that one is called Stingback, He used an ailius Geoffrey Allen

The second man was Sam Najar "Soldier for a summer" I picked him up in Portabello and was instructed to take him to the airport and no port tunnel Plus I was to stop at an internet cafe to print out his boarding pass. I nearly blew a fuse and got him to the airport in time. On the way he told me that he was meeting people to sell the film rights to his book. I asked him what the book was about. "I let the foreign brigade in the overthrow of Ghidaffi. Go to youTube and put in tv5 the foreign brigade. There he is fighting better than Rambo.

I asked him if he had an agent or legal advice? No was the answer.

They could pay you and then depict you as a drunken clown and you could do nothing about it.

We parted as pals in the end and he left word for me in the local coffee shop.

Muammar Gaddafi - The Tripoli Brigade (part 2)

KARMA

 Well St.Patricks day has come and gone and boy O boy did we have an American invasion.

The hotels let themselves down badly by charging shy high rates.

They will learn.

I am going to keep this short. An American who works with the embassy waved me down. They are building a new embassy on the Jurys hotel site. He mentioned the earthquake in Turkey and told me of one that he had witnessed in Nicaragua, same thing, the town flattened. What did they do? They built the new town around 40 miles further down. It looked great I looked out over the lake and I noticed something very strange. No birds, No swimming, No sailing. So I asked. Oh Signor when they built the town they had on money over for a sewage system, so the raw sewage just flows into the lake. Imagine the troubles that are coming. 

Now tonight your clocks jump forward one hour..

Years ago I was at the Stakis Hilton on Earlsfort terrace, looking at the paper.

The porter came out blowing on his whistle like a station master, I moved forward from the taxi rank and before I got a chance to get he had thrown their suitcases into the boot with a wallop.

"Airport" said the woman, then after a block she said "Driver, do you think that we are fecking stupid? Stop driving round the auses and just get us to the bloody airport".

The proper way to deal with a customer like that is to drive them down an alleyway throw out their cases and tell them to fuck off. But I didn't. They were fighting  like 2 dogs growling at each other. We reached the airport and I pulled out the suitcases.

"I hope you allowed enough time for your flight" Corse we ave ya fucking moron.

"The change in the hour fucked up my day" What yo talking abaut.

"The clocks! they went forward an hour last night, "I still laugh at how his face went through 30 shade of purple.    

Now I have 3 clocks in the house that change themselves, when you change the battery they pick up the time signal and all the phones are clued into the change.

Still I like to think that it was Karma bighting them on the backsides

The Isle Of Innisfree.Happy St Patricks day

This is the song of the emigrant, full of longing and dreams of home

I've met some folks
Who say that I'm a dreamer
And I've no doubt
There's truth in what they say
But sure a body's bound to be a dreamer
When all the things he loves are far away

And precious things
Are dreams unto an exile
They take him over
The land across the sea
Especially when it happens he's an exile
From that dear lovely Isle of Inisfree

And when the moonlight
Peeps across the rooftops
Of this great city
Wondrous though it be
I scarcely feel it's wonder or it's laughter
I'm once again back home in Inisfree

I wonder over green hills
Through dreamy valleys
And find a peace, no other land would know
I hear the birds make music fit for angels
And watch the rivers laughing
As they flow

And then into a humble shack I wander
My dear old home and tenderly behold
The folks I love
Around the turf fire gathered
On bended knee
Their rosary is told

But dreams don't last
Though dreams are not forgotten
And soon I'm back to stern reality
But though they pave
The foot ways here with gold dust
I still would choose my Isle of Inisfree

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Richard Farrelly

St. Patricks day

So in a few days time it will be St. Patricks day. God bless you all.

A man from America told me that it will be nothing like it used to be as loads of Irish pubs have closed down in Boston, so I told him the news that I heard in Blackpool, In a pub called Albert and the Lion, they are closing 1,000 pubs. If they do not do this the entire business will fail.

It is a huge number for sure but if you imagine a ship in heavy sea with a heavy cargo. The captain has to jettison cargo to stay afloat.

Weatherspoon pubs are up and down the country, they provide cheap meals and cut price drinks. Tim Martin is its founder and when he was at school one of his teachers said that he was useless and he should leave school and get a job as a lorry driver, so he looked at him and said "OK Mr Weatherspoon" and just to prove him wrong he named all the pubs after him.

The guy who brought McDonalds to Ireland was refused a loan, he got going and lodged all his takings at the bank that refused him. Just to rub their noses in it.

Its not only pubs that are going, 2 banks closed in Ireland, the Ulster bank and KBC bank.

I feel sorry for the workers but I hope that they can re train their skills. 

One day I went to the bank to check on something. I was buying 2 cars in Japan and needed to make a transfer, so I went in and the teller looked at me with a sour expression, (I dress down as I don't want gold diggers chasing me ). "Put in your PIN number" There was around €40,000 in the account. Her face lit up like Time square on New year. 

Remember that money is a tool, use it wisely.

There is so much tragedy in the media that I feel like unplugging myself.

A titled lady and her baby a few weeks old went on a rampage together and the hunt started, around 2 days later they were located with no baby. After another 48 hours the body of the child was found. Madness by any standard.

Here is a story that I will share with you. If you know an adopted Chinese called Andrew you can tell him.

The mother was crying and her husband was consoling her. They had a new buggy and the child was dressed in new clothes as well. The mother had a bag filled with bottles nappies and spare clothes.

Only when we reached our destination did the enormity of the situation hit me.

Andrew was to be handed over to his new parents.... The poor mother was sobbing from the depths of her soul, she stroked Andrews cheek before she brought him into the adoption society.

Andrew no child was ever loved more than you.

Stanley Holloway - The Lion And Albert

Money Money Money Money Makes the world go around

 It would be easy not to read the small print and borrow until tomorrow.

But   

Never use a credit card use a debit card, that means that you live on money you have.

If you go to America you will see folks in their 70s and 80s packing groceries in Wallmart.

These people have lived all their lives on credit cards and now they have to work or they will loose their houses. When they die the bank will take their homes and their kids will have to bury them. So live within your means whether you are on €100 a week or €1,000 a week like me.

This advice came from the greatest celebrity I ever met. Chuck Feeney the man who made $8 billion and he gave it all away. (Google him)

When I was young I borrowed £800 to buy a car and the interest was 5% or so the bank said.

My dad looked at the paperwork and told me that I had been conned.

How so ?"they gave you £800 and they added on 5 years interest and divided the total by 60 That is more like 40%. 

Number .1 On the day you borrow the cash you don't owe 5 years interest.

Number 2 when you make your first repayment you no longer owe them £800.

Go back down to the bank and deal with it."

So the bank manager told me that there was nothing I could do as I had signed the papers.
The local schoolmaster overheard it and he said "What happened to the cooling off period"?

There was a bit of verbal table tennis between us and in the end I got a term loan at the same 5% rate.

There was hell of a difference at the end of the day.

The other one I have mentioned before. It has been around before and it was called 

"Seniors money" 

They give you money against the equity on your house and you can have a wonderful holiday, no need to worry about paying back.

So I got some practical figures from my Blackpool landlady.

Her mum died in 2011 and that was when they found out about the £15,000 borrowed on equity release. The company was Aviva and my dad needed to sell the house to move  closer to her daughter. Aviva added an £8,000 penalty clause as the dad had not got a medical cert to say that he needed support. It went on and eventually the reached a penalty of £6000 and would not budge any further. Remember there was no mention of this in the small print,

The house was valued at £80000 and the finally sold it for £77500

Aviva took their money and all that was left was £16,000

Anyhow this is stone cold facts.It was much worse than I had hoped.

Talk to your parents and give them a small allowance if they need it.

Its a really tough lesson

Back at last

I am back in Ireland after visiting the Worlds biggest magicians convention.

It really is massive with the worlds biggest stars of magic preforming and giving talks.

There was around 150 magic dealers selling cards, videos and props.

Ryaniar to Manchester and a train to and from the venue.

Blackpool itself is very much on the decline with many homeless and addicted people going round.

With all that is happening in the world I would have been happier not to go, but it was booked 8 months ago.

God bless all the people affected 

Close-up card magic with a twist | Lennart Green

Three of Clubs by Juan Tamariz

Turkey..

 You never know how lucky you are until you get a look at the news.

There will be thousands of people dead when they count the losses in Turkey.

The buildings fell like houses made up from playing cards.

The sad part is that buildings can be built as earthquake proof,

Frank Lloyd Wright back in the 1920s built the Imperial hotel in Tokyo and an earthquake struck on Sept 1st killing 140,000. Franks hotel was built on a puddle of mud and not even one picture fell off the wall.

We can do better and people must insist that to government step up to to plate.

After all you get fined for parking

All in a second

 So I was on Copeland Ave. waiting to turn right and on the opposite side of the road there was a Chinese lady on her mobile pushing a buggy and a really small kid of less than 2 years old on a scooter following behind.

She came to the junction and crossed 2 lanes of traffic. Then she saw that the crossing was red at the other side and stopped. The small kid had followed over and she stood looking at the light. Nothing was coming and she crossed the road. She gave no instruction to the small kid and he waited for 5 seconds, (I started blowing my horn but she was engrossed in her phone)He started crossing as a car came over from the Malahide Rd. Then she saw him, she ran back and stopped the car from running over the child. As I turned right she was on her knees no doubt saying "My poor baby"

But there was only a second in it.

By the way Happy Chinese new year

Things that my customers told me.

Household fires.. 

The common things 

Faulty wiring, 

gas heaters too close to furniture or curtains. 

then smoking in bed

Tumble dryers with blocked filters

The last one I never would have guessed

Dishwashers Do burst into flames because the wires from the dials pass under the door, opening and closing the door breaks the wires and starts the fire.

So now you know. Turn on these things before you watch the telly.Not before you go out.

There was a huge fire in a newly renovated house in Clontarf and the insurance assessor reckoned that it was an electrical fault. So all the blame came on the electrician. 

His insurer had a retired Garda who investigated such cases.

He separated each person and asked what they had done that morning. 

No blame I just want to recreate what happened. 

The Au Pair said that one of the kids had wet the bed that morning and she rinsed the sheets and put them and the duvet into the tumble dryer before going to mass. 

The tumble dryer had a completely choked up filter and the electrician gave a sigh of relief.

A Plumber or a Barrister ?

 So back in the day when I worked the airport a flight came in from Spain late at night a woman and 2 small boys got into the taxi heading for Foxrock.

In an instant the boys were asleep that seemed to hit an on switch in her head.

This has been a hell of a holiday she said. Years ago I met this good looking lad from Crumlin, he was a plumber Jimmy was his name. One day he came to our house to collect me and my dad told him about a hot water problem we were having. No hot water in the tap and the tank in the attic is full of hot water.

No one can fix it said my dad. I can fix it without looking any further.

Either £5 or £150, take your pick.

He turned up the next day and put a one way valve on the hot water pipe. The mixer tap was faulty and the cold water pressure was pushing the hot water back up into the attic.

My dad said to me "Marry that lad" 

But my mother had other ideas and sent me off to school in England. There was some contact and then Jimmy went over to the USA where a relation had a big air conditioning and refrigeration company. By the time he came back contact had been broken and I had met my future husband and barrister and we both got on with our lives.

Many years passed and we had children and grandchildren.

Then I went on holiday with my 2 grandsons, on the second day at the hotel. There was great excitement as Jimmy arrived and was warmly greeted with all of the staff in the reception and 4or 5 small kids danced around him. When he saw me he was totally shocked, like he had met a ghost. Jimmys wife came over and he introduced them to each other.

Over the remainder of the holiday Jimmy came and went and his wife really embraced the three of us. Over the time I found out what had happened over the years. Jimmy had set up a plumbing business with his 3 brothers. Jimmys sister set up a wholesale business.

The family are very loyal to each other and that goes for cousins as well. Jimmy got sick and the cold damp air of Dublin was not doing him any good, one cousin owned an apartment in Spain so Jimmy came to recover his health.

After a while he started to work and he found that the jobs that he came to were all sub standard, so he started training people, little by little he started things moving. 

He bought a house, 2 stores doing bathrooms. a really big air conditioning business.

Then I found out from his wife as she drove us to the airport that all of our meals at the hotel had been comped. Then she looked at me Why not? he owned that hotel and another on on the other side of the island.

Carmel his wife told me that Jimmy is a very private person and he would never have told you that, so keep it under your hat.

On the other hand I now return to my legal eagle husband, stinking of whiskey. I wonder and wait for the next repossession order for the house will come from the bank.

Herring days

 For the London taxi drivers this time of the year used to be called "Herring days"

Business was so bad that they couldn't afford meat !

To be honest a few weeks in the South of France would be great. Good food and great wine.

A friend of mine used to vanish from Dublin for months at a time.

I asked him about it and he said from the second of Jan until Easter he would go off to Spain or Florida and return at Easter.People have hide away homes and I paint the place and pay the bills while I am there. In Spain he arranged golf tournaments and in the USA I arrange poker games.

He said to me that I must love the tax man if I keep on working.

He has a good point.

If you don't look out you cannot progress.

A story from life as best I can remember it.

A footballer broke his leg coming up to the final, his team won and he didn't get a medal.

He was very depressed and a mate of his who had a market stall asked him to come with him to Sheffield market to be a Shill,

On the way there he trained him in witty comebacks and he as a a shill would offer witty comebacks to the quips of the stall holder. Then he would take an hours break and go through it all again. On the way home the stall holder asked him if he had a passport? He had one and a week later they were in the van heading off to the south of France. The dealer family owned a villa and they took turns to chill out.Rule number one was to stay out of the sun. "If you have a suntan in February no one will trust you".

He trained him to sell Magnetic window cleaners with great jokes thrown in. Mike went to the markets and he had an idea. women's products were mostly sold in chemists shops with a great mark up. He opened a discount store which took off when the word got around. The shops were stocked up late at night and the shops started selling at 9 am and by 1 pm  the shops were empty.

He built it up and then he sold the business.

A short retirement and he went into the supermarket business, one of the very first in the UK. He built it up and sold it. 

I think that his next venture was JB sports a sportswear company and he put his stores on the first floor to get a cheaper rent.

His business advisors told him to"go public", he sold shares and stepped back.

But he noticed that money was being taken out of the company. So he put in surveillance and nailed to thieves. The share price of the company dropped. 

What did he do? He bought the shares back. He bought a football team Newcastle United and he now also runs leisure clubs in the north of England.

OK so Mr Google tells me that Mr. Mike Ashley now owns.

Sports direct  Karrimor,Kangol and Londsdale. A 4.6 share in Umbro. DW sports, Everlast fitness club.

So here is the list

Carlton

Donnay

Everlast

Gelert

Gud

Hot tuna

Kangol

Karrimor

LA gear

Lonsdale

Muddyfox

No Fear

Slazinger

Frazer group

So the Sunday Times rich list reckons that he is worth £2.7 Billion  Not bad at all

Mike Ashley Look him up

Brazilian girl murdered

 A girl from Brazil was killed by her X partner in Cork. She had a beautiful smile, but now she is dead. Her X partner followed her from Brazil and stabbed her to death. Imagine escaping from an abusive and violent relationship and coming  face to face with him again.

Bruna Fonseca RIP

There was another lady stabbed to death today, such a bad start to the year.

There are many evil people around, people with no empathy who take the lives of old and young. Years ago I brought a lady from the airport to Harrolds Cross, she was giving a talk to the Garda on profiling murderers. The piece we talked about took us 25 minutes and she invited me in to hear the talk. 

Sadly I had a job to do.

Have a wonderful 2023 and I hope that all your wishes come true

Well here we are in 2023, how did we manage it after the panic of 1999 and the threat of the Millennium bug going to wipe us all out. 

Now its the Covid bug.

I am going to share bits of wisdom which my passengers shared with me.

Money Live within your means. 

If you earn €100 a week or €1000, that is your budget and live within it.

Use a debit card, not a credit card...Then you cannot spend what you don't have.

In America most people live beyond their means and the banks profit. If you go to Walmart you will see people in their 60s and 70s packing groceries. 

They are in debt and when they die the bank will take the house.

The person who told me that was a billionaire, it makes sense

How do you know when there is a taxi driver on the airplane ?

Well what whining whining sound that you thought was part of the engine noise will follow you into the arrivals hall.