Never a dull moment

Another day another dollar, no two days are the same for sure.

He was on the quays near Blackhall Place when he waved me down.
Going to Finglas and then to Liffey Valley bud, so we had a drugs run at 10 am.
We arrived at his sisters house, a house with 2 burglar alarms and CC TV looking around.
10 minutes later he came out and he gave me a €50.
In good faith brother!
Then off to Liffey Valley near Lucan. As we drove he pulled out a wad of notes and started to count it all.
Money was falling on the floor and I stopped him.
I got 6 boxes of maps from the tourist board and each 20 map bundle has a big elastic band on it and I had 10 or so on my indicator stalk. I took them off, wrap them up in €200 bundles with the elastic bands.
Now you are going places.
So with his cash counted he told me that he was going to buy a second hand car (Good story)
He went into the house and he came back out in 5 minutes. I asked him if he didn't count out the money.
Only his wife was there he said.
Sure enough 15 minutes later he got the call "Hey bud you left me €400 short."
Panic stations..Should we go back? Yes?No?
Head into town bud, we will sort that out later.
So on the way in he took 2 orders for drug deals and phoned them off to his foot soldiers.
Just a point for you. Drug dealers have the cheapest phones as they might have to throw it into the Liffey or off a as it holds vital evedance.
Then out cam a bag of Coke and he had a few snorts.
"You're a good man, you don't judge me"
Good luck with the car I said
I would give him around 3 years to live at most.
He gave me an extra €20 and off he went.

Later that day I was at Connelly and a girl from Russia was talking to the first guy on the rank.
He was not taking the deal and as she walked away she caught my eye.
She had bought a train ticket to Dalkey and the trains were not running.
Would I bring her for €20?
Just because she was good looking is not a good enough reason to refuse.
She is training to become a psychiatrist and we got on like old friends.
The meter was running and the full price would have been only €25
She had paid me and she packed up her bag. Then she put her knee on the seat and turned around and gave me a giant hug and a kiss. "You are wonderful"

Then she was gone with her beautiful blue Russian eyes.

A guy got in going to Heuston station and he told me how his cousin had sexually abused him when he was aged 5 years old and his cousin was 15.
Because he was a minor at the time he got a suspended sentance.

I as a 5 year old child I got a life sentence and my grandfather had a nervous  breakdown

There is no justice on this side of the grave son.


Three journeys on the same day each one so different

Over the moon

House for sale, a Lotto win might get it

All this will be Google

A Fiat topolino

1920 well before the space shuttle

50 years ago man landed on the moon.
After all the developments which took place people said that it would be very hard to invent something that could be new.
30 years later someone put wheels on a suitcase !

No matter what there are people who can make things much better.
I will write more later 

I must fly 

My new phone is gone

This Scottish car was brought from the legend  Arnold Clarke

A hero of Irish folk music Luke Kelly

This wonderful car is 30 years old !

This story started a few years ago...

So I have an old Iphone and it was giving me big problems.
It was my birthday, so I treated myself to a brand new phone.
I swear to God the salesperson in the Carfone warehouse told me that
"Everything will transfer over to the new phone"
2 hours later they told me that as I had over 300 contacts on the old phone and only 1/2 of the numbers transferred over. But now I was pressed for time and took the phone.
Before I left the store I turned over to the apps and found that the Halo taxi drivers app had not transferred over. "Well you see apps are in a different format. This is an Android phone"
I said that this is not what I was told, so I wanted to cancell the deal.
The manager came out and simply said.
"Once the seal on the box is broken there is no going back"
Then as I was talking to him he turned his back towards me and stood there with his back to me.

I was upset with him and I still am.

My youngest son got the phone.

I huffed and puffed with emails to the carfone warehouse who at the time boasted about their wonderful.customer service. I got nowhere,I typed a letter to their solicitors on Mount St. A few weeks later I got a snotty letter from someone to tell me that I could download the apps again on to the different platform.
I said that the logs and history would not be intact.  No reply

So I went back to my old phone and Andrew my Chinese tec guro did great work on the old phone, he took everything off. Put in a new battery,updated the software, scanned the phone for viruses and downloaded the information again and scanned it once more.
I was like a new phone !!.

A few years later someone told me that "COMREG" would have taken up my case, so now you know if it happens to you.

I bought a Hiwawi phone in February and I was adding things over to it bit by bit.
Coming up to St.Patricks day I started to use the old Iphone again to get me over the busy period.
Then when I looked for the new phone again it had vanished !!!!
I have looked everywhere since the end of March.
St Anthony was promised up to €20 but he did not deliver.
I told his boss (God)still no Joy.

So at last I bought another phone and I am going Android.

I really would never wish bad fortune on anyone but that store where I bought the first phone was in the Clearys building on O,Connell St. The store closed soon after and everyone was was kicked out.

This is just a great positive example of customer service.

Vista print make business cards etc and  I oreded some business cards to promote the blog.
(Have you got one)
So the order was due and did not arrive.
So I contacted the help desk.
"Your order was delivered on the14th"

So a couple more contacts later I got this.



Dear John 
There seems to have been a problem with your order.
As a long time customer of Vistaprint I would like to say sorry.
I am refunding the cost of your order to your credit card and we are reprinting your order today and we will send it to you by express post at no cost.

Now that is service.

With Guinness I had a flat can and I sent it back to them and I nearly had to take them to court to get a refund !

So there is my rant, normal service will resume shortly 

The King of comedy has died

The sad news broke last week of the passing of Brendan Grace
If he was not the King of Irish comedy he was defenately the Clown prince.

I just have to give you a sample in case he is unknown to you.





Have a Google if you want some more

Happy 4th July

Happy 4th of July to you all

Gay pride

This is the old synagogue on Haddington Rd

A  little bit of art is great

Believe it or not this is a goat house influenced by a trip to Morocco

This weekend saw the gay pride festival which went down a storm.
Our prime minister is gay and our minister for children is also gay, so different from so different than it was 20 years ago or when a gay man was beaten to death in Fairview park and because he was a gay man the culprit got off almost scott free. There was a lot of anger at the time.
With all the hate against the churches sexual transgerssions sex has become a talked about and more open subject.


Its strange how as they say you speak of someone and suddenly they are front page news.
I was at the Westbury hotel and I picked up an American lady going out to a riding stabeles up in the Dublin mountains.
She has an idyllic life in the States, they have 2 horses a pony a donkey an emu a duck a skunk 4  dogs and a few other animals.
So I told her the story about a Japanese pop star who was making music video here in Ireland.
My van carried the camera man the electrician and the sound man, the chaufer car had the singer his manager the director and a Dutch interpreter of Japanese English.
On day 2 we went up to Meath near Tara to the show jumping stables of Paul Darra.
We waited while the powers that be discussed camera angles and lenses to be used.
A young blonde girl came along on her horse and on the second time around she passed me I gave her a smile and she smiled back. Nothing was happening so she got off the horse and sat down on a bale of hay beside me. After a bit of banter I showed her one of my very favorite magic tricks.
You fold up a €5 note and when you open it out again its a €50..It got a great reaction.

"Its been really wonderful talking to you, but I have to be somewhere else soon.
Tell them that if they don't start filming in 15 minutes I will be gone"

So I went over and spoke to the Dutch girl and she only half listned.
15 minutes later she handed me the horse and told me to tell them that she had gone.
This time when I told them they all woke up and in great panic called her back on the phone.
All smiles I popped her up on the horse ans within 20 minutes the film scene was complete.
She rode the horse over to me and asked me if I would ride the horse around for 20 minutes or so as he was very cold from all the standing around. Then I was to pop him over a few jumpes and take him back to the stables.
She told me that it was such a pleasure talking to me,
"I have to be so careful about who I talk to and where I go"
Strange I thought.
I rode the horse around for 20 minutes then over a few jumps ( I used to work in a National Hunt racing establisnment) and then back to the stabeles.
A stable girl came over and said "Wow the Princess must really like you. No one has ever been allowed to ride any of her horses, you are the first ever"
"Is that her name Princess?" I said.
"God no! Did nobody tell you? That is the daughter of the King of Jordan Princess Haya"

Well the King died a few years later and she married Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum the ruler of Dubai. He has 6 wives and she has 2 children by him.

So what has she done to be in the news?

She skipped off and ran away with her 2 kids and £31 million to Germany where she is lookind for government protection there, now she has moved to London.
The King is very strict and he is screaming blue murder.

The King made the news a while back when one of his daughters made a bid to escape from Dubai by boat.
He got the navy out and brought her home.

The story is told of the beaututiful bird in the guilded cage who is surrounded by beauty but has no freedom.

First prize Norway

A really super vintage car at MSL motors in Ballsbridge Cruise ships are arriving in Dublin again Norway           265
United States	251
Russia	189
Germany	170
Ireland	136
Mexico	30
France	25
Poland	23
United Kingdom	22
Ukraine	22

The other day I looked at the stat counter and Norway once again came first place
More than the USA ?
This often happens in winter as the nights in Norway are long.

So the yearly renewing of the taxi licence has come arrived.

Get your papers together John !

Not as easy as it seems, I am looking everywhere I hope I will be ready.
Perhaps I will buy a motorised rickshaw instead.
No liscence, no insurance, no meter, no tax. No joke!

But next year my son may be taking over the taxi, he is studying the knowledge, he is studying online through the MyTaxi online tutorial.
I was telling a customer about it and he told me that they got a taxi one night and the driver was going around in cyrcles, when they were passing the same landmark for the third time they asked the driver to stop.
They gave him the choice of letting them out there and then or they would call the police.
They had come from Cork to attend a function, he had not one clue wher he was or where he was going.
I checked with them and they said that they did not pay him,

God to think how little the streets are policed.
Unfortunately a foreign guy raped 3 women at Christmas.
This happens when you decide to take shortcuts.

In Spain you have to have lived there for 5 years, be able to speak Spanish, hold a full Spanish driving liscence ie. have completed a Spanish driving test.
All that before you sit your PSV test in Spain.

My son is having problems learning the ropes and he has lived here all his life.
I went into Easons our biggest bookstore for city maps.
"No we have cleared off all the travel maps to make room for the school books."
The schools will not be back for 6 weeks.

If you need city maps you can go to the office of the Ordinance survey in the Pheonix Park.
I went to Amazin.

Its not all foreign drivers tht cause the problems, I know a good few Irish drivers who have the motto

"I go that extra mile"

Here is the mother of all taxi tests.

Cruise ships are back

A stork takes abreak before his next delivery

Free Beer! Read the small print

DO you need a lift? Plenty of cranes in Dublin port

Every so often I see something and you have to scratch your head and say.
"Well I've seen it all now" and then a short time later you see something which makes you say it again.
A huge cruise ship came into Dublin port. These ships can hold 3,000 people.
SOS Taxis needed!
So I did 3 runs and when I was heading back for job nr.4 3 people stopped me.
"Please help us. We ordered 2 cabs and the man told us to stand here and we hav been standing here for 2 hours" The three of them were all over 70 years old, So I loaded them up.
As I drove past the guy from the port in charge of taxis he started to shout abuse at me.
I had not joined the queue and brought the people he wanted me to bring, so he was annoyed.
A little further another port employee stopped me.
"He wants to talk to you"
I just said that I would not be shouted at like that as I am not a dog and drove out of the port.
The couple were Isreali so I told them of a their wonderful singer who had a voice from God
Ofra Haza. Then we spoke of her sad death from aids.
"Her husband gave aids the bastard" Said the Isreali man
So we drove to their hotels.
The woman who was on her own said that her grandfather was Jewish but the faith passes on through the blood ie. your mother has to be Jewish for you to be Jewish.
I knew all this as my wife once taught the Jewish children in Broomfield Ave national school for a while.

First call was the hotel near Google the Royal canal hotel.
How much?
The couple paid what was on the meter to the other woman so that she could pay everything at the end of the journey.
So we arrived at the Arlington hotel.
"Now we have to work out the fair?"She said.!
I was surprised.
"Yes indeed. What length of the journey did they take me out of my way?"
I am still surprised as I had rescued her and now she had this strrange attitude.
"From the ship to their hotel they paid for all the journey, for your part of that journey as well.
All I am asking you to pay for the final leg."
Then she loostned her purse and paid me. NO TIP.
The Jewish couple slipped a couple had slipped a couple of euro into my hand and they did thank me 2 or 3 times.
I think in the taxi regulations state that each person who share a taxi pays the full fair, though I have never pushed that.
Hundreds of people were waiting to be evacuated from the ship.
Mostly airport jobe €20 a pop. But I had had enough.
,
But the airport is another story they can have hundreds of people waiting and the guys that are in charge of the queueing system do not call up the cars in time. 600 cars waiting to come up and 200 passengers waiting for taxis.
When I started driving an airport permit costed £10 per year. You paid 70p as you entered the holding area and you agged on an airport pick up caharge of £1.50 plus an allowance for each bag carried.
Now an airport pass costs €440 every year and no airport pick up fee and no baggage allowance.

The port queueing system should be looked at 5 or 6 buses taking people to the airport for €5 a pop and a few other buses going to the stations.

Philomena Lynott was buried the other day.
She was the mother of Phil Lynott the rock star.
If you ever met her you would never forget her.
She was in my taxi twice, the second time for free.
I told her that my 13 year old son had gone wild  and without missing a beat she gave me her phone number, a few days later she gave David an hour of her time. I think it helped him.
She used to go to prisons to talk to young offenders.
Later on she visited local hospaces to cheer up the old people.She was a star
She was over in England to visit her son and he overdosed on heroin.
There was panic and she rang a local doctor who thought he had a chill.
If she had rung one of his friends they would have directed her to the correct doctor who would have known what to do.
I bet she gave Philo a good kick on the arse when she met him again.





Now for the voice of an angel Ofra Haza