Stupid to the end

I am reflecting on things that happened, doing an audit of the past.

We have  a showground complex in Ballsbridge called the RDS.(Royal Dublin Society).

It has three main complexes and the horse show, the dog show etc. are all held in different parts of the complex. The main entrance is on the Merrion Rd. Then you have the Anglesea Rd entrance, and last of all you have the Simmonscourt Rd. entrance.

So it came to pass that I was dropping off this lady and I asked her to check her ticket and then we went over to the Anglesea rd entrance. As she was getting out one of the ushers was telling a very entitled lady "No you go other side. Other side"

She got in and said I am going to the conference center

Now I knew that usher was telling her to go to the other side of the building through the Merrion Rd. entrance. So I tried to tell her.

Look, can't you see that I am talking on the phone.

Could I just tell you something ?

I hardly think a taxi driver could tell me anything I don't already know. 

So I headed off to the Conference center on the other side of the river while she spouted on talking pure crap. At the end she was paying by credit card which created the moment for the second part of the story.

As the  woman got out another lady got in and said The Microsoft conference please at the RDS.

The entitled lady said. "But that is where I am going"

Yes I tried to tell you where it was at least 4 times and you told me that I could not possibly be able to tell you anything and that I was just a stupid taxi driver.

She didn't say sorry.

Look you can come back with me said the new passenger. 

I said that there is absolutely no way she was getting back into my car unless she paid the entire fair. She agreed.

The return trip was non eventful, no mobile phone and at the end she paid again.

On handing her the receipt she said that she was going to report me for being rude. 

Please do madam, do you see that camera over there? 

It has recorded everything that you said and did since you entered the taxi.

Now don't bump your head when you are getting out.

 

A bombshell some time later.

So 2 guys got in and I recognized one of them as once being from a boy band.

The poor kid had invested heavily into property and lost a lot of his money.

The older man was an auctioneer and was helping him to whip his portfolio back into shape. A phone rang and the conversation got very serious suddenly.

He hung up the phone and said excuse me. The follow up call was short and clear.

Tommy, you rang Lidl (or Aldi) We were going to sign the lease today and you decided to just put up the rent, by yourself, before the paper was signed you jacked up the rent.

The agreement we made was a good one, they were a great tenant and they are gone now because you decided to act the bollix.

The business relationship that we had is now completely finished. 

Look at your contract you signed with me and you will see that once a tenant has been found and a rent agreed 

You are liable for all costs 

So we all let out a gasp of air.

As he paid me he said

There is a limit to mans intelligence  

But Stupid goes on and on. 

Lockdown Hope of rescue coming

So to keep the spirits up we surf the net for good ideas !

Check the Lotto and dream of better days.

Be careful that you have a plan and that you can keep a secret .

My good old dad used to say that 3 men together can only keep a secret if two of them are dead and the survivor killed them. A wise man.

Say nothing and I mean that.

A guy from my old home town won £4.7 million in old money. He invited me to the party and even though there was a mini bus provided I could not go.

5 or 6 weeks later I met him by chance on Talbot st., he looked like he had been beaten up.

He said that the party that he threw was invaded by a shower of thugs who drank the pub dry and then smashed up the place. Two of 3 sack full of letters every day of begging letters and people coming to the door. 

He went to America to a place called Montana. That place has its own problems with drugs.

He is back in Ireland living the secret life.

I myself checked my lotto ticket on the phone app.

"Its a winner" 

I checked it 4 more times, same result €30 million or thereabouts!!!

I got my bank details, my passport and my driving license and went off to  the Lotto HQ.

My heart was soaring, thinking of that cheap house in Modica Sicilia and that 15ft yacht.

So I handed in my ticket.

"Yes indeed it is a winning ticket, you have won a €3 ticket into the millionaire raffle"

Wow, talk about my heart hitting my boots.

The girl told me that it takes up to 10 am for the computer to calculate the smaller prizes.

I argued that the system should just say "You have won a prize. Not its a winner"

Anyhoo (As they say in Canada) I went home an was asked a few questions. A few!

Where were you?

What were you doing at the Lotto HQ?

What was your plan? by not telling me.

To make light of it I nearly enacted the old joke.

"If I won the Lotto and gave you half my winnings would you leave me ?

Here's €1.50  Now fuck off.."

One has to have a filter between your brain and your mouth.

I got the silent treatment for around 3 weeks.

So I was just daydreaming and asked the computer if there was any yachts for sale? 

There was a 60ft one going for a few million in the Cayman Islands Which caused me to look it up on the world map. Just south of Cuba.

Then  there was a news station giving a bit of local news, this guy is a real clown.

I don't know which circus he escaped from. 

The speaker of the Cayman House of representatives Mr.Keeva Bush was on trial for assault.

He put in a plea of not guilty, after watching the video he pleaded guilty to 3 of the miner charges. The tapes started off with him staggering down the street, holding on to a pole before collapsing to the ground between two parked cars now with just his feet sticking out.

He gets up and pulls himself up to the bar where he grabs a staff member by the hair and punches her three times to the face. A but of a fight finds him subdued and arrested.

How did the trial go?

His main defense is that he doesn't remember it. 

So he was found guilty and has a 2 year jail sentence suspended for 2 years

A curfew from 6pm to 6am fined £700 for disorderly conduct also the judge gave the police a doorstop condition which is the power to enter his home to check on his whereabouts. 

He also had to pay the girl $4,279 compensation .Look up the Cayman Compass.

 So if you read the book you will know about my all time hero.

Chuck Feeney was in my taxi and he gave me advice which was worth thousands.

You never know who you are talking to, seldom you find about them. I was very lucky that day. Obama brought out a law that you could not give away more than $2,000 anonymously. He wanted to know who was giving money to the opposition.

A very clever move but none of his business really.

So Chuck Feeney went to the newspapers to declare that  he was the person behind Atlantic Philanthropies Chuck has given away more than $8 billion.

Now I know what you are thinking.(Did he give you a tip?) Yes a €5, but I spent  it.

There is a book called The billionaire who wasn't by Conor O'Cleary

I have heard great stories about him and one day I got a phone call from Tim Pat Coogan a writer (Wherever green is worn etc) John I am just back from San Francisco and I was having dinner with a friend of mine. He put down his fork and asked me if I knew you by name and how you were keeping. How the hell do you know Chuck Feeney?

Yes Tim Pat its a small world.

I will give you some of his gems.

Do your tax early, you will have to do it, so don't lett the stress kill you.

Live within your means and save a little.

People who live on credit cards might have to work 20 years longer to pay off their debts or pass those debts to their children.

OK your taxi breaks down and you might have to use up your savings and more to replace the car or the engine. But work on it and pay off the debt quickly. 

Be polite. Imagine how you will get on if you missed your flight and kicked the Ryanair desk?

 

He is the gold standard of what people should be like, unlike Mr Bush

2020 A strnge year

 Here we stand in the closing days of 2020 and a new year on the horizon.

How was it for you?

The taxi industry,the tourist trade and the pub business were utterly devastated as well as other industries.There is a field in England where hundreds of Black cabs are parked up, many of them were rented out and when the work dried up the drivers gave the cars back. Those cars were costing in the region of  £60,000 and they seemed like a gold standard investment, all the owners had to do was collect the rent every week.

Alas now there is no work

My taxi has been off the road since February,  I changed the insurance to social and domestic and sat back.

I got a strange call from the carriage office to say that I had to go back to work now, that they needed the entire fleet  back at work. 

When I said I now had my phone set to record and I wanted him to identify himself and repeat what he had just said he hung up.

Of course I took time off to write the book 

"The steering wheel university"

 The author drove a million miles and met thousands of people and they all educated him.

Buy it on Amazon and support my lifestyle.

If you want to give writing a book a go yourself, type it up on Microsoft word, then go to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and follow the link.Transfer it chapter after chapter.

One thing you need to know is that there is no spell checker on the Kindle app, so that explains my 4 spelling mistakes.

A big word of thanks to the guy who designed the cover, he lives in the Philippians and did it for me in 3 days.

Good luck to you there is at least one good book in every taxi driver.

We do not know what the future holds, the past  is only there to remind us of what happened, to caution us perhaps.

One thing for sure is that 2021 is a new beginning.

Mistakes in the past are long gone.

The future awaits you.

Rise up to meet the challenges of the future.

One very wise man told me that mistakes are only there to educate you.

Go in Peace and may your God go with you.

Jose Feliciano feat. FaWiJo - Feliz Navidad (Official Video 2016)

So you thoyght 2020 was a bad year. Think again

The spirit of Christmas past

Once upon a Christmas time I was driving my Fiat Scudo taxi when I was hailed down at a McDonalds. He pulled the door open and said I have a party of 6. When he went in to get them I had to stop people getting in at random. So the six got in and the guy was giving me directions for a multi drop. One of the girls in the group was wailing like a banshee.

The group were very angry over something, the first one dropped off. "Don't cry I will sort this out" 

The second and third ones were dropped off. "I will ring you tomorrow"

So I was left with the last one and he lived near the hill of Tara.

What happened ? I asked.

He started to tell me 

"I am a computer programmer and the guy who runs the company was in trouble. 

Big trouble.

I came in at  the last minute and saved the company, not without help. Remember the girl who was crying? She has a fantastic way with the customers, all the team chipped in and gave their all. 

I mean altogether we saved the company. 

It was not easy, but we did it.

The BOSS invited us all to a Christmas doo and to meet at McDonalds. 

He came in,

He walked away and came back with a happy meal for everyone.

Everyone thought it was a joke.

It was no joke at all.

"I was brought in to the company at the last minute to save the company and I did not sign a non disclosure agreement, so tomorrow I will start to dismantle his company and I will re employ all his staff

it will not be difficult.

why he did that stunt I will never know, you probably heard one of the girls say that nothing would have been better than this.

Next week this is what he will have

 Nothing" 

This is one of the lessons I will carry to my grave 

The Pogues - Fairytale Of New York (Official Video)

 

Well there are rituals to follow.

 

This Christmas will be very different.

FOR SURE

A spoonfull of medicine

 Often wisdom comes in a throw away remark and it will come back to remind you years later.

The man said 

"If you come across bad doctors you had better meet good lawyers" 

So it came to pass in the paper a while ago when a woman had a baby boy and she felt that there was something wrong with the child, the doctors fobbed her off, so again she insisted on another second opinion.

One nurse mentioned a strange diagnosis, she thought they were telling her that this was what is wrong with the child. 

But no she referred to a mental illness where the parent insists that the child is ill.

 

So she went home, her regular doctor was on holiday and as soon as he came back she went to see him. He listened to the child's heart and phoned for an ambulance, the child was brought into hospital and straight to a scanning machine and was operated on there and then.

The poor kid had a double hole in the heart and the delay in having the operation would have a bad effect on the outcome of the procedure.

You would love to look at those arrogant faces when they came in front of the medical council. 

 

Sometimes you cannot see the obvious.

 

 This is a repeat.

I was not well a good while ago.

If I was counting money or dealing cards I would fumble and drop some. Then when I was walking my left foot would drag once every 4 or 5 steps. The doctor sent me to Beaumount to a neurologist and she asked me 30 questions.

I said that she should have just sent me a form and I could have ticked all the boxes.

No,No, I needed to see you she said.

I will have to refer you to another neurologist this one was costing me more than €200.

So on the appointed day at the appointed time of 10.30 I went to the clinic and waited. 11.30 still no one came or went, then at 12.45 he arrived. 

"Sorry for keeping you I had to stabilize a patient in the Blackrock clinic and the wind was very strong when I was coming back here on my bicycle.

I was raging and when it was my turn to meet him I let fly.

What kind of a person leaves a room full of patients waiting for for 3 hours whlike you ride a bicycle from Blackrock?

I did say I was sorry, he said.

Sorry is pathetic,a phone call to let us know, some people here had no breakfast to get here on time.

I do not like your attitude he said. This is not a job interview so get on with your job.

So he put a probe on my hand and it gave me a minor shock. 

It least you don't have multiple scleroses he said. or mumps said I under my breath.

29 questions later and he told me that I would have to be examined further, pay the girl outside.

My mind was working overtime and when I reached the desk I had a plan.I told her that my health insurance was paying for this. 

Yes she said. You must pay us and they pay you back. 

I didn't bring so much cash with me I said.

So I left and the next day I told a well dressed client in the taxi what had gone on.

"Did any of these learned people ask you what you do for a living?

Taxi driving is as stressful as flying an airplane.

20 decisions a minute, look here, look there.

I will ask you another question.

Did any of these people ask you if you have financial or health worries? NO

How many days a week do you work?

I work every day.

But when did you take a day off?

Around 5 weeks ago I took a day off.

What did you do on your day off ?

When I told him that I painted the living room I said as his yes looked to the sky.

Take 3 weeks off. Listen to music, walk the dog, play golf, cook a special meal.Relax .

No taxi driving.

After 4 days all the symptoms went away.

The arrogant neurologists bill came and I phoned his office I said I was not paying and I would question his ability to practice.

A further bill arrived with a threat from a debt collection agency.

My reply was that as this bill was in dispute and his attitude to his customers left much to be desired.

I told him I would see him in court and a judge might decide the merits of the situation and I hoped that the wind might not make him late for court.

 

That the last I ever heard of him.

 

I went to my doctor and said that I was sore all over.

Touch your forehead. Is it sore?

Ok touch you knee. Is that sore as well?

Then press down on you wrist 

That is sore as well.

 

I know what is wrong.. 

 

You have a broken finger. 

 

I  went to him suffering from wind

He gave me a kite and told me to enjoy myself 

 

It always good to know that you should get a second opinion when it comes to your health.

People will be asking you in 2030. 

"Grandad tell me about the big Covit plague" 

 

So I am still off the road since February I just have to get on with it

painting and fixing things. I phoned a friend of mine the other day who lives in Glasgow. He is a magician and he was telling me that he has had 50 or more shows cancelled between now and the new year.

Say £250 per show X 50. That is one big hit.

As one of the slogans goes "We are all in this together"  

 

I will have to go back to computer school. 

The layout of this template has me distracted. 

No Live clips and no photos.

 

I know that I can do better.

The stat counter is heading for 1 1/2 million hits now. 

I remember telling my son that it was nearing a million hits. 

He told me that I had changed the stat counter twice already so he reckoned that I must have had around 2 million back then.

Its really interesting to look at the followers by country.One of the trackers could tell me what street in Moscow my follower was watching me from.Big brother is really watching you.

I filmed sparrows feeding from the bird feeder and sent it to a few friends, suddenly something came on to my fone. 

"Would I like that video of the birds on the feeeder set to music?" 

I said yes and it came back with music added, it really is a bit unsettling. 

Someone invisible looking over your shoulder.