Surviving Dublin a city with more taxis than New York. Dublin is a passengers paradise and a taxi drivers hell
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Friday, August 18, 2023
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.
Monday, August 14, 2023
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.
Saturday, August 05, 2023
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.
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough
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
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'
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 go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
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
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
Thursday, August 03, 2023
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.
Thursday, July 27, 2023
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.