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

Like an asses gallop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Went up North

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still going strong

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

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

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

I am going to the church of the immaculate conception.

Whare is it? Just outside Naas near Punchestown.

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

Onward and upwards to no avail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just give me €2 back"

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

One from the rank, the conversation was on tipping. 

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

The question is .

Did he get his phone back ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I wrote to the head chief himself. 

No reply.

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

Here is one for you. FreeNow is owned by Mercedes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes big companies make Titanic errors.

The Galway races

 At this time of year there is a race meeting at Ballybritt its the Galway races, 2 taxi drivers headed off hoping to bankrupt the bookies.

You might almost predict that their wishes did not come true and they were heading off home stone broke.

Thre was a cheerful young lad thumbing a lift and he was delighted when he found that they were going all the way to Dublin. Its Crumlin for me as he settled in.

The conversation was mighty and he told them of all the races he had been to this one was the best ever.He hoped that their luck would be better next year.

This was before the modern roads and there was a bit of a traffic jam in Kilbeggan. There in front of them was a Garda and he stopped them.

"The reason I asm stopping you is that you have only one headlight and your tax disc is 3 months out of date, you have a bald tyre and a rear light not working.Give me your license. This is 6 months out of date as well"

So he took out his note book and wrote down all the details, he told them to drive on when the passenger got out and walked up to the Garda.

These are fine men they are giving me a lift and they are coming home from the races,

be easy on them and they will fix everything in the morning. No No said the Garda and the young lad started patting him on the back and on the chest, No I have to do my job said the Garda. With that the young lad jumped back into the car and started to direct them on a short cut back to Crumlin, sure across country through Clane and they landed in Crumlin. Pull over here on the left lads, turn off the engine for a minute and we will say goodnight.

The reason I did so well at the races is not that I picked winners, I am a pickpocket. Here I have both your wallets and I also have your wristwatch.

Now don't worry about that old Garda he will do nothing, because I took his note book.

It was a wonderful challenge for me as he had a button on the pocket. 

Now there is a story you can tell if you ever get back into the pub

One week down

 Well I am back and thanks to all my customers who directed me to their destination.

I was off for 18 months owing to Covid and I have forgotten so much of the city.

Building sites which have grown into apartments while I was away, streets have become pedestrian only and more.Thank God for the good people who kept me on track.

I turned on the SatNav on the phone a few times and it is a crazy navigational aid. I was going to Bishop St and I put it into the phone and it told me to turn around and go back the other way, so I said to the passenger "Is that not Bishop St?" Yes it is, but the SatNav is telling me to go the opposite way.  I am lucky to have you on board to keep me right

We have a new grandchild on the way and DV that all goes well.

I was lucky that I had the blog which helped me to write the book, its not brilliant but I suppose it kept me out of trouble. "The steering wheel university" By Paul Malone.

My youngest son was in the same class as the son of the writer Roddy Doyle and at parent teacher meetings we would meet. He read this blog and often told me to write the book,the only thing you will regret is that you never tried. So thanks to Roddy we have it.

My first born has a significant birthday coming up. He lives in London and there was a lot of doubt if he could come home or not, it looks like it is all go.They really grow up fast.

We dug up loads of old photos and have sent him photo books spanning the years.

Just keeping this short and I want you to say a special prayer for the mother and father

in Northern Ireland. For some reason of total madness the mother killed her 2 year old son and stabbed her baby.  As a father of 3 boys and 2 grandchildren it distorts all that we believe in.

I hope and pray that everyone involved can find peace.

You are damned if you do and your damned if you don't

 I did go back and worked for a few hours, nothing too hard.

The funny thing is that I confessed and took guidance from my customers

I went shopping on the way home yesterday and when I was coming out of the supermarket there was a lady loading tons of stuff into her Mercedes car, I asked her if she was running an orphanage and we spoke for 10 mins.She was in fact shopping for online customers and delivering to their homes. Her work had dried up owing to covid and this low paid task helped her through the week. I was gobsmacked in a way I admired her bottle for getting out there and making a go of it.Most of us curse the dark instead of turning on the light.

Later on I met a lady who was speaking Arabic on her phone. When she finished her call I said the only Arabic words that I know,"Shockran Habibi" (Thanks honey bunch )

We spoke about this and that and I asked if she was a nurse or a doctor. She turned out to be an interpreter and she said that she would hate to work in social services or child protection.

The thing about that is you damned if you do and damned if you don't  

Then she hit me with this story.

Did you hear about the 16 year old boy who was taken into care because his parents were fighting ?

He really wanted to talk to his mother and they blocked him.

He was upset beyond all reason. Then he saw his chance to escape and went out down to the river Liffey and killed himself.

He was only 16 he needed someone to listen to him and to help him, not to be locked up. 

A mediator to be placed into the house for a few sessions might have brought around a more peaceful solution.

This has gone on long enough

Well I finally have had enough and I am going back next week.

I am fed up being bored and short of pocket money.

I bought a different type of respirator which blocks viruses and bacteria. 

The cloth ones are useless or so I was told.

Amazon are a strange bunch a whole heap of stuff will not be delivered to the Irish republic, but I can get them through my son in the north of Ireland.

Mr. Kitchen the 3 star Scottish chef must be really feeling the pain of his actions over there in Scotland. Keeping the staffs tips was never a problem for him before. He and his wife took £700 each every month, the manager took another slice of the cake while his staff worked under dreadful conditions in the restaurant and were given a fraction of their gratuities. 

Morality is always for the other people. 

Another case of privileged people has hit the headlines. None other than Prince Fiasal Bin Turki Bin Abdallah Al Saud he is the grandson of the late king of Saudi Arabia.

His domestic staff fled his mansion in Paris and took refuge in Paris, they lodged a complaint of cruelty starvation and that his children were encouraged to beat them and spit in their faces.

The French are proactive about this kind of thing so we will see.

You know the story about the guy from the Saudi Embassy that I had a row with?

I stopped and asked him what would his mother think if she could see him now?

A few months later I had this guy in the car and when I told him the story he wanted me to look at the staff photographs and he would send him home.

This present passenger turned out to be the charge de fer of the embassy and he was very impressed that I would not let him be punished.

He asked me for my number.

I gave him yours instead.

About the talking version of the book! Not as easy as I thought.

I will have to find a producer and a sound man, as if something is not done properly it is not worth doing at all. I understand,I know nothing about sound production, I also need a neutral opinion about a professional actor  reading the part. 

I wonder if Gabriel Byrne has some free time ?