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?