Wednesday, February 03, 2010

The Romans are coming.



This is an illustration for the book Peter and the wolf.
Drawn by, Bono of U2

When you do the grand tour of Guinness you finish up here, the atmospheric bar, with fine city views.



Black people love colour! Looking great too.
This exotic lady was at the opening of the film Invictus.
Her name is Yoyo she is 1/2 Zimbabwean 1/2 South African.

Here we are,heading into Thursday and the weekend is coming.
This weekend is a rugby weekend Ireland V Italy.
Not a great rugby nation,unlike the Welsh or French.Or the New Zealand people..Who..Eat sleep dream and live for rugby..My Mate John Barry used to tackle his wife in bed while asleep as he dreamed rugby.

A great guy RIP

So what of the ways of the world.?
You might ask.
I didn't work Friday or Saturday.

Instead I visited my extended family in Northern Ireland on the shores of Lough Neigh.
My middle son is married to a great girl up there, so my family is expanding.

I didn't work at all, even though this was the first pay day since before Christmas for those people who are paid monthly .

I am paid weekly... very weakly.

I have to get my act together , but this month I have a lot on.

This week DV a friend is having her 100Th birthday!

Wow imagine born on 5/2/1910 and still very much going strong!

She has seen some changes for sure.

She got her letter from the president congratulating her, it is a very well crafted piece of writing, perhaps if we all live to be 100 we will all get one.
Plus a cheque which will go to her great grandchildren I am sure.

Then the rugby!

Then the painting...walls, ceilings ,doors and skirting boards.

Then that fantastic magicians convention coming up in Blackpool!

Sure what else are credit cards for ? If not to put us in debt.

I am doing my best to put the economy back on track I will be spending around e8,000 extra this month.

So I hope things improve.

The Westbury rank must be the worst in the land, I went there for coffee on Monday, the newsagents in Grafton St make a great coffee for e1.99 with loyalty card!
The lads said that they did not have one fare since 9.30 It was then 12.30!
3 hours with no move, time to take a reality check.

It is said that a porter in that hotel works for a radio cab company, all night long he calls in cabs for customers, then in the morning he POPS the roof sign on his car and gets a few good jobs while he is driveing home.
Then there is another porter (it is said) who is on the take, or the make.
He calls a friend when an airport job comes up...This guy charges over the odds for the job (Well over the rate) and splits the difference with the porter.

I am not going to fight this kind of thing any more.

Whats the use ?

Every week the guys ripping people off become the norm.

If you are honest the best thing to do is to leave this game while the going is good.

I asked that you look at the Anderson Shelter blog a few weeks ago....That's the picture of whats happening in London, then that tragic story about the girl thrown from a taxi after the driver robbed them and drove off with thee door open.

When I was in London a taxi driver told me about his mate who should have known better, who got into a mini cab. The driver went into a cul de sac and 3 guys jumped into the car and robbed him.Then threw him out of the car.
The only thing he remembers is never to get into a minicab again.

Australia, Vietnam, Cyprus and Dublin the regulator is out of touch.

What about the driver who doesn't know where O'Connell St.is?

What about the driver in Phoenix AZ. Who knew nothing and was very annoyed when the passenger wouldn't give him directions...2 Days in USA driving a taxi...A Somalian

Well yesterday there was a discussion about the illegal taxi drivers.
One Chinese guy had everything fake. Driving licence,insurance, PSV licence.
Well he got jail!! Now theres a first.

Metinks he might have copied all his papers in Chinese, that's how they caught him..

No a while back they did do a few raids with social welfare, carriage office,immegration and customs and excise.
But its not happening often enough.

I am still thinking about an Italian lady from Milano that I picked up in Blackhall Place going to City West.
She just moved into a new house and she noticed that the lock on the back door was weak. The landlady said she would get a locksmith to fix it, but he never came.
Then in the middle of the night someone tried to kick in the door!
She had jammed an umberella against the door and it held.

Tell your landlady to upgrade your security or you will be out of there Pronto.

Well if she sends me an e mail I will get her in touch with the right people.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:24 AM

    Hi, John, will you embed this for me? Thanks, Paddy.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF1AlVyIczY

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi John

    I was in Milan on Tuesday for a meeting and the taxis over there are a total rip off, I walked around for hours trying to get one and when I did get one using a hotel I went into the taxi driver tried to take 19 euro for a 12 euro trip on his meter

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great Blog there, my name is chris, I was a fulltime taxi driver until early '08. I came accross this blog by creating an alert on my google page for anything with "taxi" in the news stories. Most have been foreign alerts but good to see a dublin one. Check out poor fecker being accused of racism in the UK http://arbroath.blogspot.com/2010/02/taxi-drivers-accused-of-racism-over-st.html There only responding to customers comments on bad service.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. phil b9:17 AM

    my nameis phil bermingham ex dublin taxi driver now in the uk.Looking for my mate Christy Banks,i havent spoken to him in a while,ask hi to contact me at philbermingham@talktalk.net thanks

    ReplyDelete