Thursday, August 28, 2014

A ride on the Luas

    The plan for the "Wrap" design for my taxi.
             Done and dusted
                   Remember when VWs looked like this? and every car had a different engine noise?
                     Packs for fast food.

The car was wrapped in City West and I took the Luas back into Dublin and the bus home.
It goes at a great speed, I suppose it should as Luas is the Irish for speed
Just around an hour each way.
She looks really great.

So the downtime has been put to good use, I completed my income tax.
My friend Judy took over my old car.
Hers had broken down and the garage told her it needed a new engine,
She brought it up to a Chinese garage to get another second opinion.
Guess what? she sold it to the garage as is.
A mechanic lives next door to her. he checked out the car before she bought it and he said it was A1.
Then she had to spend nearly e1000 on repairs in less than 6 months.
She is under strict instructions not to let him near my car, I will look after it for her.

"Where would you find cowboys?" said the man to me.
"There are thousands of them in the Golden pages"  He is correct for sure.

A  man told me that his dad owned a fast food joint,the tax man took a good look at the books and the invoices.
You bought a hell of a lot of packaging in comparison to your sales.So they hit him for a good few grand.
All I could say was.
"Did he not tell the tax man about the rat in the storeroom and how everything had to be thrown out,and the cat getting in later and pissing over everything?"

He thought I would be a better accountant than the one his dad had.

Did you hear that 2 old age pensioners were evicted from their rented property by the Sheriff.
The action was illegal as the sheriff is not allowed ti evict in a domestic situation.
Put out on the road in their pajamas and not allowed back in to collect their belongings.
Click here for the story
As you can see from the article they are tenants and their landlord went belly up, the bank is selling the house and offering them no alternative  place to live.

The people who brought all this to pass have massive pensions,
I see that Mr.Sodens house is up for sale for over2 mill.
He was the governor of the Bank of Ireland when all this was happening.

Don't start me or I'll be here all night!.

Look after yourselves


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

A slow change over

Photos not working


Hello everyone,
I have been neglecting the Blog lately, but I need to work hard to become rich !!!!

I looked at the Irish Times last Saturday and there on the front page was a picture of Palestinian men being led away with bags over their heads...They were later shot as informers.
Take a look at the post a few weeks ago "Irish freedom fighter".. Look at the photo...
It looks very like our Sam.?.
Perhaps you can find it on their website If I can find the paper I will photograph it for you to see.
In the time of the troubles in Ireland it was a very handy way of having your enemies bumped off by calling them an informer...
The whole world is in a state of flux, I told an ex British squaddie about Sam and he sad that to kill a leader over there is like cutting the head off a serpent in the old fables. The head would grow back, but the serpent would have 20 heads. Gaddafi and his gangs controlled these guys. With him gone all the tribes rise up and declare war on everyone.
Another man who works in aircraft logistics said that Tripoli airport is littered with planes with bullet holes, all of them are of no use to anyone.

Picked up a nice girl from Google today flying home to be with her parents in Ukraine.
Now there is another place where there is little peace.
With telephones and Skype you still have to go home.
It is a big worry when you cannot predict the lie of the land.

With all the things going on here if you thought about it .

We are not too badly off at all.

My youngest son is working in a Centra store in town, he has had early starts for 3 days over the last few weeks. So yours truly has to get up at 5.30 am to bring him in.
But HailO gives me a few jobs and then the day soon takes off for me.
But today I retired my car.
Tomorrow it will be driving around by my Chinese friend Judy.
Judy knows little about cars, but her last car was a lemon and has cost her a fortune.
I hope that this car will serve her well, she deserves it.

Women and cars can be robbed in garages, I spoke to a Romanian woman driving a CLK Merc 2 seater.
I told her that her brake pads were gone,
 "What do you mean?" Then into a 10 minute conversation about how brakes work.
So I went to pay for my fuel and I remembered that there is a garage called Ana Motors in the Butterly business center and the guy who runs it is Romanian, so he should be sympathetic to her troubles.
I am Ana so I will remember the name she said...And your name? Thank you so much for helping me..
Gosh she was really good looking..When she marries an Irish man the children will look fantastic.

Now tomorrow my car is being branded

Hail 3
Hail 2

HailO

Monday, August 18, 2014

New car at last

 Workers from Yahoo do a team building thing.Picking up litter on Dollymount strand
At long last I found a replacement car
                       Just when you thought you had seen it all...This peels oranges.
                              A 1960's bus going yo "Craggy Island"
                                      My Grandsons sandals beside mine,soon they will be bigger than mine

Monday morning and here I am waiting for my son to finish breakfast so that I can put him on the ferry back to England. He has been home for around a month.
Over the last week my middle son and his wife went to a wedding and we babysat for them.
My grandson who is 2 behaved really well and a good time was had by all.
Then on Saturday we went down to Tipperary to another wedding, this time of my nephew.
It is a sign of the times when people were welcomed home from Australia, USA, Canada, Dubai and even Dublin...I wonder if the wedding planners had worked out that it would be a good time to get the people home for the Hurling semi finals.
Tipperary won.

Anyhow I had been looking for a replacement car for months. I looked on the web for weeks.I even went to London where the Prius car rules supreme. No luck there either.
Then we had seen a car for sale in Templemore so we went a short step out of our way for a look.
The City car dealers will not talk my kind of money,not much discount for a straight sale,
My man in Tipp had the sale done and the money in the bank in 20 minutes, no messing.
One Prius in Dublin I had made an offer on a month  ago is still sitting in the showroom.
Still I should thank him my car has full dealer history,one lady owner and 75000Kms I would do that in1 year..
Q   What is the maximum amount you can do in a cash transaction without filling in a form with regard            to money laundering?

A Would you believe e 2,000? It is a very small sum.

I found that out when I tried to pass over a "brown envelope"It is the last day with the old HailO app and I dread to see it go.
I never fix things that are not working HailO is all about change.

So time will tell.     It has served me well in the past.

I met a guy going from Loughlinstown hospital to Tallagh we were talking about main dealers and "Service"
He told me he had a company a few years ago fitting car windscreens, a Land Rover Discovery came in and they fitted a new windscreen e460 a few weeks later they got a call that some water was coming in,so they asked him to drop in to the HQ.
My man spoke to him and he was saying that his insurance had no windscreen cover as it was commercial and he had been stunned by the cost of e1240 for the replacement.
He told me that he only would deal with the customer directly after that.

Now he also has a quick fuel change business 24/7.
You put in petrol and he sucks it out.
A real go getter you have to admire them.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Irish freedom fighter

Quite a while ago I wrote about Sam, he wrote a book  called "Soldier for a Summer"
He was heading off to London to meet a movie maker who wanted to make a film about his exploits.

He had fought against Gaddafi in Libya. More than that his exploits were filmed and made into a documentary that film won awards for its action and realty.

Well Sams  pal has been elected as the Mayor of Tripoli ! click here






As I say time after time, you never know who is getting into your taxi next.

Having said all that. One of my customers who works in the aircraft business told me that everyone over there has their work cut out for them.
"Libya was a tribal country and now those tribes are all having a quick push for power.
There are scores of grudges to be settled.
Tripoli airport has planes which have bullet holes in them. Imagine there are teams of men with brush handles looking for exit holes from the bullets, then trying to work out if it might have hit some vital  component on its way past. You cannot fly an airplane with a hole in it anyhow."
Still I am sure that a man from Tallagh might be able to sort something out.

Well I found the photos from the Irish Times.
Look for yourself Sam or not Sam?



Summer ending.

Its been a while since I last looked in, what happened?
The bullying Dublin horse show came and went.Bruce Springsteins daughter took part in the show jumping and the "Boss"came over to see it happen as well.

The leaving cert results came out, leaving students happy and very sad.

The court case taken to the high court by taxi drivers about the manner in which deregulation took place is coming to a conclusion. It could cost the country €400 million.
Before deregulation taxi plates were valued at £90,000. (More than €110,000)
If you were getting a divorce the old judge would give the wife the house and you would have the taxi plate, an asset of equal value. The that plate became worth around £2,500 overnight. While the house price went through the roof. Plus the new entrants flooded the market without any limit.. There were 2,500 plates in the Dublin area, this increased to 5,000 in less than 3 years then up to 11,500 today.
Rank space has decreased as well.
I won't go on a rant but in reality we have complete mayhem on the streets.
Loads of unlicensed taxi drivers working away.
The Garda say it is not their job and the regulator enforcers shrug their shoulders and look the other way.
At the port of Dublin yesterday an un registered driver sat for 25 minutes with no ID on his dashboard while the relevant people in power were informed.
No one came and he picked up and drove away.

We wait for the judgement from the judges..



Just in case you thought all the robbing drivers were in Dublin.

Poor old Robin Williams died.
The latest news is that he had the onset of Alzheimer's and couldn't face the future.
His daughter is besieged by Trolls hurling abuse at her when she published a poem her dad wrote for her.
Facebook and Twitter responded to say that they will have to come up with some way of dealing with this online bullying. Hundreds of young people around the world have been bullied to death by people who hunt down and destroy lives on the internet.It is well past time to deal with them
Facebook is a playground for pedophiles and little is done about it.
The Netherlands has a special task force who pretend to be 12 year old girls looking for friends, they catch quite a few people too.

I had a few early mornings which were very good. HailO providing the much needed customers

Thursday, August 07, 2014

A bump on the road


                     The old reliable HailO app
             The herbaceous border In St.Annes park Clontarf
              This was once the main drive for the Guinness family heading off to work St.Annes Park)

By the way I have started to allow the comments again !
Lets hope the spammers keep away.

I hit a bump on the  road of life.

I have been working too hard.
For 3 days I have been getting up at 5.30 am to bring my son into work, then I work on.
I had not taken a day off for a couple of months.
I did the trip to London and back in less than 24 hours and then I went straight back to work without a break.

Then the other day I was picking up a HailO job when I clipped the edge of the footpath which was submerged under water BANG my front tyre is cut to shreds.So after explaining to my customer that I couldn't take her to work I set to work changing my wheel.
The rain was lashing down, each drop a spoonful.
As John Lennon said "You never felt the rain my friend until you felt it running down your back"
It is awful to feel rain running down the inside of your shirt.

So I had got the wheel off when this guy pulled up.
"Excuse me my friend. I wonder can you help me?
I have an electrical instrument which has stopped working and I am wondering if you could help me?
It is very important to me, I am a medical doctor,"
So I wiped the rain from my eyes while he started to search for his instrument In the boot of his car. He had loads of crap. The biggest collection of things I have ever saw.
Including photos of Pope John Paul, a book about his visit to Ireland and photographs of Islamic leaders and other important people I did not recognize..
"Man you are backing every side there".
So, as he was still looking I went back to my wheel.
I had it on the studs and the burst one put away when he found his instrument, it was for stimulating muscle movement with voltage. He had the transformer in his hand...I could see no fuse but I noticed that it was capable of holding batteries, so it should work..But to look for a reset button.
We went our separate ways
Then I tightened my nuts and drove home and went to bed.

The very next day I drove up Talbot St. and saw a guy rummaging in the back of his car 5.45 am.
Guess what!
It was him again
Seamus the Doctor. Then I dropped off my lad and drove around to talk to him.
Talk about an interesting guy he is bursting with life and ideas,
"John call to my surgery and I will give you a complete health check free, I mean it"
I thought he was Iranian but his people come from India /Pakistan region as I say he is a man of great wisdom and insight.
Today he needs someone with a circuit tester.

Did you ever hear the saying
WHEN THE PUPIL IS READY THE MASTER WILL APPEAR?
Well I hope so.

HailO have brought in a new App. Gone are the Jobs Burst! The closed roads and traffic alerts.
Now you cannot calculate how much you are making per shift or per hour.
When you get a job the "Map of location" is total crap.
This is what happens when you have guys who work in the office and never speak to the guys who work the system.
I had the new app a while ago and took it off, but the powers that be refused to change it and they are now stopping the old system that worked so well...This is not progress.

Anyhow to give some people something to look forward to International magic in London sent me the running order for their convention in November.
Here is one name that is on the list.

This is great.


Henry Evans from Argentina will be there too.


Monday, August 04, 2014

A story goes full circle

                                                    The office of our president
                                             Map of Dublin for Dublin bikes!www.dublinbikes.ie

                                              Duffys circus in Clontarf.

Wow its another bank holiday and it is WET !
I am not working or going anywhere  it makes no difference to me.
My grandson has come to visit so it is time for me to get some really big hugs.

I worked a bit after they went home again. What a difference a bit of rain makes, hands were high looking. for taxis.

The other morning I got a run to the airport and as I waited I noticed that he had forgotten his keys in the front door. I got out and knocked on the door..."Looking for these?"
So after another few minutes he came out and we were off to the airport.
We spoke of this and that and I asked if he was a golfer. "I play a bit but I am a sports writer"
So I told him how I had Rory McElroy in my taxi on the day he turned professional, then I told him what advice I had given him.
Keep your old friends, they know you and want nothing from you.
People will try to latch on to your fame to enrich themselves.
At the top level it is a 4 inch put ! the distance between your ears.

Thank your public and be humble.

So when we arrived at the airport Shane O'Donaghue took my photograph and he will have shown it to the world champion of golf today .Rory is a real nice guy as good as any of my customers.
He sure came a long way since I met him..

Assaults against taxi drivers are on the increase, thank God for in car video.
A taxi going to Tallagh on the M50, 4 very drunk and lively girls on board.
Then suddenly the girl directly behind the driver throws her jacket over his head and pulls it tight by the sleeves..The driver didn't panic but turned his wheel to the left until he heard the rumble of the last white line on the motorway and stopped.
He threw them all out on the side of the motorway and drove away.
But it gets better,
The local Garda ring him to come in as there has been a complaint gf a sexual assault against him.
So he goes in and before they say any more he brings a Garda out to his taxi, in the boot of the car is a monitor, he shows the footage of what happened.
The Garda brings out the girls to see the footage and they begin to scream and cry.
The Garda told them that they would likely be facing jail time for assault and false accusation.

Now the next part beggars belief.
The taxi driver said he would not be pressing charges as he felt that they had learned their lesson.
Without that footage where would he be?
Supposing he had been killed in a crash, Who would feed his wife and kids?
That driver was wrong on many levels for sure, nail them just as they would have stuffed him.. 
The taxi driver did not want his name brought up in court linked to a sexual assault.

Mind yourselves out there