Amber Alert

Got a job this cold windy and wet Sunday morning at about 10 o clock picking up from one of our local churches. Not at all unusual on a Sunday to be picking up folk who have been to the Sunday morning service. We sometimes pick up an ould lass from this particular church and so I waited expecting to be picking up a little old lady.
I was more than a little shocked when a little old man strode out and jumped in the front passenger seat not because he was a man you understand but simply by what he was dressed in. A micro mini skirt with peach tights and a blouse and bright multi coloured jacket topped off with a peach headband worn on a completely bald head.
"That bloody winds going right up my mini skirt" started the conversation followed by "my names Amber Flowers, whats yours?"  Well once I had got over my initial shock and slight embarrassment we carried on a perfectly normal civilized conversation and I have got to say, what a nice person this turns out to be.

  Amber tells me that she suffers badly from nerves but all I can say is that it must take one hell a lot of nerve and a hell of a desire not to blend in with the crowd to dress this way.
I had seen her in passing quite a few times and must admit to keeping as much distance from her as possible, which I guess is what a lot of folk must do. But as they say "it takes all sorts"and Amber has chosen a slightly different perhaps harder path to the rest of us so lets hope its a happy one eh!  

No Body

I knew that it would be one of those funny sorts of days today when the first customer of the morning got out of the cab and sort of absentmindedly said "bye bye love you see you later"
I don't know who she was thinking of but I don't think it was me somehow.
I think she realised what she had said going by her pausing mid step and shaking her head and smiling before hurrying away. 
The very next job and it was pouring it down and I could just make out my fare walking down her garden path. As she got closer the handbag I thought that she had in her hand started to look very much like a human head being carried by its long hair. And as she got still closer that's exactly what it appeared to be she was swinging it casualty as if it was perfectly natural to be in possession of  some poor souls head.
I was just about to drive of as fast as possible when I noticed the lack of blood and as she got still closer that our body-less friend had a distinct plastic look to him. It turns out that she was an apprentice hairdresser and was taking our friend nobody back to college after using him for styling practice.
I suggested that she may like to pop him in a plastic bag next time she takes him out and about or she may end up practicing first aid instead of styling on her next taxi driver.

Last Century

At a meeting I attended at our local Town Hall the Taxi licencing officer suggested that it would be a good idea for the local taxi firms to exchange information on issues concerning the trade. A kind of Taxi Watch.
This would be useful to drivers, then bad payers and violent fares could be banned from all firms.
The only easy way to do this this would be an e-mail exchange between firms, but as we from the trade pointed out even in this day and age some of the firms unbelievably don't even have an e-mail address.

 Just what century they are living in in is a mystery not being able to send and receive e-mails is doing a disservice to both the firms and its drivers. 

The licencing officer has contacted all the firms to try and set this taxi watch scheme up and has asked those lacking one to supply an e-mail address.
Guess what? Absolutely no response from any of the firms!
Does this show that they don't give a shite for the well-being and safety of drivers or are they all just lazy buggers who cant be bothered?

Exotic Pets

A guy who was one of my fares today was telling me that his job is to deliver exotic pets like spiders snakes and lizards to pet shops and private buyers all over the U.K.
 Last week he told me he delivered some rock lizards to a house in a rough area of Glasgow, the buyer asked him to come upstairs and he then showed him a thirty foot long Anaconda snake. 
Will you swap it for the rock lizards he was asked? 
He thought about it for a short while and then remembered that this huge snake because it needed the warmth would have to travel in the front of his van with him, he declined the offer. 
Yes I think I maybe would have as well.

Neverbe Paid For

A guy gets in the car today and says "Lakeland Drive Ratings Village please" I looked at him and said ohh! You mean the old Listers factory site don't you. 
He didn't like me calling his brand new fancy housing estate that one little bit, but that’s what most people who remember the old factory it was built on call it.
It take a generation before any new name like that becomes accepted and used by locals. 
 There is this thing they do nowadays of giving posh names to these places and adding tens of thousands to the price.
Have you noticed that they don't build streets anymore, all new builds are called Mews, Gardens, Groves or some such fancy title, talk about pretentious eh! 
 There is one such new estate locally  with a "street" called Neverby Drive on; of course when we taxi drivers refer to it we call it Neverby paid for.

Wrong Impression

She was a pretty young thing who was deep in conversation on her mobile phone when I picked her up.
 She stopped talking just long enough to tell me where she was going and then shortly after the conversation with her boyfriend I guessed, started to get a bit saucy.
 She was describing in great detail exactly what she was going to do to him when she got to his house; she seemed to be totally oblivious of me overhearing her. 
The nearer that we got to the address she was going to the more she seemed to get excited about what was to take place. By this time my neck was hurting with the strain of looking dead ahead and trying not to look like I was listening.    
 We finally pulled up outside her destination and she asked the lucky guy to come out and pay for her cab fare, I got the shock of my life when it was a girl who came out to pay. 
Still as I always say to gay ladies "we have a lot in common" and when they ask what I reply "well we both like girls!".

Tooth Hurty

This last week or so I have picked up quite a few short jobs were the fare worked out at £2.30 and on some of these occasions when I said "£2.30 please".

The passengers looked at me and said, "Go and see a dentist then".

It didn't sink in with me at first until one fare seeing my baffled expression said "What time does a china man go to the dentist?”

Doh... and then is hit me! Why am I so daft sometimes  eh?

Devious Sunday

I have found that Sunday mornings are always good for a laugh. One fare is the little old lady off to her church service and the next is a bleary eyed drunk still blinking at the harsh morning light. I pick up all the people that wake up in strange places with a bad head, or somebody else with a worse head.
 Funny how all the girls try to justify themselves they tell me even though I don’t ask that "they stopped at a girlfriends house last night". One lady "and I use the word loosely" hailed me early one Sunday morning" Leicester St" she says, but that’s only a hundred feet away I said "So five pounds Leicester St" she replied. I am not going to argue about making easy money so off we go. We get round the corner and there’s the irate hubby waiting on the doorstep hands on hips and obviously very angry, she then makes a big show of handing over the five pounds to make sure he sees it being paid and no change given, must have been making out she had come from much further away, devious eh!.

Poor Relations

I see Barrow has been treated as the poor relation yet again by Cumbria County Council up in the far north of our county. Money for these schemes to police taxi ranks has absolutely no chance of trickling down here It seems that when Carlisle get hold of our council tax that they want to spend it much closer to home, never mind us poor forgotten  folk down in the south of the county.


News & Star | News | Taxi marshals scheme in west Cumbria hailed a success

Dead Granny

One of the most common moans I get from my passengers is about the rundown state of our Town Centre shopping streets. They bemoan the lack of shops and complain that most of those remaining are pawn brokers, charity shops, and hairdressers.

They just don’t seem to grasp the fact that whilst they are moaning I am usually taking them to or picking them up from one of our many huge supermarkets.

It’s far too late to complain now after years of spending the bulk of our cash in the supermarkets most town centre's are now beyond saving.

Maybe if Tesco etc had stuck to simply selling groceries then maybe, we would still have a little bit of life left in our shopping precincts.

 But it seems that they want to own the whole world by moving into typical high street trades like chemists, florists, opticians, etc.

  Banking and insurance aren’t immune from the march of the multinationals progress either and I hear Tesco will even buy your scrap gold from you nowadays.

As I said to one of my fares the other day it won’t be long before you can drop your dead granny off at customer services and collect the ashes in an urn of your choice along with your shopping at the checkout, complete with Tesco club points!