Billy Boy

There’s always at least one crazy driver on every single taxi firm the one who’s singing to a different tune, dancing to another crazier beat.
 One I know who meets and exceeds this criteria is known as Billy Boy. Now when most drivers find something spilt or crumbs on their seats they clean it up but not Billy Boy he tastes it. 
Twice now he has had to get a cab to pick him up from the next town's railway station when he has helped passengers onto the train at Barrow station and the train has set off before he could get off.
 This is a man who decided to relieve himself on Walney Island beach at nine thirty on a busy Friday night and whilst doing so had to leap for his life when a car drove straight at him onto the beach. This turned out to be his own car which he had left with the handbrake off.
 He had to call for another car to tow him back onto the road. 
This is a man who a passenger tells me asked them” where do you want it then up the back passage”? We really hope he meant the taxi.

Party Food

Some of the old folk I pick up say the strangest things, one old lass today was on her way to the dentist.
” I'll have to get my teeth fixed today” she said” us pensioners are having the Mayor for tea” (Which thinking about it afterwards doesn't seem such a bad idea at all, there must be lots of local politicians who would make a good meal for our pensioners) Then she went on to tell me that you can now get goose grease locally and that heated and mixed with a bit of camphor it would make an ideal chest rub. 
With a serious expression she said” it works you know you don't see geese with colds”.

Magic Roundabout

As usual this morning a bit of road rage was going on at our famous Tesco magic mini roundabout. 

When I reached the roundabout I heard the screech of brakes and saw the usual macho shaking of fists and posturing, and I could hear the two drivers shouting and abusing each other.
 In the end one of the drivers screeched off in a cloud of tyre smoke. Unfortunately for him this was witnessed by a policeman in a plain car and he followed him. When I passed he and the P.C. were having words but I was disturbed to see a boy of about seven or eight sat in the front seat of the car. Its bad enough acting in this way anyway but to let a child witness it is truly moronic. 
The approach to our magic roundabout is the one place in Barrow I would consider speed humps. There is this unfounded faith in the idea that the faster and more aggressively you drive at it the better and that everyone will automatically give way to traffic from the right. This and the assumption that every driver will indicate are often proved wrong.
 Or do they just hope that everyone else has brakes and insurance.

Yan Tan

I took an old guy to Ulverston one morning this week and when he counted the coins out to pay the fare he said “here’s dick tan lad keep the change,” This had me baffled so I asked him to explain what he had just said.

 He told me that it’s an ancient form of counting still in use by some of the Cumbrian upland sheep farmers to count their flock.

 So here goes with one to ten, don’t know if any of the spellings are correct this is just as he said them. 1 yan 2 tan 3 teddera 4 meddera 5 pimp 6 settera 7 lettera 8 hovera 9 dowra 10 dick .

It sounds like it may come from the Old Norse but best of all I like the one for 15 bumfit and the one for 20 jiggot.

 Right I'm off for a dick minutes rest might catch you in bumfit or so.

Body Bits

It was one of my rare days off today, so as usual it was clean up time with the taxi. Vacuuming the inside I always find the same stuff, hair clips, the odd coin, and lots of glitter from the girl’s makeup.
 But it's the bits of people's bodies left behind that never fail to amaze me, always lots and lots of hair of every colour and not just head hair believe it or not.  Yes the I vacuum up the occasional hair which definitely looks like the pubic variety, how it gets there I just cannot figure.
 Fingernails I can understand there's a heck of a lot of nervous people out there.
 But I never see passengers bite their toenails yet I also find them on the floor.