A Sign?

Our local Canon left today for pastures new, but is their something he's not telling us? Has Canon Peter Mann had wind of a promotion ,or is the name on the removal van a sign from above? Whichever it was it made me laugh when I drove past them loading up at St Luke's Vicarage today.

Chavcab

The long-running battle by the Burberry clothing group to move away from it's "chav" image has forced a seaside mini taxi off the road.
Burberry, whose traditional check has been adopted by chavs on baseball caps, scarves and clothing patches, has threatened legal action against a Brighton firm running a fleet of tuk-tuks -motorised rickshaws as taxis because one is decked out in the company pattern.
The ''chavrolet" was one of a dozen vehicles painted in a variety of colour schemes and operated by TucTuc Ltd. It was taken off the road at the weekend after the firm received a legal letter from Burberry saying that the colour scheme represented an infringement of copyright.
TucTuc's executive director, said: "We are disappointed that the 'chavrolet' will have to go.
"It's a tongue-in-cheek design and people thought it was quite fun and entertaining. We're not ruling out another 'chavrolet' with a completely different design in the future."
Burberry declined to comment yesterday but the firm has been anxious for some time to rid itself of chavs' unwelcome affection for its tartan.

Could It?

Abbey Park the private clinic located within the grounds of Furness General Hospital has closed recently. More or less on the day it closed barriers and tape were put up to stop people parking their cars on the now disused parking spaces. The rumours can't possibly be true that this is to stop people parking for free could it?
At £1.30 minimum and maybe wanting to protect the huge income from both visitors and staff, what do think could it?

Nicked

A council is protesting to the Metropolitan Police after one its traffic wardens was arrested after he ticketed an officer's car.
The situation reportedly turned ugly after the off-duty policeman saw the warden putting an £80 ticket on his car, which was parked with two wheels on the pavement in Upminster, Essex.
According to neighbours, words were exchanged before the policeman dashed into his house, put on his uniform and called for back-up.
Then, when two colleagues arrived in a patrol car, he went back outside and arrested the warden on suspicion of using threatening and abusive behaviour. Now, Havering council has asked the Met to investigate the arrest.
According to one neighbour, the warden had just ticketed the car when the policeman, then wearing civilian clothes, began speaking to him and the exchanges soon became "nasty".
'It's hilarious to think a traffic warden can be arrested for issuing tickets – it just goes to show that even the police are fed up with them," added the neighbour.
"We're always having problems down here with wardens targeting motorists unfairly and this time one got his comeuppance."
A council spokesman said: "The council is very concerned about the arrest of its officer.

Who?

This one from Bill, which appeared on his screen looks like something Wil would be more familiar with.

Catty

Early this morning I picked up three young lasses from a party, which must have been going on all night. Before they got in the cab they were saying affectionate farewells to two other girls, all hugs and smiles. But the moment they got into the cab they started with comments like "what a mess Sally looked and Tina's put loads of weight on and did you see those ugly guys they were with".
This went on until I dropped one of them off, and then "yes you've guessed it"the two left started pulling the one that had left to pieces. Do all women do this I wonder? I wish I could have taped them and then played it back to their so called friends.

Odour

Some folk have a habit of just getting into the cab and then launching into a conversation, about the weather or whatever without telling me where they are going. Now a lot I do remember but a lot I don't, and so whilst they are talking I take a quick look at them for a clue.
Black ties and mournful expressions and I will start to head for the crematorium, flowers and smiles and it's good chance it's a wedding.
If it's morning chances are they are going to work and so I look for logos or works badges, easy if they work for Asda(Walmart) they wear the brightest shade of lime green you can get,( and believe me they would not wear these duds for anything except work).
Others have just the firms logo on a tie or a certain colour shirt or overall these are harder but I usually get them right. But my secret weapon is that I have a good sense of smell and can sometimes go on this alone. The most obvious one is our local scented candle factory, easy! the next is the fast food joints, they all have their own distinctive smell. We have two Italian restaurant' s on one street and I can smell who works in each by which uses the most garlic.
Within minutes of picking a fare up I can smell if they smoke (yes even wacky baccy) and if they have a dog, cat or other pet. Last week I picked a lady up and was able to tell her she had a horse and that she had recently used Neatsfoot oil on it's hooves. "Thanks she said what you mean is that I stink and need a shower then"

£140m of Scrap

I see our local MP has made the news about the140m computer system his department have scrapped.
The multi million computer system was meant to save taxpayers money and streamline benefit payments.
The system was launched two and a half years ago in an attempt to improve the way money was paid to people on unemployment and disability benefits. The Government hoped it would save about £60 million by simplifying the system.
John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, decided to abandon the programme earlier this year after unveiling his plans to replace incapacity benefit with employment support allowance.
Officials said last night that another system would be constructed to handle payments under the new allowance. But a spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said ministers hoped to salvage some of the old program to use in the new system.
Philip Hammond, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "So far this year IT investments of over £650 million have been written off by John Hutton. There is clearly a lack of capability in the DWP to manage the implementation of large-scale IT projects."
What baffles me is that we don't seem to read these things about John Hutton in our local paper, only positive spin with lots of lovely "photo ops". Is it a case of you scratch my back I scratch yours or is this a way of keeping him sweet in case his career takes him all the way to the top, as has been rumoured.

UPDATE SAT 9th--- An explosive outburst reported by one BBC reporter is being attributed to John Hutton he is quoted as "it would be an absolute fucking disaster if Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and I will do everything in my power to fucking stop him" wow who would have thought it of him, but hey still nothing about all this in the local paper.

Spooked

It was early on a Sunday morning when I got a job to pickup in the Ormsgill area, as soon as I pulled up outside the young guy ran out of the house and into the cab. “Drive go go drive “he said waving his arms about franticly, “where too” I asked “just get me out of here for now he said. He looked really spooked and so I headed slowly, into town and left him to calm down for a while, and when he finally did he told me this tale. He had been out the previous night and had a good few drinks and towards the end of the night he felt that it was his lucky night as he was chatted up by a young attractive looking lass, well looking through the bottom of a beer glass she was anyway. She invited him back to her house and he jumped at the chance, early the next morning he was awoken early by someone moving about in the bedroom. Still groggy from the previous night’s booze he struggled to think were he was and who he was with, slowly it all come back to him and his eyes finally got used to the darkened room, and he made out the figure of a strange guy rummaging in the wardrobe and taking out clothes and shoes. Now he started to worry a bit and so he pretended to be asleep as the guy stood over the bed watching him for a while. When the guy left the room he shook the sleeping now not so pretty, or so young lady to wake her. “Who’s that your brother or something” he asked then the shock and panic set in when she replied “no its my husband” Trying not to panic he asked her if she was joking, but no she was deadly serious and so he then asked if the husband had gone “no he will be waiting for his breakfast, do you want some as well” she asked. " And so I had to get dressed and go downstairs and wait for this taxi” he said and all the while the husband was sat having his tea and toast looking strangely at him from across the table.
Of course I couldn’t resist making more of the situation by telling him that maybe the husband had been in the wardrobe all night with a video camera, and that he could be no 4 in the Dutch porn charts in a month or two.

Strange Names

My day of today, but no free time for me it was off down to Colne in Lancashire for a service on the car. I decided to take the eighty mile route down the back roads instead of the ninety seven mile route I usually take down the motorway's.
It's been a while since I have been down the old roads and I had forgotten about some of the strange and funny place names that you pass on that route.
Place's like Nook,Whoop Hall, Hutton Roof, Leck Beck, Dumb Toms Lane, Lawkland, Wham, Blacko, Little Middop.
But my favorites are Wigglesworth and Giggleswick, it always makes me smile for some reason when I see the sign for Giggleswick Girls High School.

Y, oh Y

I see one of the imported cabbie's from Eastern Europe I wrote about a week or two back has ran into a bit of trouble. The unlucky driver based in Plymouth picked two girls up who asked to be taken to the village of Lymington 18 miles from where they were. Unfortunately the poor guy who had never heard of the place tapped the wrong spelling into his sat-nav. He spelt it Limington which is a village in Somerset, 90 minutes and 85 miles later, he figured out by the less than happy sounds from his passengers that something was wrong.
As I always say you can't beat local knowledge, but I bet that at first he was smiling as his meter clocked up the pounds, unlike his poor customers.

Smokey

I wonder if our local cabby's have realised that when the smoking ban reaches England in the summer of 2007 that it will affect them.
A Taxi will "as it is in Scotland at present" be classed as a place of business and as such no smoking will be allowed either by customers or more importantly the driver.
This means no smoking even when they have no passengers on board, I know for a fact that a lot of local drivers are heavy smokers and they are going to find this a bit hard to swallow.
Maybe now's the time to start and try to give up before they are reduced to standing outside of their cabs for a smoke to avoid a heavy fine. Not too bad in the summer but not so nice in the wind and rain.
So come on guys either give up now or get yourself an umbrella and a raincoat ready.

Truth

It was mid morning and pouring down with rain when I pulled up outside the house on a quiet cul-de-sac, strangely lots of young guys were stood around in the front garden.
A bit wet for a barbecue I was thinking as I waited for my passenger, but they looked too quiet, something was wrong. At least six of them were talking nervously into mobile phones, feeling a bit uncomfortable and wondering what was going on I was glad when my fare come out and got into the cab.
The passenger was a girl who told me what was going on, apparently a big group of friends from the estate had been out the previous night and as happens they had spilt up during the night and all ended up in different places. The next morning one of the guys was found in a bad way at a friends house, no one could say how he got there and no one could say who found him and rang the ambulance. They thought he had been beaten, but then the doctors said he may have taken or been given some type of drug as well, and that it was vital that they know what this drug was.
And so the guys friends were on a desperate bid to find the truth of what had happened and maybe help save his life.
Let's hope somebody had the decency to come forward and do the decent thing and tell the truth about what went on that night.

Buggy Puzzle

I picked up a lone guy today who looked as if he had been left holding the baby, he was pushing a buggy and looking harassed. He lifted the squealing baby out and climbed in the back with her, leaving me to put the child's buggy in the boot. I looked at the buggy and didn't have a clue how to fold it down to go into the boot, and so I asked him "Ive not got a clue" he said and since he had a handful of squirming child it was up to me to sort out.
Every one of these things seems to be different with all sorts of hidden catches and secret manoeuvres needed to fold them. After about ten minutes I was getting nowhere with this thing despite using some of my best swearwords all I managed to do was trap my fingers a few times. And so I decided to ask somebody for help, the most likely candidate's to me would be anybody pushing a buggy and so I asked four or five passing mothers, who just looked at the buggy and just shook their heads.
It looked like I was stuck until an old lass of maybe seventy walked up looked at the buggy and within seconds it was folded and ready to go in the boot. "How did you do that" I asked "experience I have had six kids and nineteen grand kids"she replied "wow thought she looked a bit tired".

Shutup

Picked lots of noisy kids up this week, it's the week before the schools go back and so it's the last minute rush for school uniforms. One woman was totally oblivious to her three unruly brats in the back, she just seemed to go into a trance as her kids fought screamed , and then rolled both windows down and started to throw things out including the taxi firms business cards. Still she just stared ahead deaf and blind to the chaos in the rear. That was when I braked and pulled over and without saying a word got out rolled up the back windows and placed my new sign that I bought a while back from Lancaster Castle, onto the dash, then I just looked at them for a minute without saying a word. They looked at me and then at the sign and that was it not a peep out of them for the rest of the journey. Funny thing was the mother never said a word, but she gave me a good tip with the fare.

Pink Bloody Ladies

Just read a piece in the Evening Mail about the ladies only taxi service Pink Ladies, they are a franchise outfit whose nearest outfit is based in Carlisle. It seems they are looking for some mug to take on the franchise for Barrow, I use the word mug because that's exactly what anyone would be who took it on. This outfit is run as a club in an attempt to get round the licencing regulations,this means they can sidestep rules that ensure minicabs and cab firms are licensed and their cars are roadworthy. this is being challenged by genuine cab firms who are understandably incensed by the fact that we in the trade who are abiding by the law and paying for it dearly are facing unfair competition. What's to stop any cowboy outfit from calling themselves a taxi club to avoid police and medical checks on their drivers and the strict insurance and mechanical conditions on the cabs. Barrow Taxi Drivers Association spokesman Henry Fayyazi was quoted as saying "I don't think Barrow taxi drivers would object to Pink Ladies as long as they are subject to all the checks that taxi drivers have to go through". Well Henry, it appears that they aren't, so here's one that does object, and strongly at that.

John Simmit

Ere guvnor guess who I ad in the cab today? one of those Tellytubbies, no not La La or Tinkywinky nor Po, but the coolest one Dipsy! yeah, you know the green one with the top hat. Mind you I didn't know that when I picked John Simmit the guy who played the character up from the Abbey House Hotel and took him to the station. It turns out he was here to appear in his new and talented role as a stand-up comedian at the Jongleurs comedy club event at the Canteen Media and Arts Centre. What a nice guy I enjoyed a good yarn with him on the drive into town and he tells me he likes the area and hopes to visit again soon especially now he has been told about the Laurel and Hardy Museum in nearby Ulverston. So let's hope local folk support the canteen and go there in droves so we can see more of this talent heading in Barrows direction.

Storewars

Looks like our local; Asda is playing keep up with the Joneses with Tesco by starting with a full refit at the same time. This has led to lots of my fares complaining about not being able to find anything in either store, and lots of taxi drivers complaining about not being able to find the taxi pickup point in Asda, they keep moving it without telling us, leading to us or the fare to be waiting in the wrong place grrr! The partly completed new larger roundabout outside Tesco does seem to improve traffic flow, but let's reserve judgment until it's finished, and lets hope the long awaited new entrance is started soon and maybe finished before the madness of Christmas, which as we all know will fly up now that the school holidays are about over.

Beach Bums

During the summer months especially on a Sunday morning, I seem to pick leftover party goers up from the so called all night beach parties that take place mainly in the Earnsie Bay area. This is a beautiful area with long stretches of often empty beaches and a huge nature reserve with many rare species within the sand hills including ,so they tell me up to 25% of the country's rare Natterjack toad population. On my day off I had a walk down there and yes the beach was deserted and pristine as usual, but walking back through the sand hills you can't help but see what a mess these weekend party animals are leaving (animals being the operative word). Broken glass and empty cans, and much worse, some of it being a health hazard, and lots of remains from fires dotted among the sand hills. With this being such an important local amenity why do we let this happen? surely local police, coastguards and wardens should be keeping an eye out for this lot at the weekend and if not why not?

Ice

The following is an edited version of a piece posted by kind permission of Wil a fellow taxi driver from Maui Hawaii.

"ICE "
If it hasn't already arrived in your neck of the woods, it'll be coming soon.
"Ice" is the street name for smokable crystal meth. It originated about five years ago in Hawaii and is very easily produced by processing some over-the-counter" cold/sinus/allergy medicines. About three years ago it began appearing on the "west coast" of the US, and showed up on the "east coast" shortly after that. It is slowly but surely working its way into America's "heartland". The transformation of to the over-counter" cold/sinus/allergy medicines into "ICE" is very cheap and simple and does not require volatile chemicals, such as "crack" (smokable cocaine) does.The drug is not really physically addicting (like heroin) but its harm comes from the psychological addiction. It stimulates the pleasure centres of the brain and releases massive amounts of endorphins.
Street value is very inexpensive but the "high" only last a few moments. To get that "rush" again, you have to have another "hit", and then another, and another, into a never ending downwards spiral. And it then doesn’t take long to go through their savings and any cash they can lay hands on. Eating becomes rare since the addict would rather have another "hit" than spend money on food, either for themselves or their families. It doesn't take long before they've lost their jobs, their possessions and their housing. The hunger for gratification is constant. Let’s face it; the body just loves that wonderful rush of endorphins. It makes all your troubles just disappear. Once the addict has reached the point where they have nothing of value to sell then they only have two choices left “crime or prostitution”. Personal pride is gone by then and besides, just another "hit" will stifle any guilt that they have left. Emaciation and physical neglect are the late stages until the body just withers and dies.I know that that it is just starting appearing in London. The rest of the UK and Europe will see it very, very soon.The police, everywhere, have understated how pervasive this drug is in their communities. Politicians are ignoring it and few newspapers are doing the necessary follow-up to inform the public.
“So I guess all I can say is "Take Heed."

Gretna Green

I had a bit of business up in Carlisle today but didn't have too much time for a good look round, so that's on the cards for one of my days off. But I did take the opportunity to make a quick raid over the Scottish border to the world famous "old smithy marriage room" The reason Scotland was chosen by runaways was for the difference in its laws surrounding marriage. Firstly, the marriageable age in Scotland was 16 as opposed to 21 in England. Secondly, in Scotland, a couple only had to declare their intentions to be husband and wife for their word to be law. So young lovers, sure in heart, were drawn north like bees to the honey pot. And of course, because of its proximity to the border, Gretna became the stopping point of choice for those wanting to get wed in a hurry.

Itsy Bitsy

I don't mind spiders at all, they just don't bother me, but going by the reactions I have had in the back of the cab lately, they sure do bother some people. Apparently, I have had a spider as a non-paying passenger for the last week or so. I've never seen it but going by the screams and quick exits that some fares make it must be a scary one. Every time someone mentions it I check the car out and despite searching high and low all I have found are a few silky threads. They tell me it's small and red and very quick, it must be to survive my weekly assault with the hoover. But one thing its good for is keeping kids quiet in the back after the first scream most get to the furthest corner and just watch in silent horror. Think I might get some more and keep them in a matchbox just to threaten the kids with.

Oh, the photo is of one innocent insect  the daughter nearly scared to death by screaming when she found it in the bath.

White Light

For a while now I have felt that staggered traffic lights aren't a good idea. Daily I see drivers taking a chance and going through just after the light has turned red, mainly because of the sheer frustration of the time taken for the lights to go through it's phases for each junction in turn. Barrows White house lights are one off the worst offenders and today for the third time this week the point was proven again. I was following a car up Abbey Rd and the lights were red but the car went straight on without even slowing down. What the problem seems to be is that they see the traffic coming towards them down Abbey Rd and they assume wrongly that as in normal junctions that the lights must be green, and so they don't even look at the lights especially if they are from out of town and don't know that we have such crazy junctions here. How long before we have a serious accident here or at one of our other staggered junctions.

Yo Taxi

Here's one from Terence Arjo New Yorkers hail a lot of cabs, and it can become quite competitive at rush hour when it’s raining, or late at night when bars and nightclubs close. This battle forces New Yorkers to risk their lives wading into oncoming traffic, frantically trying to get a cabbie’s attention.Yo, Taxi! is a coat embedded with a persistence of vision display, shown through a single row of LEDs positioned in the cuff of the coat. When the wearer raises his or her hand and begins waving it in the natural taxi hailing gesture, the LEDs illuminate. The POV strobes in time with the wearer’s action, creating the illusion of the word “TAXI” floating in mid-air.

Fair Fare

Well, we finally got a small increase in fares, and not before time, what with the vast increase in the cost of fuel and insurance , never mind the cost of living something had to give, and I think the local firms realised this. Even though this was all kept hush hush up till the last minute leading to drivers frantically rushing round trying to get their meters adjusted, all the firms seemed to pitch the increase at about the same level. But as usual, they all managed to sneak in an increase to the fees that they charge to us the drivers, ahh well in one pocket out the other

Animal Lover

These two photos from Bill they were taken down a seldom used road Buccleuch Dock Road and two houses are located at the bottom of this dead end I guess one of them is an animal lover.

A Women Scorned

As soon as my lady passenger got in the cab she asked me if I knew of a driver called Tony(I won't give his full name) who worked on our outfit, I did but I replied" no not really", so she began to describe him in the most unflattering terms, you know she said the small fat ugly one, well I said that could describe a lot of our drivers. And so she goes into even more gory detail, until finally, I said" yes I know who you mean"." He was my former husband" she said and then went on to tell me what a useless piece of trash she thought he was and how he had cheated on her and robbed her. "Why don't you use another cab firm to avoid him then" I asked "oh no I follow him around as he moves from firm to firm and tell all the drivers about him" And so as I was a captive audience for the next ten minutes or so I was treated with tales of how he was a bad father a bad lover and the full list of all his many nasty bad habits. A bit later I passed this driver and even though I took everything she said with a pinch of salt ( you know a woman scorned and all that)I couldn't help looking at him in a whole new light.

Lancaster

My day off and so it was off to the nearby Town of Lancaster for a day out, some great shops and buildings in Lancaster with lots of little cuttings and alleys, I love the one in the photo, Bashful Alley what a name wonder were that comes from? Some great pubs too Ye olde John O'Gaunt still retains a lot of the best features of a typical local boozer. Finished the day on a tour of Lancaster Castle which is still in use as a prison and a working crown court. They still hold the record for a public hanging, seven seconds from the condemned cell to the gallows and pronounced dead! Public hangings carried out there include the nine Pendle witches as well as countless public floggings. Australia benefited from the many petty criminals sentenced to be transported there since transport was free going ,but they had to pay if they wanted to return after they had served the sentence. It's a strange feeling being locked in one of the old cells and then the light being turned off for a minute or two no wonder many went mad or died in the many months they had to wait for trial.

Camp

One of my first jobs this morning was to pickup a guy from Dalton going to Barrow; it was early morning and so not too many folk around except for a chap painting his windows nearby. Now let’s get this straight I am in no way homophobic, I see most things on this job and most don’t shock or surprise me but our window painting friend was gobsmacked when he saw my fare kissing his boyfriend goodbye, what on his nice quiet suburban front street in Dalton never! His mouth was wide open and he was staring and never noticed that he was now painting over the glass in his windows. But I did have to suppress a laugh when a bit later my fare was telling me that he was going camping that night.

Boob Job

A couple of young lasses I picked up today tell me that the “bouncers” whoops sorry I forgot its door persons now, isn’t it now that we are all politically correct. Anyway they were telling me that some of the male doorpersons have a new way of telling if young ladies are over eighteen and so allowed on the premises. Apparently they don’t need to look at the faces or check the ID, they just check to see that they have a well developed bust! So now you know girls when you try to get in the local clubs stick that chest out and in you go, pity if you’re a late starter or even a non starter you may have problems so take your ID.

Rubbish

Billy another local taxi driver I know had a pickup from Hawcoat going into town. When he pulled up outside the fare was walking down the garden path carrying a large plastic bag, being the helpful type that he is Billy jumped out and took the plastic bag from her and placed it in the boot. When he got to the place where the lady was going he jumped out to get the bag for her, “oh no I don’t want that it’s just a bag of trash she said I was going to drop it in the bin on the way out but you insisted on putting it in your boot” And so that was Billy driving round trying to find a bin for this ladies trash, maybe he won't be so keen to help next time. Mind you this doesn’t surprise me coming from a driver who took a fare to Dane Garth the local mental health facility instead of Glen Garth the local posh hotel.

White Scar Caves

My day off and so it was off to White Scar Caves which is about forty five miles away near the small town of Ingleton, just over the Yorkshire border. What a great experience especially for kids they love it deep underground. Whilst we were on the tour it got quite busy and we had to squeeze past people on their way out. I had to laugh when we overheard a tourist say “why don’t they have a separate entry and exit tunnel” I mean this cave was formed naturally over millions of years by the natural action of water. But thinking about it I guess if it was located in Florida it would be made into some sort of theme ride with carpets, escalators and lifts, and maybe the odd scary dinosaur and caveman to add interest, thank god its not eh!
If you visit the website (link above) make sure you take the virtual tour.

Voicemail

Lots of fuss going on about the so called eavesdropping of the royalty’s phones, but it turns out that it’s only the voicemail from mobile phones which has been overheard. I thought most people knew that this was possible, but no it seems that theirs lots of muppets still out there with the default PIN numbers to collect their voicemail. If you don’t want to allow stalkers, suspicious spouses, Nigerian fraudsters or dodgy reporters to listen to your voice mail change your PIN now. If your not too sure here is the default PINs for UK mobiles if yours matches change it fast.
(Default PIN codes)
02 = 8705
Orange = 1111
T-Mobile = 1210
Virgin = 7890
Vodafone = 3333

The Answer

Its funny the things you find out are going on in the town when you talk to people you pick up, sometimes you have to take it with a pinch of salt but a lot of the times it turns out to be true. Take the two from this week the first was a guy who was working on the site on the corner of Duke St and Cavendish St, now at first glance it looks like the steelwork for a new building is going up, but no he tells me it’s to be a giant open book!. “What” I asked incredulously” what’s that all about?” he tells me that it’s a new art installation to tell the history of shipbuilding in Barrow. Wow can’t wait to see that finished and would love to know how much it is costing us, my bet is that it will equal or exceed the fine imposed for the legionnaire’s scandal. Next up is a guy who is working on the new Tesco expansion and he tells me a tale of somebody looking at the plans the wrong way and the offices being built on the wrong side of the building, he says nobody noticed until they were completed and that this has cost tens of thousands of pounds. If this is true nobody will be too surprised they do seem to have history of doing things back to front just ask anybody who’s trying to get off the car park stuck between the building site and the roadworks.

Unmasked

I was just dropping a young lady passenger off when she looked at me and exclaimed “you did my wedding.” This had me worried for a minute or two “what have I done wrong I thought” then she said “you write taxi tales in the local paper and you wrote about my wedding day” Oh yes? I said gingerly not knowing whether this was good or bad “yes it was funny and very accurate I was stressed that day you were right”. And so I was unmasked for the first time, but I have had people in the car talking about it quite a few times now and they have never guessed and I have never let on.

Guess What

This is something thats going up in the centre of Barrow on one of our main streets, I want you to try and guess what it is going to be and I'm betting that you will be wrong. Answer in a day or so.

Eastern Imports

The latest commodity to be exported from East to West is currently rolling off the production line in Prague and heading, literally, straight for our streets. Apparently a school over there is training potential taxi drivers; these taxi drivers come fully adapted to the British market, complete with knowledge of the Highway Code and a good grasp of English. So far around 200 Eastern European drivers from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have arrived in Britain having studied at the taxi school in the Czech capital. Most have been recruited for firms in Plymouth and Inverness but with promises of earning four or five times as much over here than back home I think maybe it won’t be too long before we see some locally. This is going to be even more likely when even poorer countries join the EU such as Bulgaria and Albania. Maybe some local cabbies should think about when and not if this happens and maybe smarten up a bit and to remember that we are a service industry and the only way to compete is to give a good service to the public.

Posh State

First job this morning was a return to the cemetery and back, and to be honest the lady was a bit morbid. “Aye she said me husbands in there an me mother and sister, but theirs room for me to join them as well when I go”” Lets hope it’s later rather than sooner” I said, she was silent for a minute or two then she said” aye maybe”. The next job was a young lass she had been written on with felt tip pen all over her arms, she had made the mistake of falling asleep at a party. Now she was feeling the worse for wear and just wanted to get home. She said “my parents will go crazy” why? I asked you seem old enough to do as you please.
“Oh no we live on a posh estate and they worry what the neighbours might think when I get out of a taxi with no shoes on and in this state”. Do people really think like that? I would have thought they would have been glad to see the daughter home safe and sound and hey! stuff the posh neighbours on the posh estate.

Shortest

I wonder what’s happened with the cycle lane at the junction of Barrows Rating lane and Abbey Rd. at about three yards long it’s either shrunk in the wash or we seem to have one of the shortest cycle lanes in the country. I wonder how much of our money has been wasted on these underused roads to nowhere. The longest cycle route on Abbey Rd has lost most of its green non slip coating and cyclists tell me it is dangerous in wet weather, looks like we have been ripped off by dodgy contractors. Let’s face it what’s the point of spending huge sums of money on these lanes and still allowing cars to park on them no wonder most of our local cyclists ride on the pavement. Then we have Greengate St where they do the opposite, with many thousands of pounds spent on a shared lane on the pavement cyclists choose to ignore it and risk their necks when drivers try to squeeze past them where the road has been narrowed to make room for the cycle lane.

The Mills

My day off today and so I took along walk down through Cavendish dock to the Greenway which is a path following the old railway line to the Concle at Rampside. As I walked past the old paper mills I couldn’t believe the devastation of the place how has it been allowed to get to this state? It seems it’s just a dumping ground for rubbish and a place where local petty criminals go to burn out and dump stolen cars and motorbikes. Whilst I was there three or four chavs on motorbikes all without helmets etc, flew past with scant regard for the safety of the walkers down there, and clouds of dust blew in all directions from the lunatic car driver doing hand brake turns etc, to impress his lady chavess both of them no more than fourteen. Looking at the development plans for the docks this area is marked as a wetland nature reserve, how can this happen with this blot in the middle of it, surely something must be done or the scheme will be a complete waste of money.
Let’s see this dangerous dump flattened along with the Mall and let’s see it done sooner rather than later.