New York Taxi?

Is this the long awaited replacement for the iconic New York Taxi? This is one of the finalists.

Lap of Luxury

The latest car to join our fleet at A1 83-83-83 is certainly turning a few heads.
Local taxi users just cannot believe it when this brand new Bentley look- a- like purrs to a halt outside to pick them up. Then when they step inside to a world of plush leather and walnut trim to be transported in the lap of luxury they are astonished.
One chap who had ridden in style the previous day told me, when I picked him up in my more mundane saloon that he couldn't stop smiling for the rest of his day.
Tony the colourful character who runs the big shiny beast tells me that it can be hired for any occasion. Weddings, nights out, birthdays, executive travel or even just to give your old mum a treat.

Box Cab

Spotted in Benin West Africa this weekend on the road from the Burkina Faso border down to the port capital of Cotonou, Benin, : a car carrying a handmade coffin which was crafted to resemble a taxi cab. Presumably, this bespoke box was to be the final resting place for a taxi driver who perished. It is customary in some West African cultures to create coffins that call to mind some aspect of the deceased's life or work. Not everyone there gets buried in a customized coffin like this, but it is a sort of regionally specific popular art form. There is a phone number on the side but please don't call it. The guy's not gonna answer, and it might ring one of his survivors, which would be mean and rude.

Hard Life

For the last week or so I have been doing an occasional job transporting Russian sailors to and from the airport.

 The lucky ones were going home on leave from coasters carrying cargo into Barrow docks. Most are nice enough guys, but only speak as much English as I do Russian, and so the conversation is a bit limited. The one universally known word among them is "smoke," I have never known a Russian who doesn't smoke and so when I turn into the first service station on route and say the magic word it always brings on a big smile and" OK da." The replacement sailors I take to join the ships always look a bit glum and when I picked up one who spoke a fair bit of English, I learnt why.

I like a lot of folk had the false notion that these seafarers had the life of riley, seeing the world and meeting a new girl in every port. But no apparently I couldn't have been more wrong, he told me that most sign up for a six month contract and when they join the rest of the small crew on the vessel, that's it for the full six months they just never leave the ship. All of these vessels are registered under flags of convenience and so the minimum wage and health and safety rules just don't apply to these poor guys.

Since it is the first time inland in the UK for most of them I like to try and show them round our area if I get the chance. As well as many other local delights they get pointed out Dalton Wildlife Park and our spectacular Furness Abbey.

When I explained to the Russian sailor who spoke some English that the huge DDH shed was where nuclear submarines were built he pointed out that a few years back I would have been called a traitor and he would have been jailed as a spy.

On Friday night the Russian I collected from his ship was happy be going home but as it was 1: am and pitch black I wasn't able to point out our local landmarks. But as compensation I decided to drive him out of town by going past our local nightclubs and bars. As soon as we turned towards Barrow’s infamous Caza strip his mouth dropped open in amazement as he was confronted with the sight of hundreds of scantily clad young lasses. Two or three were lying on the pavement, legs akimbo and a few were happily vomiting the night away.

 A bit further up the street police struggled to break up a fight and the back doors of the police van were flung open ready to transport that nights bed and breakfast guests.

The sailor could speak a little English and he asked if Barrow was a big city and what was the population. When I told him “maybe sixty thousand” he laughed and replied “da and maybe ten thousand drunks, yes”

Sock it to em.

The town council in nearby holiday town Blackpool hired contractors to repaint the railings over the North Promenade -- but when the contractors reached a dirty old sock tied to the railing, they simply painted it. Contractors sprucing up North Promenade took the astonishing short cut when they came across the abandoned sock tied to a railing.

Passerby Andrew Purcell, 22, from Leyland who is working in the area, said: "I think painting round a sock instead of just removing it could quite possibly be the laziest thing I've ever seen.

"It does look quite funny tied there, but I suppose it must be annoying for the council if they are trying to improve the look of Blackpool."

Yaeh sock it to em Blackpool!

The Trouble-shooter

We tend to think of Texan oilmen as Stetson and cowboy boot wearing big loud brawny guys, but the trouble-shooter from Houston that I collected from a local hotel was just the opposite. He was of Chinese stock conservatively dressed, quiet, refined and well spoken.

 He was telling me that he was over to help sort out the much troubled Rivers gas plant at our vast Rampside Gas Terminal. The multi million pound project was completed three years ago but has not ever been able to start production. This has cost the staggering sum of three million dollars a day in lost production.

 Our diminutive Texan beamed as he proudly told me that his team had finished sorting out all the problems the previous day and that at long last the plant was finally in production. But as we drove past the helipad towards the gas plant his smile quickly faded. He pointed at part of the plant and explained to me that there should have been a gas flare burning when the plant is working. "Shucks I guess that they've gone and broke the darn thing again" he said shaking his head and adding a few more million dollars to the losses.

The Boat People

The Roa Island Wreck sitting next to the causeway near Foulney Island has become a familiar landmark to most folk round here for a few years now. Being near to the home of local TV star Dave Myers, it even made national television looking picturesque in the background of the new Hairy Bikers series the Hairy Bakers. I had noticed the rusty 70 foot former fishing trawler moving about during violent storms and always half expected to find the rusty hulk sitting astride the road to Roa Island at some point. A year or so back though I heard a rumour that the boat wreck had been sold, and started to look out for the scrap men towing her away or cutting her up where she lay. Next time I drove past her, I was so shocked that I nearly drove off the causeway and into the channel, some crazy guy was actually attempting to scrape away the thick layers of rust and paint her.

A week or two later and the rumours started to get even more bizarre, with tales of folk actually living on the marooned wreck. Asking around over the months I could only find scraps of information about the mysterious boat people, just who were these crazy folk? Strangely the answers come about when I happened to mention it to a fare that we pick up regularly from the Roa area. It's me said Helen straight away," along with my Partner Scott and daughter Saff."

I was shocked surely not, here was a perfectly sane respectable lady telling me that she lived aboard a ship wreck with no mains water supply, electricity, rubbish collection, phone line or postal address. But hey wait a minute, that also means no bills or rates to pay and with the added bonus that no one can find you. Helen tells me that they had been running pubs for the last ten years and had gotten heartily sick of the rat race. The boat is to be a five year project eventually morphing into a permanent house boat moored at a place yet to be decided. You really do have to admire the sheer guts and determination of this family, remember that life has to revolve around the high tides and if you don't get home in time, then you are stranded ashore. All the supplies you need for day to day living you will have to carry over the rocky muddy beach and up the steep ladder onto the boat. I really sincerely do wish them the very best of luck with this slightly crazy venture and hope that local folk will take them to heart and help out where possible. After all that's what us Furness folk are famous for. "What's the boats name? “You may well ask, and when you learn it and its translation then somehow it seems very apt. The trawlers name throughout its long hard working life has been the “VITA NOVA" which means fittingly "NEW LIFE."

Read Helen's blog at vitanovaroaisland.blogspot.com

Read the Vita Nova story at www.vitanova.me.co.uk

Suits You!

I shall more than likely be hunted down and thrashed with rolled up copies of the Guardian newspaper, by the PC brigade for this one, but it's a true story and I don't mean any offence. 
Walking down to the sea front I couldn't help notice as a women stood at a street stall trying on different styles of sunglasses. As she tried each pair on she gazed into a mirror and checked out how she looked in the different colours and styles.
 Then she would ask her companion for an opinion on whether or not they suited her. What was strange to my unsophisticated eyes was that she was dressed in full black Hijab and covered from head to toe with only a slit for her eyes.

Grand and Petit Taxi's

This battered old Chevy is a more unusual example of the Moroccan Grand taxi, most seemed to be battered 70s vintage Mercedes. The Grand taxi can seat up to six passengers and has no meter, fares can be negotiated before you hire one. The other type of taxi of which two can be seen in the background is the Petit taxi, they can carry three passengers and have a meter fitted. The Petit taxi is only used within the city limits and are amazingly cheap,anywhere in town for about £1.80p.



The example below is a Grand Taxi spotted on a dusty highway way up in the Anti Atlas mountains.

Snails in Morocco

Well Morocco certainly turned out to be a bit of a culture shock in more ways than one.

 Firstly to witness the poverty and hardship which is endured by most Moroccans with a smile is a humbling experience. Some rural folk out in the desert still live as they did in biblical times, eking out a meagre living with herds of goats and making the trek to the distant water well by donkey. Looking out the window at the pouring down rain, which everyone has been moaning about here in Barrow is a stark contrast to a country where a lot of children have never even seen rain, the last decent downpour was nine years ago!

 Then at the other end of the scale we were told of an Arab multi billionaire who was spending tens of millions to move a giant cement factory, lock stock and barrel, ten miles up the road just because it spoils the view from his newly constructed huge luxury palace.

 Wondering down the beach promenade at night was at first a bit daunting even at one or two o-clock in the morning crowds of twenty or thirty thousand local folks were wondering about. After a while we noticed that most people were in family groups ranging from grandma down to young babes, all simply enjoying themselves. The very idea of even one family walking about late at night like this in Barrow town centre particularly down our infamous Gaza Strip just doesn't bear thinking about.

 What makes the big difference of course is that even though it is available most locals just don't touch alcohol. It really is refreshing to walk down the street at night and not have to dodge the pools of vomit and suffer the intimidating behavior of aggressive drunks.

 Walking down the prom on the last night I spotted something which brought back distant memories of trips to Walney beach and gathering winkles. A street vendor was selling freshly cooked bowls of the delicacy complete with the obligatory pin to tease them from the shells. After eating a half dozen or so it finally dawned on me that they weren't winkles at all, just common garden snails cooked in brine. The missus always said I would eat owt. I guess she is right.

On the Road

Well folks that's me on holiday as from Wednesday 23rd July for two whole weeks. Good eh! I'm off to Morocco which should be interesting. I will post all about it when I get back, but in the meantime behave yourselves folks.

The End is Nigh

Another small piece of British history is about to be consigned to the dustbin, Westminster City Council will next month use new legislation to remove sandwich boards from the streets. Unfortunately it's said that the rest of London will soon follow suit, wiping out a colourful form of performance street art. Anybody who has studied any of the weird and wonderful characters who do the job will know what I mean. Under the new laws, sandwich-board men and the companies they advertise face fines of up to £2,500 if they fail to comply with the ban. The change is part of a £10 million plan to improve the so called ambience of the shopping district. It sounds more like a case of joining the rest of the England’s bland cloned high streets to me. Sandwich boards in years gone by were often used to carry spiritual messages with zealous wearers often using them to tell passers-by that the end of the world was nigh, doom was upon us. So finally after all these years they have been proved right, but unfortunately it’s the sandwich board men themselves that are doomed. I only wish that we were allowed to carry advertising on our cabs here in Barrow as they are in the bigger cities. They tell me that big money is to be made using your taxi as a mobile poster, I for one would be up for it, but maybe not a ”The End is Nigh” type poster.

Luxury Cases

A new range of suitcases recently introduced must surely be the last word in luxury for lazy folk.
The cases are actually powered by electric motors driving the wheels, all controlled via the handle. I hope I don't come across folk with any that they want hoisting in the boot, they weigh nearly 11kg empty, so imagine the weight when full. Still at £700 each I don't expect I will see too many about. You think thats expensive eh? Don't worry they tell me that they come with a built in umbrella thrown in.

The New King of Piel Island

This one courtesy of local history enthusiast Bernard Devlin. This was broadcast on the popular Countryfile series last month. Some superb shots of Piel and it's castle from the air, and a bit of local history thrown in for good measure.

Cool Bus Stops

Why cant we have cool Bus Stops like these instead of the drafty urinals that we have now.

Up North

Whilst Barrow suffered the wind and rain all Whit week, I headed north to Scotland and basked in the glorious sunshine. A trip to the Isle of Arran in particular seemed more like being on one of the Greek isles. Its strange how most folk head south when they go away for a UK break, there's a lot to see and do up north if only they would just give it a try. Despite driving for a living, I was a sucker for punishment and did quite a few miles around Scotland. Two things I noticed on my travels are soon to be introduced down here anytime soon. The first is the dreaded average speed camera; this differs from our fixed speed trap camera, in that it consists of two cameras which can tell if you have broke the speed limit anywhere between the two cameras. The two cameras can be miles apart, so rule out the usual trick of slowing down to go past the camera and then putting your foot down again. Whatever your opinion of them good or bad, you can’t but agree that they are definitely a lot more effective than our present speed traps. The other thing I saw was lots of examples of the thing which is causing lots of controversy here in Barrow at the moment. It seems that whether we want it or not we are going to end up with a new academy school here in Barrow sooner rather then later. But let’s hope that the design for the new building is a lot better than the examples I come across up north. Without exception every one of them could be mistaken for a cheap factory building, something like smaller versions of our own local submarine factory, the D. D.H. Some folk might argue that’s exactly what these large academies are “factories for kids”

Keswick to Barrow 08

We had the annual Keswick to Barrow walk on Saturday and again it seemed to be the biggest, best organized event yet. It always amazes me to see people arriving back after actually running the whole forty mile route. One tired walker I picked up later in the day had been to watch Barrow's triumph at the soccer match down in Burton and had not arrived home until 2am, and then had to rise at 4am for the start of the huge hike. He told me several folk had done this, wow what heroes they must be. What puzzles me is why the occasion doesn't seem to get more nationwide publicity, when you see the coverage given to events such as the London marathon, which at 26.22 miles is by comparison a stroll in the park. This hugely popular event brings in folk from far and wide, with local hotels all full and businesses benefiting by the cash the walkers spend. Maybe after the recent local elections some of the keen new faces will hopefully push to get the event promoted further afield. Many folk I took to cheer the walkers on told me "the atmosphere is fantastic for the crowd watching as well" so maybe it should also be promoted as a spectator event. Pity about the lack of a proper taxi pickup point again, it was a struggle to get anywhere near the finish point and the exhausted entrants had to walk even further to be collected.

” The Keswick to Barrow Walk is a 40 mile sponsored stroll through some of the country’s finest landscapes. The route starts on the southern side of the Lake District town of Keswick and winds its way through some of the most beautiful scenery to the Victorian town of Barrow in Furness on the coast of the Irish Sea.!

The idea of walking from Keswick to Barrow originated in 1966 as a result of a statement made by the late US President, John F Kennedy to the effect that "every American should be capable of walking 50 miles a day". At this time the first Polaris Submarine - HMS Resolution was being built at the shipyard in Barrow and several American experts were resident in the area assisting with the project.

With the idea now conceived, plans were soon under way to organise a walk and build relationships with the crew of the submarine and the workers at the then ‘Vickers’ shipyard. The initiative was taken by the Installation Manager (Submarines) to formally challenge the Commanding Officer of HMS Resolution to form a team and walk from Keswick to Barrow on 1st April 1967.”

The Uno

It looks like a motorcycle that has been in a nasty accident, but the inventor of this electric bike believes it is the answer to urban traffic chaos and pollution.
Although it resembles a unicycle, the Uno has two wheels side by side and uses gyroscopic technology to stay upright. Check out the full story here.

Backwards Bus

Don't know about you but this would freak me out if I was behind it on the motorway. More photos here.

Iraqi Traffic

This is a major junction in Iraq. hey who needs traffic lights? Traffic seems to find it's own way quite well without any help.