Red Light Fever

The new traffic lights at the junction of Abbey Rd and Dalkeith St are up and running now, not that some people have noticed. I have counted at least four near misses now as people drive straight through the red lights without even noticing that they are there. Maybe it’s because they have been driving that route for so long that they do it on autopilot, and since there are no signs to say that we have a new set of lights they just don’t notice. I have found that if you are unlucky enough to hit every one of the seven sets of lights on red at junctions and crossings it can now take up to sixteen minutes from Tesco roundabout till the last set of lights at the Strawberry. This is to cover the grand distance of one and a half miles, this takes us back to the times of the horse and cart makes me wonder what with today’s fuel prices it might be worth thinking about investing in a horse drawn cab. Do you have to stop at the red lights I wonder and can the traffic warden ticket a horse?

Nella Last

I wondered what was going on when I dropped a fare off near Barrows Parade St today, what with a crowd of people in forties dress and cars from the same period. Being the nosey devil that I am I drove round a few times and asked someone what was going on. Turns out that they are making a TV drama based on the true-life wartime diaries of Nella Last and so I will be eagerly waiting for that to appear on TV. It was great to see how they recreated the forties for the day by covering the road markings and even painting doors and covering up modern features on people’s houses, even Duddons tyre depot became Vickers shipyard for the day. I read a few extracts of Nella diaries on the BBC website and think I will try to find a copy of the book.
Here an extract
"Wednesday 7 May: Nella heard that a friend was killed in a bombing raid on Barrow.
Poor Kathleen has gone - went the other night in that direct hit in Hawcoat Lane. I'm not a melting woman but I felt for one split second that I'd melt and pour out of my clothes. Kathie Thompson - the sweetest and most loveable and only 21 now. We are, indeed, all in the firing line.
There were public shelters in Barrow for only 3,500 people - out of a population of 70,000. As a direct result of the Blitz, 83 people were killed and 330 injured; 10,000 houses were damaged."

Parade St

Notice the thirties bike and the gas mask box all bits that add authenticity

Eygpt

Here's one from Peggy in Cumbria it's a view from the other side of the fence about how so-called taxi drivers tried to rip her off in Eygpt.

Brown Eyes

I picked my very first job of the day up this morning at about 7.30 am and it was to be just a short ride into town, I was talking away with the fare when I saw a guy with a loose dog on the pavement up ahead, luckily I braked and slowed just in case. Yes you’ve guessed it out runs the dog straight in front, I could see it coming but couldn’t stop in time, then comes the sickening bang and the dog disappears. Luckily for the dog, I was driving a modern car with a plastic bumper which is shaped to help save pedestrians by hitting low and scooping them up onto the bonnet and saving them from going under the car.
And so in what seemed like slow motion to me the rather large brown dog appeared on the front of my bonnet looking straight at me with surprised big brown eyes. Apart from a few brown hairs there was not a mark on the car, oh and the dog was OK too. The guy with the dog was as drunk as a skunk and didn’t say a word he just stood in the road swaying gently back and forth until his wife led him away. All was well and so we set off again and only got a few hundred yards when the local postman who was walking along sorting his letters sauntered out straight in front of us, after another narrow miss I considered making the first job of the day my last.

Scarecrow

I was coming back through the village of Urswick and braked hard when I thought I saw a burglar in action and in broad daylight at that. When I stopped and looked a bit closer I realised that it was a dummy, this had me baffled for a while until I spied, even more dummies in all sorts of odd places and then a notice which solved the mystery. Apparently, it’s the Urswick scarecrow festival, and the more I looked around the more of these works of art revealed themselves, what a brilliant idea I hope this one goes from strength to strength and I will be taking time out this time next year to go scarecrow spotting again.

More scarecrows

Legionnaires

I paid a visit to the visiting continental market today; it was set up in the town square right in front of the town hall. Whilst I was there I noticed a TV cameraman filming the scene of the crime which occurred four years ago now seven deaths and one hundred and seventy-two made ill with legionnaire’s disease some of whom may be permanently affected. Yet no one is willing to stand up and say that yes it was their fault, just this endless buck passing and hoping it will all go away.
Four years have passed and maybe it’s working after all its, yesterday’s news now isn’t it? You know it’s not that long ago when town squares such as this would have a gallows and in some country’s they still do. Maybe in place of a memorial we should erect just such a gallows right in the middle of the square in view of the lair of the perpetrators.

London Cab

The London Taxi is now available in the states, I wonder how many they sell.

Resting

This one from Bill is of a drunk who decided to have a rest on a plastic bollard which promptly collapsed.

Pollution

The back seat of a taxi is one of the worst places to be for exposure to ultrafine particulate pollution, a new study has revealed.
People on buses and those riding bikes are also exposed to a lot of the pollutant, while pedestrians and, ironically, those in private cars, are exposed to the least. Or so says a very unscientific "to me anyway" sounding survey in the New Scientist

Muck Magnet

As I pulled up outside a house to pick up a fare today I noticed a black dirty oil patch outside and so I parked just past it to save my fare walking through it and messing the car up. The fare turns out to be a harassed mum and her three young kids, the two older boys got in the car and told me that they were going to a party meanwhile the girl of about two ran around and danced in excitement outside. Then, of course, the muck magnet which is built into every kid kicks in and she goes head over heels into the oil, she is covered from head to toe and all over her party clothes. And so the harassed mum finds a clean bit, picks her up and takes her in to wash and change.
Ten minutes later she runs out dancing and giggling and whilst harassed mum is locking her door she tumbles straight into the oil patch again if it wasn’t for the little girls tears and cries of” mum, mum” I would have laughed. Harassed mum decided enough was enough and just wiped her down and said she’d have to go as she was.
I guess that she never did a good job of the clean up judging by the perfect black child’s footprint on the less than perfect butt of my next lady passengers white jeans, I almost felt guilty but it was the last job and so I went home laughing.

Pub or Home

It was a slow Sunday with few rural runs but two jobs stand out from today.
The first was from Walney Island, I got to the address and was waiting for a minute or two when a guy walked down the garden path towards the car, then he stopped and went back inside presumably to answer his phone which had started to ring. I seemed to be for waiting ages after that and so I blew the horn, just then another car pulled up behind me and also sounded his horn. Then I spied the guy sneaking out of the house and he then actually climbed over the hedge and into next doors garden to use their gate to make his getaway. What I think happened was that his mates had rung him and offered him a lift instead of paying for a taxi and he was too spineless to tell me and then maybe have to pay the no pick up fee. All to save a couple pounds, I hope he ripped his pants and gets a dodgy kebab for supper. But still all it took was a call to the office and when he rings next time hard luck the computer won’t send him a cab he’s on the banned list.
The last job of the day was from a pub in Dalton and when the couple finally come out and get in the cab they both say different destinations,” Which one first” I asked no he said” just the one we’re going home” “oh no we are not she says we’re going to the Railway pub”. This went on back and forth between them and got increasingly heated, now then which one do you listen to? After a minute or two I worked out that the guy was the more sober of the two and took them home, with the women getting more and more abusive to him I was glad when they got out, but as I drove away I could still hear her shouting that she wanted to go to the pub from a few hundred yards down the street.

What Fare Rise?

After a piece appeared in the Evening Mail reporting that taxi fares are to rise by 12.5 % I have had quite a few people moaning to me about this and asking when our fares go up. Well, I for one am sad to report that it doesn’t affect pre-booked or private hire fares, this fare hike is solely for hackney fares from a taxi rank. Passengers from the rank are a small proportion of the total of daily fares and this rise will only benefit a relatively small number of drivers.
In the past private hire rate rises used to follow on the heels of hackney increases but always at a lower rate, this has fallen by the wayside over the last few years due to fierce competition between taxi firms. None of them want to be the first to raise fares for fear that the others may not follow suit. This has left us the poor self-employed drivers as the piggies in the middle with rising fuel prices and ever increasing overheads without a fare increase for more years now than I care to think about. This has to stop its not good for the taxi trade and in the long run its not good for the customers, I’m sure people would rather have small regular fare rises that are in line with inflation rather than at some time in the future have one big fare hike, because that’s what will happen, eventually the piggy in the middle won't want to play anymore.

Easy Stripper

I see another one of our Taxis has been damaged to the tune of £1000 along with other cars in the area. Again the dreaded paint stripper had been used and I wonder when the suppliers of this dangerous chemical cocktail will come to their senses and register the details of the buyers of this stuff voluntarily before they are forced into it by legislation. Apart from the many hundreds of thousands of pound of damage done to cars every year it’s a known fact that this stuff is used as an ingredient in some recipes for home made explosives readily available on the internet. On visiting our local Asda supermarket I was gob smacked to see this lethal stuff on sale actually in an aerosol , just to make it that much easier for our local vandals to use. Great idea eh and all for the bargain price of £5 98p and no proof of age required buy a can and you could be doing thousands of pounds worth of damage in the car park within seconds

U.S Chavs

. Whilst I was waiting in line for stuff at the theme parks in Florida I amused myself trying to spot the US version of the chav. And I was rewarded with rich pickings, the Latinos, in particular sported lots of vest tops and bling that our local boys would die for big five inch crosses with gold chains thick enough to hold back five frenzied pit bulls. No bare chests though because it’s against the state law for public places in Florida, a lot of folks would like to see that one over here.
It seems to be the practice to have a tattoo on the back of the right shoulder (which was great when I was behind them) always badly drawn and sometimes miss-spelt usually it consisted of their name and someone else's in either a crucifix for the Latinos and something from the occult for others. I hope I’m not being none PC here but why use black ink for a tattoo on black skin I found these hard to read but daren’t put my reading glasses on or they may have taken offence. Never heard any swearing like our local chavs do but then again most seemed to speak Spanish.

We Lost

There seemed to be a mist in the air this morning which smelt very much like barbecued England flags and shirts, then most of my early morning fares insisted on telling me why England lost last night's game. This gets a bit boring after a while so I amused myself counting the pools of broken glass and snapped saplings, which marked the route home of last nights broken hearted soccer fans. Come on guys its only a game.

Latest Crazes

The latest craze with the kid are trainers with wheels which click out of the heels, youngsters were just gliding past as if they were floating on air and as my daughter says they are cool I think maybe they will be big over here for this next Christmas. They are called Heelys and believe it or not one of the biggest suppliers in Europe is right here in Barrow Kate’s Skates of Dalkeith St.
Texting never did catch on the US probably because they don’t get ripped off to the same extent with call charges, what a lot of younger people seem to be using on their mobiles is a system that has just become available over here it’s called PTT. The idea is that your phone acts just like a walkie talkie you select who you want to talk to from a list press a button and that’s it no dialling or waiting connected in under a second, after that its just press to talk and no need to hold your phone to your ear the speaker chirps up when the other person talks. I would use that myself as I am useless at text slang I need a dictionary of textspeak to decipher any texts I get, and as for sending them for me it’s quicker to use voice.

Jock

This is the sight that greeted me this morning on one of my first jobs of the day.

What's not changed

I was surprised to see that sheets and blankets are still in widespread use, for years now we seem to have gone over completely to the continental quilt or duvet as we call them. I’m a bit puzzled by this especially in hotels just think of the labour and cost savings that they bring. What with no chip and pin with credit cards security seems to be very poor I was asked to sign even when I was totally blind, that could only have been a scribble and when the wife handed my card over in the pharmacy no one questioned why her name started with Mr on the card. Also, I found myself waiting for doors to open all the time we have got used to automatic sliding doors on nearly every public building in the UK but not so in Florida, I wonder why

Whats Changed

It's been seven years since my last visit to Florida, so let's take a look at what I think has changed in that time. For a start,far less smokers which is a good thing, and alcohol seems to come with a compulsive health warning on the bottle, but I have noticed they are doing this voluntarily on some brands in the UK. Quite a bit less obesity and a lot more lower fat foods on offer. We were having a meal at the Kennedy Space Centre when the boy of six or seven at the next table looked wistfully at another table and said "remember when we used to eat hamburgers mum" then continued picking at his salad. But it's the same as in the UK when you go into the poorer areas the smoking and obesity are still there; I guess fat; sugar and baccy are cheaper than the healthy option. I see they have started to charge for parking in the theme parks now $10 what a cheek, but the motorist has no other choice, talk about a captive market. Cars are definitely getting smaller and lighter and a lot like the so -called Pontiac I was driving seem to be far eastern imports with a US badge stuck on. One big difference was the much tighter security everywhere with bag searches and photos and fingerprints taken at the airport. They had so-called fingerprint scanning at the theme parks with lots sophisticated looking gadgets but when we swapped passes it still let us in so I would suspect that this may just be bluff The main language isn’t English anymore Spanish is rapidly catching up if not taking over in a lot of places with signs in both and more Spanish heard than English.

Fathers Day

I was surprised to see how much fuss was made for Fathers day (which falls on the same day as in the UK) over in the states. Television and radio bombarded us with advertisements one even for a ride on coolbox . I even saw huge Fathers day cakes on sale in the huge Wal-Mart stores we visited. Restaurants had special offers on and it was mentioned constantly on by TV anchormen even during the news briefs. It never really took off in the UK I don’t think I have ever picked anyone up going out for a meal or drink for Fathers day which is in complete contrast to Mothers day which is one of our busiest days of the year.

Shakey Shades

My daughter Emma models the special shades.

Normality

Well, it’s been a week or so since I got back and things seem to be more or less back to normal. The eyesight seems OK but I have not been back to work since I got back and have been resting the eyes to make sure everything is one hundred per cent for when I start work tomorrow. Funny but people worry about riding with sightless cabbies and I may not get much custom if I wore the special glasses I was given.
Let’s hope it’s a busy weekend with the world cup football and two local carnivals going on.

Frankie

First Sight

I awoke next day and things were slightly better, I could see shadows and shapes but still couldn’t stand the light. My return to the eye clinic wasn’t until late afternoon and so I stayed indoors and kept up with the medication (which by UK standards was very expensive $400 or £215). Things got better as the day went on and by the time my friend Frankie the taxi arrived to take me to the clinic some of my sight had returned, and so I got to see Frankie for the first time and he never looked a bit like I thought he would. This time I felt a bit more like talking and found out that Frankie was originally from Columbia and had been driving taxi for thirty-two years a lot of them in New York City (that explained the swearing in Spanish I had heard) I can’t emphasise enough what a nice guy he was even giving me some dark classes to help my eyes and telling me not to worry about payment if I was short. On arrival at the clinic again it was nothing like I thought it was and the staff looked nothing like I imagined, but they were all really nice people and seemed really pleased that my sight had returned. After an hour or so back in the torture chamber I was given the ok to fly home as long as I went to my local hospital as soon as possible. The next day Frankie took me to the airport for the long flight home. The only panic after that was when I was told that I needed a letter from the doctor to say I was fit to fly luckily this was all sorted out by fax and eight hours later I was on my way home.

Torture Chamber

After what seemed like hours of anxious and painful waiting I was seen by the eye specialist. He began by giving me an anaesthetic in both eyes and this brought some of my sight back, but as he told me this would be short lived only giving him time to examine the eyes. I don’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing because all I saw for the next hour or so was needles going into my eyeballs. Funny but your natural reaction is to flinch when a needle is coming toward your eye, and so I was almost glad when my sight faded away again. His diagnosis was some kind of virus possibly picked up from one of the water parks, and he described it as like hundreds of blisters on the cornea of the eyes almost like a cold sore on the eye. He said it was very rare for both eyes to be affected and that he would prescribe some antiviral drugs. He then said I must come back the next day for further treatment, not that it mattered because my flight home had long departed. Then my new taxi driving friend Frankie was called and he came straight away to collect me for my second sightless taxi ride back to the hotel.

Blind Faith

As I lay sightless and getting more and more worried that this may be a permanent thing and how or if I could cope someone told me that I was to go to an eye clinic on the other side of Orlando. I of course, was thinking of our good old National Health Service were I would be whisked there free of charge by ambulance. But no “a taxi is on the way for you and that will be $123 please how would you like to pay?” Someone had to go into my pockets and count the cash out “I feel awful doing this” I heard her say, and then as an afterthought she handed me what she said was a fifty dollar bill from my pocket for the taxi fare.” Don’t let him see that you have much cash on you” she said, this didn’t really inspire much confidence in the local taxi service but I was in no position to argue. She couldn’t have been more wrong my taxi driver looked after me like a concerned father he asked my name and tried to reassure me on the twenty-minute ride to the eye clinic. At the clinic he took me in and up in the lift to the second floor then he explained that I was sightless to the receptionist and gave her his personal number to ring when I needed to be picked up. I myself have picked up sightless people in my own taxi but it was really strange to be on the other side of the fence, and I can truly tell you that it’s a frightening experience, you really do need to trust people without any of the preconceptions or prejudice that sight can give us all. You don’t know the colour of the hand that offers help or whether they are fat or thin gay or straight, and you care even less. After the receptionist filled in my forms for me she guided a pen in my hand to the paper and helped me sign in five places “crazy or what?” I was then guided to what would become for the next few hours my torture chamber.

Foggy

Well, I have lots to tell about my time in Florida but let's start with the bit at the end of it when things really turned weird. The day before I was due to fly home and we were visiting Blizzard beach in the Disney resort about mid afternoon I said to the wife "it's gone a bit misty hasn't it"no she said looking at me as if I were daft. By 5:30 it was downright foggy to me and so I called at a pharmacy for some eyewash and hoped all would be well next morning. Next morning and things were worse, and so it was off to a walk in medical centre down the road. After what seemed like hours with the flight time fast approaching I was finally examined by a doctor.What happened next would never happen in England, or in most other places for that matter and it really freaked out my wife and daughter. After putting drops of dye into my eyes and looking at them with UV light she shouted " OH MY GOD" and ran to tell other medical staff to come take a look. Well, I asked "can you give me something and I'll go and catch my plane." she said "no way if this isn't treated within the next few hours you will lose at least one eye" What a drama queen eh? at this point, it was decided that the wife and daughter would go back to the hotel to cancel flights and rebook the room, and so I was left awaiting a call back from a local eye clinic. Ten minutes later the last of my sight went and I was left totally blind.

Kidnap and Robbery

One of our drivers early on Saturday Morning was on his way back from Grange over Sands when he was given a job to pick up a fare in Ulverston. Shortly after he picked up a group of men a knife was produced and held to his neck from behind. He was threatened and then made to drive the ninety or so miles to the city of Salford, here he was forced to drive these animals around picking and dropping off other people as they drove around the city. At one point mention was made of going to collect a shotgun “my god” what thoughts must have gone on in his head then we can only imagine. Eventually, they let him go but only after robbing him of the eighty pounds or so that he had with him. This sort of thing rarely happens around here but it does bring it home how vulnerable we all are to this sort of cowardly attack. I believe the driver has been left traumatised by this and is thinking seriously about his future.
What does annoy me is that as is usual in this type of thing you always get the smartarses who say what they would have done in the situation, crashed the car etc, but nobody knows how they will react until it happens. I think that the ones with the biggest mouths are the ones who would fall to pieces the quickest.

Back at Last

Well, I finally arrived back in the UK late Friday and after the problems, I have had its good to be back. I have not been able to use a PC until now for reasons which I will explain more about later. But first some news from closer to home which I was told about when I dropped into the office to explain my absence and tell them I will not be at work this week.

Holdays

This may be my last post for two weeks I am off to Florida on holiday(vacation ) for two weeks from Tuesday and so unless I get into an internet café that's all for now, folks. And yes I do know that's the 6.6.06 and am I worried "well no not really" Oh any tips about Florida are welcome before Tuesday. Cheers folks

Gone Fishing

My first job this morning at 7; 30am was to take a guy up to High pond Roanhead he was going fishing. I knew where he was going straightaway I had picked him up many times before the amount of stuff he had with him seems to multiply, enough this time to fill the boot (trunk) and a good bit of the car as well. It has always bemused me the dedication of this guy he’s out fishing in all seasons breaking the ice if need be. Knowing nothing about fishing myself I’ve asked him about it on the many trips to Roanhead and was amazed when he told me that he doesn’t even get supper out of it the fish are put back in the water. The biggest fish caught there was a carp weighing 35lb 9oz “that would feed me for a day or two” and the pond isn’t natural its flooded iron ore workings last worked in the 1920s. I was still not sold on the idea of sitting there all day and kept asking him what he gets out of it “relaxation” he says. So today when I dropped him off I got out and had a walk round the pond and took a few photos, then I sat down for a while and you know what it really is relaxing. Still couldn’t be bothered carting all that gear about, though.

The Deutschland

The German cruise ship Deutschland

The Mall

The German cruise ship Deutschland visited us for a day today and the five hundred passengers had the choice of a coach trip up to the Lake District or a free bus into the town centre. I am sorry to say that one of the first they would see on approaching the middle of town is the hideous derelict 1970’s Mall what a disgrace. This has been in this state for years now and despite promises and grand but empty plans, it still remains to blight the rest of our mainly Victorian town centre. Sometimes when I have fares that are strangers to the town I try and avoid driving past it but when it’s unavoidable I really do cringe. The time for talk with its absentee landlord is over let’s be having something done with it now it surely must be top priority.

Windermere

A photo I took of Lake Windermere last week, let's hope it was as nice as this for the German visitors today.

Rank

Here's a webcam which should get interesting on a Friday and Saturday nights. It is in the market town of Newbury in Berkshire and one of the views is  a hotspot for trouble, a taxi rank next to two burger vans located near to the nightlife.

Night Fight

A passenger was telling me about a fight which took place in one of our supermarkets (Tesco) last night. Apparently a drunken couple started to argue with other customers at the checkout and this developed into a full-scale fight with groceries being used as weapons and vegetables being thrown at staff.
I took this with a pinch of salt and had forgotten about it until about half an hour later when I overheard two more passengers talking about it. I asked them and they said pretty much the same thing, adding that it took place between two and three in the morning. This leaves me thinking has it got something to do with the new twenty-four-hour sale of alcohol in these large supermarkets. One of my fares who works nights in one of these places tells me that that even in the dead of night he regularly sees teenage mothers with babes in arms shopping for cheap cider and wine. If this is the way things are going I wonder about the safety of the staff and customers, and think maybe they should be spending some of the massive profits they make on better security.

Any Flags?

On a visit to Kendal I noticed this shop and was tempted to go in and ask if they had any England flags. US readers won't get this but it's typical English humour, for example we find it funny when in a chain of shops called the pound shop (so called because everything is priced one pound) to pick things up and ask how much is this?

Empty Throne

I visited the Dock Museum today and noticed that the throne from the Ship Inn at Piel Island is on display. Let's hope this is a temporary home for it and its back where it belongs as soon as possible. I see the local council have an advert on their website for a new King of Piel and this leads me to think that they are looking at this as a revenue earner. Nothing wrong with that in principal as long as it doesn’t lead to local people being priced out as customers and as prospective tenants after all this Island does belong to the people of Barrow.