Tiger makes a brief appearance.

Well Dublin City was a veritable boomtown on Saturday night. The city centre was absolutely packed from end to end. Queues at almost every late night bar and club. It was great to see so many people out there spending money and keeping the wheels of our rusty economy oiled. It was probably down to Friday night being a washout weather wise and also there was a big G.A.A. match on in the city on Saturday attracting about 80,000 people that might not have normally been out and about. I keep my digital camera in the car these days waiting for some interesting photo opportunities to arise, I had taken it out a few times to take pictures of a heaving city centre but was always flagged down by my next customer. I'm only driving a taxi since March 2006 but last night reminded me of how Saturday nights driving a taxi used to be. Very profitable to say the least!



Briefly on another note, my earnings for Jan '09 were the same as Jan '08 so with a 8% pay rise between the two January's that's not as much as a major difference in actual earnings as reported by some. I don't want to sound complacent but if you talk about something for long enough it is going to happen.



Finished up at about 5am and was at Spar on Baggot St. with a few of my taxi driver friends. I have become one of those drivers that I swore I never would, but to be honest I think it's nice to debrief after a nights work and get some free counselling if needs be. Fast forward to inside the Spar shop and my friend and I are drinking our coffee looking at the newspaper headlines. This drunk guy is knocking around the shop generally just annoying people so myself and my mate just head back to his car to have a chat and take ourselves out of the situation. 10 minutes later it appears there's been a scuffle in the shop which also carried over to outside. The taxi driver ends up on the ground and the drunk is legging it down Baggot St. and turns onto Waterloo Road. 3 taxi drivers (including ourselves) and another random 2 guys in a car literally tear off down the road looking to catch this guy. Knowing he couldn't have got far we drive around quite a small area looking for the drunk. We're searching and searching but to no avail. We're heading back to the Spar and suddenly the drunk sticks his head up and is spotted by a few of us at the same time. We all stop and surround the drunk and tell him to get down on the ground. He realises that there are four of us so doesn't put up any protest. Luckily one of the random guys was a doorman for 11 years so knew how to handle the drunk. The cops arrived anyway and recognised the drunk from giving him a warning 2 hours previous to this incident. They took him off to the station. The taxi driver was brought to hospital and the last I heard he had a fractured cheek bone, fractured wrist and had done some damage to his head as well. I hope he is on the mend and back working the streets sooner rather than later.