Cablog

Fishing

As a boy one of my favourite pursuits was fishing on family holidays. Whilst this never developed beyond a casual pastime, with catches few and far between, nevertheless I attempted to teach my son how to fish when he was a boy.

Sadly I had even less success than my father had instructing me.

The final lesson occurred one day in a hired tinny at Como on the Georges River. I was using a twenty buck telescopic rod, an indication of my amateur intent, when I announced with some fanfare, “Now son, this is how you cast a fishing rod.”

Employing a reckless one-handed grip, I whipped out the line only to have the rod handle slip through my bait-slimed grasp and into the river. Yep, that’s how you do it. Naturally the boy found this absolutely hilarious and has dined out on my stupidity ever since. Groan.

Well, I can now report that twenty years later nothing has changed in the fishing department.

Since moving to the country I’ve been determined to master the dark art of fishing, and even catching something would be a bonus. So last week I confidently headed off with a new beach rod to again try my luck.

After two fruitless hours of watching gulls land copious fish, I made one last cast and finally jagged the bugger who’d been gratefully pinching my bait. It didn’t matter being an undersized catch, I’d won the battle. Victory!

As he wiggled and flapped pathetically on the end of the line I decided to take a photo to prove to my sceptical connections that I could actually catch fish. So I undid a shirt pocket and pulled out my brand new, multimedia phone.

Once the image was captured I pocketed the device and hastily released the minnow to throw back into the water. This left me with a slimy hand which I bent down to wash in the shallows. Doh!

Immediately a black object flashed past my eyes and straight into the drink. Scratch one phone, with 22 repayments remaining, necessitating a replacement model via eBay costing some $300. Double groan.   

This weekend my son is flying up from Sydney. There will be no fishing. We want to relax.

(The original phone in action here for a BBC website)

Hopeless

The demise of NSW Transport Minister, David Campbell highlighted, once again, the recent debacle on the F3. This involved his failure to oversee the implementation of a contra-flow plan for traffic gridlocked by an accident on that freeway.

Seemingly, however, no such plan exists for another transport link, NSW country trains. Or if there is such a plan it failed miserably this week on my trip home from Sydney to the North Coast.

On Wednesday I boarded the lunchtime CountryLink train for the usual six hour journey. Sadly, one hour earlier, a poor soul decided to end it all in front of a freight train between Taree and Wauchope.

Thus six hours later we stopped at Taree, unable to proceed further. There was also the morning train from Sydney waiting plus south bound trains stopped at Wauchope whilst the police accident team from Newcastle conducted their investigation.

Fair enough, that’s life, and death. However none of the rail staff could say when or how the hundreds of affected passengers would be able to complete their journeys.

Fortunately I had caught the later train and so was only detained for an hour or so compared to those who’d waited over five hours. Eventually buses arrived to ferry the passengers up and down the highway to their various destinations. 

Although the blocked section of railway was only one hour by road, one would think a contra-flow plan could have been instituted to utilize the various trains waiting at either end, right? Wrong.

We’re talking about the hopeless NSW transport system.

(Lifeline, 24 hour crisis support on 13 11 14) 

Broken

Over the weekend the cab broke down with a solenoid failure in the gas converter. Despite the rain a passing police patrol helped push the car to a safe spot and I waited some thirty minutes for the owner to arrive.

The dodgy part was by-passed enabling the cab to limp home. Whilst that was the end of the shift I wasn’t unhappy as this rarely happens and it was a dead Monday morning, anyway.

Vandals

Last weekend involved some wilful vandalism on the cab. Thankfully this is not a common occurrence but when it happens it’s really annoying.

Four English fellas hopped in on Cleveland Street, Chippendale for Scruffy Murphys. They had been boozing and were really lively, most likely off to watch the FA Cup Final.

Within seconds I was shouting that blown stereo speakers weren't worth the ten dollar fare as the front passenger continued cranking the volume to maximum levels.

During the racket the rear passengers pinched the two front headrests, which I didn’t notice until an hour later when stopped for a coffee.

I reasoned they wouldn’t gain entry to the hotel carrying bulky headrests and would dump them around the drop-off point on crowded George Street. So with faint hope I headed back there.

After checking some rubbish bins I found one intact headrest down the footpath and the other around the corner near Sussex Street. It had been placed under my rear wheel-I recalled a bump on departure-and afer being hit and dragged by other vehicles was pretty mangled.

Consequently the shift was completed without a passenger headrest which an irate drunk insisted was highly illegal. Can anyone confirm this?

Here’s a similar question relating to a friend’s vehicle which needed a registration check. The mechanic identified a busted horn plus an active warning light on the airbag. Instead of fixing the horn, a requirement for rego, he only replaced the airbag, charging some $800.

Later she was told the airbag, which she couldn’t afford to replace and didn’t request such, is not a mandatory function for rego purposes. True or false?

Spotted

A bloke climbed in on Monday evening and asked, are you the blogger? He had been living in New York and was a regular Cablog reader. I told him how there were around 25,000 drivers and 6,000 cabs so the chances of meeting me were pretty slim.

So here’s a big hello to Andrew and thanks for the generous tip.

Speaking of being identified, a while back the editor of the Daily Telegraph boarded with a mate. Upon recognising me, he announced, “Look out, it’s the blogger. Watch what you say.” Fair enough, I suppose.

But mate, was there any need to depict Kevin Rudd in Tuesday’s paper wearing a Collingwood guernsey? Now that’s cruel.

Cavorting

On Saturday night I carried a bloke who works and cavorts bare-chested on a cruise boat featuring male strippers. He was a nice enough fella aged in his twenties who revealed how he had trouble meeting women with whom he could have a decent conversation.

At work he targeted ‘fat chicks’ to dance with as they had ‘the best personalities’. They then referred him to their friends who, thankful for the attention, were generous with the tips.

Unsurprisingly, however, he told how the wildest women on the boats were the older ones in committed relationships, unlike glamorous young singles who tended to be more reserved.

At his home he insisted I wait whilst he retrieved a business card showing a tanned, shirtless young bloke in a cheesecake pose with a bulging six-pack. Across the image he scrawled his name and phone number and asked me to give it to any women in the cab complaining about Sydney’s ‘lack of decent men’.

After two days on the fridge, lover boy's card has been put out with the rubbish. Sorry, mate. 

 

Early

Young Lachlan, a very early arrival for my godson and his partner.

Birth weight: 400 grams; now: 700 grams. Champions all.

UPDATE: Correct birth weight: 650 grams. Born 15 weeks premature. Consuming 7 millilitres of mother's milk every two hours. So far, so good.

Provocation

You’ve got to wonder about what sort of characters head to Kings Cross at 4am on a Monday morning. Besides cabbies, that is, most can be treated with a degree of suspicion.

 

This was my first thought when two ruffians in Botany climbed in on Monday looking for “some action”. Though sober they were wired, probably on amphetamines, and the front seat passenger immediately set about giving me as much grief as possible.

 

“Hey, bro,” he asked in a fake Lebanese accent, “you like pussy?” After being ignored he decided I was gay and proceeded making outrageously sick suggestions, “like in prison, eh bro?”

 

To prove his criminal credentials he opened his shirt to reveal crudely drawn tattoos across the chest and neck, with the added request for some ‘sugar’, a euphemism for oral sex.

 

To placate the hyped-up, tough guy I laughed that I was a pussy man but this only emboldened him. “Hey, dat’s it, bro, you’re the pussy man!” This was accompanied by thumps on my arm before he shoved a fist clutching a ten dollar note against my cheek.

 

“Take it, take it,” he snarled, flicking it in front of my eyes. By now we were belting up Southern Cross Drive, fortunately deserted of vehicles as I struggled to hold the lane. “Mate, just wait till we get there,“ I told him. “It’s going to be around thirty bucks, anyway.”

 

This fare forecast didn’t wash too well and he started pushing his fist harder demanding I take the ten dollars. The mate in the back seat was relatively subdued and must have seen me reaching for the alarm button, as I was expecting the idiot to explode.

 

“Nathan, settle down!” he barked, “You’ll get us killed. Leave him alone, he’s an Aussie. How many cabbies are Aussies these days?” This had the desired effect and Nathan withdrew his fist from my face. “I was just trying to spook him, bro, like he was a fuckin’ chong, eh?”

 

This type of provocation is typically applied to spark a reaction from drivers. In the mind of imbeciles a reaction then justifies them shorting the fare, refusing to pay or even assaulting the driver.

 

Nathan was a hard boy alright and in Kings Cross he flung a fist full of twenty-cent pieces and the ten dollar note at me and jumped out. The mate apologised, squared up the fare and hurried after Nathan who by then was mouthing-off to bouncers outside the Crest Hotel.

 

Naturally, they were turned away.

 

Further reading: Former New York nightclub bouncer, Rob on idiots who bully bouncers.

Victory

Sunday night was pretty ordinary and a real struggle to find work. It seemed like everyone was at home watching the Logies and/or well-known train wreck, Catherine Deveny.

In desperation I headed to the Airport, breaking a recent vow to boycott the joint as a total waste of time. And to think Macquarie Bank has the hide to charge passengers a $3 toll for the frustration of watching incompetents organise taxis.

No matter, my new routine of reduced shifts and earnings has me considering all avenues so I reluctantly set off. After a forty five minute wait in the holding paddock I finally arrived at the terminal to find many waiting passengers, just as frustrated as the waiting cabbies.

The fare was a thirty-something businessman from Melbourne with a couple of bags which he first dumped on the back seat thence opened the front door. Without closing the door he asked with some apprehension, “Um...Alexandria?”

As he was off the last flight I audibly groaned, not because it was the shortest of fares but due to the system having closed which allows short-fare drivers to return to the head of the queue.

Yep, it was cruel and I struggled to hide my disappointment but to his credit he soon had me talking weekend footy. He listened in silence as I revealed that both my teams, St George and Collingwood had scored impressive wins and things were looking rosy for the season.

With that the trip was over and I requested the $12 fare plus the $3 toll. Handing over a credit card he said, “Just making it thirty”. Needless to say I was overjoyed, though a touch guilty for initially displaying dissatisfaction over the fare.

Although he confirmed that the boss was paying I told him it was a really magnanimous gesture and much appreciated on a tough night. My venture to the Airport had unexpectedly become worthwhile.

Yet the biggest surprise was saved until last. After collecting his bags from the back he leaned in the front door and with a clenched fist of victory, barked, “GO THE PIES!” He was a die-hard Collingwood fan.

This is further confirmation that the recent introduction of extra taxis by the Government has now changed the game from one relying solely upon experience to also requiring sheer luck.