Regular Get Together and Fellowship.

Once or twice a week, me and my regular taxi buddies, usually five of us would meet at a coffee shop or at a food centre to eat, have drinks and engage in chit chats, serious talks, sharing each others work day experiences as well as discussing all kinds of daily issues practically all subjects such as family, income, encounters with passengers, health, travels, food, discoveries of new cctv locations, speed traps, vehicle breakdowns and accidents, government policies and getting penalised with summonses, talk about politics here and abroad, share jokes, you name it we talk about it, most of all, we thoroughly enjoy sharing laughter together. We look forward to our regular get together weekly and often call to remind each other to make sure we meet at our usual agreed day, time and place. Our get together sessions would usually last for at least an hour each time. These meetings have been going on for us for at least more than fifteen years as cabbies. We have been friends for more than forty years maybe more. Of course between us we do have arguments, disagreements in anything, our likes and dislikes, on sensitive subjects and often cajoling one another in every way. Time has passed us by so very quickly and we are nearly all senior citizens now.

Most cabbies have their own group of friends and meet up regularly for fellowship, have coffee or tea, eat together and share everyday news, all sorts of information and daily happenings at home and abroad. Most important we help and assist one another whenever we meet with difficulties whilst at work and also in our everyday lives.

Shock After Shock.

                                            (Source: The New Paper, dd 2nd April, 2013)

This is just horrific, after posting a blog about taxi drivers making Headlines and Stories on front pages of our daily Newspapers on Monday 1st April, 2013 at 1.20am, I received this shocking front page picture in The New Paper only about 5 hours later in the morning when it arrived. When is this madness going to stop? The Authorities must surely be aware that taxi drivers are easy targets for unreasonable and violent passengers and even general public abuse often getting cabbies badly bashed up and these incidents are on the rise. Heavier penalties and harsher punishments should be meted out by The Authorities against this sort of hooliganism and blatant violence with immediate effect. Taxi drivers are not allowed to retaliate nor engage in fights with whoever whilst in the course of their duties lest their vocational licence be revoked and livelihood abruptly ended.

On September 12th, 2012, a 58 year old cabby was beaten up on the head and kicked in the face by a passenger who accused him of taking a longer route from Grand Hyatt Hotel to Newton Road and then a few days later, on September 16th, 2012, a 65 year old cabby was attacked by young men who became annoyed and violent after being prevented from jaywalking because he drove too slowly on Coleman Street, the 2 young men were subsequently arrested. In another separate incident on this same day, a 45 year old cabby was attacked by a gang of motorcyclists along Upper Bukit Timah Road and he suffered a broken nose, a cracked jaw and multiple cheek fractures.

If this sorry state of affairs carry on unchecked, I dread to think what taxi drivers may resort to in order to protect themselves against sudden and untimely attacks, hopefully not to become fearful violent attackers themselves. I have heard quite often from other cabbies who received bad verbal abuse thrown at them and how they have kept their cool and restraint from hitting back not because they are weak or scared but fear for loss of livelihood. Lets hope The Authorities start serious Legal acts to protect our taxi drivers and safeguard them from further violent attacks.

Rare and Beautiful Flowers.

Wow, see how beautiful the bamboo flowers look when in full bloom. Taken at 2.30am on 2nd April, 2013. Its such a thrill to see this very rare bamboo plant flower bloom, look so grand with its intricate design.

Making Headlines.

News headlines, front page pictures and stories about taxi drivers have been the talk of the town lately. Not long ago, there was this drunk foreign expat who started bashing up a taxi driver claiming that he took a longer route. Then there was this hit and run taxi who caused the death of a foreign worker working on the roadside, investigations are ongoing and it is just a matter of time before the errand taxi driver gets arrested. After this, we read about the taxi driver who managed to catch a fare cheat trying to getaway without paying his metered fare of $18.00 dollars and most recently, about two days ago, this young lady who could not pay her $5.00 taxi fare but instead offered sex and tried to seduce the taxi driver who just asked her "Then how?" she exposed herself and started making sexual advances as well as groping him.

Well well well, so many front page headline stories about taxi drivers in such a short period of time, but mind you, these are only the exposed stories that we read from the daily newspapers. There are many, many more ugly and dangerous incidents about taxi drivers and their passengers which go unreported most likely due to lack of evidence and time constraints. Taxi drivers need to earn a living, and time spent making police reports and being interviewed is loss of time and income for us and that is why many of us choose to shrug away our unfortunate incidents and mishaps by continuing to provide our services, at the same time still brood and cursing our bad luck till we end our shifts.

A Lovely Surprise.

Surprise, surprise, two days after the Mata Puteh family left, leaving their nest neat, spic and span, what did I see, two lovely bamboo flowers. Its as if the bamboo plant is showing its appreciation also by producing the two beautiful flowers. For me, its truly rewarding being involved in this fantastic and moving episode. Unbelievabe finale with the bamboo plant flowering.

Happy Departure Soon My Mata Puteh Friends.

On 15th March till today, 22nd March, exactly one week later, see how fast the Mata Puteh chicks have grown. Feathers sprouting its beautiful yellowish and greenish colours, heads have grown bigger with the third chick always partially hidden. It will be just a matter of days when they are full grown and then they will be off to greener pastures. I have watched many times the sequence from construction of the nest, laying of the eggs, getting hatched, naked and then adorning their beautiful coat of feathers before they fly away. I do not know when another new nest will be built but I will look after and keep this second nest together with the first one intact. These Mata Puteh Families, especially the mother bird have always been a joy and great pleasure for me to be associated with. I look forward for their future generations to come.

From Eggs To Chicks.

Three Mata Puteh chicks just hatched. Picture taken at 5.30pm 15th March but I'm afraid to use flash and so poor lighting and not too clear. Maybe another day or even at night I'll try to capture a better shot. The three chicks will now grow quite fast and as soon as their feathers start growing, I know they will leave home just as quickly. Its a great thrill to see from eggs to live chicks overnight. Many readers wanted to know if the eggs have hatched and here it is, they have. Today is their birthday. They look naked and ugly now but when  they put on their yellow and green coloured coats (feathers), they look beautiful. I feel happy and proud to be associated with these Mata Puteh families. The wonders of nature.

Exciting Film Shoots

The past few days was exciting and eventful for me. It was great, experiencing real life acting and getting filmed as a taxi uncle for two days for a project not to be disclosed for the time being. I had a wonderful time working together with eight very hard working and very professional crew members in two full working days which I must say was very tiring. There was also a time when I could have been filmed in the series "Taxi in Asia" but I was unfortunately hit with a pancreas sickness and was unable to take up the part, that was a few years ago.

This afternoon, I am invited to take part in another project to film shoot as a taxi uncle in the Ministry of Education's Road Safety program which I had to turn down after having finished film shoots during the past two days and I am quite exhausted, have to rest a bit.

I have two more taxi interviews to go and there don't seem to be enough time to cope although I thoroughly enjoy these meetings and participation, getting to know more people and understanding their work scopes which are most interesting. Writing blogs need time to recall incidents which can be quite trying when I cannot remember details, having been quite forgetful in recent times and have to fore go writing interesting episodes. I have been slow and tardy recently with many encounters from media people, meeting and discussing my life as a taxi uncle. There are so many interesting real life stories which I want to write but sometimes, somehow, I get clogged up and find it difficult to start up.

Another New Mata Puteh Family.

It was a very busy workday for me and when I finally returned home this morning at 3.00am, I was truly surprised to discover a new bird's nest near to the previous one which I did not remove from my Bamboo Hotel Tree. The tree shook a bit which led me to discover a brand new bird's nest perched nearby the older nest.  (Please refer to my two blogs about the Mata Puteh Family on Monday 30th July and Thursday 2nd August 2012), this nest looks similar except slightly smaller in size and so I immediately whip out my IPhone and began taking a series of quick shots when I saw a yellow coloured tail appear from the nest. You guessed it, I managed to capture the mother bird and after it flew off there were three tiny white eggs in the nest. This is the 6th Mata Puteh Family, the newest to inhabit the 'Hotel' for this new year. It was so refreshing, it made my day. Above are the photos taken of this latest wonderful encounter.

A Living Doll.

For me, it was worth taking a night off once again to attend another memorable evening, this time to watch the Cliff Richard show. With such agility and familiar voice, this ageless 'super' iconic Pop Idol gave a fabulous performance for two solid hours, singing and dancing, making jokes and when he bowed to say thank you and goodnight after singing his last song, the enthusiastic full house, 'Sold Out' crowd cried for more, more and you know what, the crowd went wild when he returned not once or twice but three times singing three more golden hit songs to our thunderous applause. It was simply a fantastic display from this famous 'Rock n Roll' celebrity. I truly enjoyed his concert which brought back great memories of the past more than half a century of his unforgettable top hits and still more to come in the near future says Cliff.