John Kerr’s Animal Taxi
October 19th, 2005 at 05:14pm
I have some Google Alerts setup with various names and keywords so that when a news story appears with these names or keywords I know about it. I have one for “John Laws” which often gives me newspaper reports on various interviews he has conducted, but I also have one for “John Kerr”. Whilst I know John Kerr as an overnight radio presenter and a former Governor General, but it seems that Google know him as a bunch of sports coaches in the US, and now as a taxi driver in Port Macquarie. The reason I bring this up is that this recent taxi driver story is quite entertaining. This story comes from the Port Macquarie News, and is as follows.
Heard the one about the owl and the snake?
Wednesday, 19 October 2005IF YOU caught a cab in Port Macquarie on Thursday morning, chances are you shared it with a brown snake.
The 40 centimetre reptile spent about five hours in the car before it was discovered by a horrified passenger.
According to taxi driver John Kerr the snake managed to get into the car when he hit an owl on his shift.
“I was driving out near Major Innes Drive about one in the morning on Thursday when I saw this owl take off from the road with a snake in its claws,” John explained.
“The owl flew straight into the car and got wedged in the roof racks.”
John stopped the car and got out to see if the owl was still alive.
While he was helping the dazed bird he failed to notice the brown snake slither into the darkness of his cab.
“The owl was a bit dazed, but all right,” John said. “I searched for the snake, but couldn’t find it so I assumed it had slithered off into the bushes.”
John had a few more passengers before he dropped his cab off at the end of his shift.
After giving it a quick clean out he left it for the next driver who began his shift at 5.30am.
When Charlie Beddie started work that morning he was totally unaware of his venomous passenger.
“My first job was at Rydges where I had to pick up a few flight staff,” Charlie said.
“Two of the crew had already climbed in the back of the car and the pilot was sitting in the front when the last flight attendant climbed in.
“As he was getting into the car he noticed the snake and calmly announced it to the rest of us.”
Charlie said when the other passengers heard the news they were out of the car quicker than lightning.
Charlie borrowed a dustpan and broom from the hotel and tried to catch the snake.
“The snake was certainly a feisty fella and did not want to be caught,” Charlie said.
“Finally I managed to get him into the dustpan and then put him into a plastic bin, much to the relief of the flight crew.”
The snake was later released into the bush and Charlie still got his fare out to the airport.
If anyone did catch the cab on Thursday morning Charlie hopes they did not have bare feet.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Bizarreness,General News,TV/Radio/Media
4 Comments
1. John B1_B5 | October 19th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
“….. because NOTHING will save the Governor General ! ” ( Gough Whitlam speaking about Sir John Kerr on ‘dismissal day’ — the 11th of November, 1975 ) .
PS – Is anybody still ‘maintaining the rage’ ?
2. Samuel | October 19th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
Surround that quote by some “diddly” music and some 2CC voiceovers and you have one of their 30th anniversary promos.
That is a contrived coincidence, a John Kerr broadcasting on a station which started in the year that the name John Kerr rose to the history books.
I don’t know about maintaining the rage, do you think Gough was in Port Macquarie letting snakes loose on unsuspecting namesakes?
3. John B1_B5 | October 19th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
Between you, me, and the fencepost Samuel ……. I don’t think poor old Gough will be around much longer !
4. Samuel | October 19th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
No, probably not, but one thing is for sure, he most certainly has had an interesting life so far. And when the inevitable does happen, he will not be forgotten, and that is something to be proud of in my books.
Interestingly, I usually get a Google Alert each day with the term “John Kerr”, and recently I have been noticing that a lot of the Murdoch newspapers are running stories about the dismissal. Who said my email was boring?
Well, I’m going to make myself a coffee and sit down and listen to John Kerr (the radio presenter) for a while before going to bed.