It is damp in Ireland. Everything has a curious moist quality usually associated with a dogs nose. Being used to cold Sweden with underfloor heating in the bathroom and heating on all the time,the dampness is shock to the system. The car windows steamed up on the way home, and I was only driving alone…….most disconcerting. Better damp than wet though, and it will be that before long.Â
Archive for January, 2007
Hello and welcome from the capital of the peoples republic of Cork. I managed to master the controls of my motor vehicle fairly quick and made my way from Wexford to Cork in one piece. Its great to be back, I flew Ryanair to get into Dublin about 90% of the passengers were from eastern europe, the rest was me, the ticket cost 1 Swedish Crown(SEK) about 10c, after all the taxes and charges and baggage cost it came to 460 SEK, still ok, then I was 5kg overweight with the bags another 400 SEK, what a load of bullshit, I would have flown normal commercial for the same price and had free coffee and 30kg baggage allowance. Still it was a direct flight and I was impressed with the Aussie pilot and the great Dublin accent of Wojcek, who greeted me with “aright bud!” as I climbed aboard.
So it was back to the school bench directly or ship simulator as the case was, day 1 and straight into it no time for acting the bollix, I’ve done enough of that…..more news from Erin soon.
The metal detector at Manchester Airport was set to maximum, so that the iron in my blood set it off, or else they fixed it to suspicious looking, could be Irish mode with a flick of a switch, so it goes freak out alarm bells flashing lights and the West Midlands Constabulary appear to nick my Irish arse when I happen to pass through. The security guard smiles pleasantly while asking me to - step this way sir, I spread out my arms and get a thorough frisking, including hand up the crotch, then I have to remove my shoes and they go through the x-ray device, it would be easier if I lay down on the belt and went through myself, anyway the same guy hands me back my shoes with the line-these your shoes sir? I am tempted to reply ,-yeah that’s right don’t you remember me you just hand your hand up my hole or -do you see any other barefoot paddys hanging around? or - no I had a brand new pair of nikes or-I like to walk around in my stocking feet, makes me feel more at home, but I just nodded not wanting to let any more accent out than possible.
After passing security everything is ok Zbigniew and Jose in the bar don’t give a tinkers curse where you come from they just serve up the beer and everybody is happy.
In Amsterdam they only checked my passport against the computer and asked for my destination, a trick question of course, they know where you are going, had I given the wrong answer, all hell would have broken loose. I didn’t get the hand up the hole treatment in Amsterdam either thankfully, meanwhile my Swedish co-travellers glide through every security control without so much as a how do you do, I have to get me one of them Swedish passports,….maybe thats what Al-Qaeda are thinking also……
The sun rises on my last but one day for this trip. The city of Liverpool in the background.
The Liver birds on the Liver Building, 10 past 2 time to pack my bags. Leaving by Liverpool tomorrow. The question mark is Urban art, cost a fortune apparently. Its a bit of a sad location on the doors of the disused Cammel Laird shipyard, it almost asks will we ever build ships again?
You never know who is going to turn up in the strangest places, I met a guy today that I had not seen for 8 years, he was a trainee on one my ships, and he was not the best trainee, in fact he was crap, he bragged about losing his drivers license doing 80 in a 30 outside a school, we predicted his future was going to be on the dole que, or at the end of a bottle whixh was one of his favourite pastimes. But there he was large as life on the jetty wearing the surveyors outfit smiling and pleased to see me, I felt a twinge of guilt as I had been pretty tough on him as a trainee, sending him on hopeless missions for long waits and buckets of steam and he bit every time, hook line and sinker. He could have been a bastard today and reject the ship but he was just pleasant and cheerful, chatting about all the people on board when we sailed together, asking me to pass on his regards to mutual friends. Just goes to show you that you never know when the tables can be turned on you. Moral of the story for me is do unto others as you would have them do unto you, even to cocky 18 year old boy racers.
Â
My 8 year old laptop finally gave up the ghost last night and died, I am on a borrowed computer now. Fortunately only a day to go and I can find a new one or see if the Toshiba can be salvaged. Talking about salvage some pics here from a French website of the MSC Napoli on the day of the rescue mentioned earlier.( http://www.ruttledge.se/?p=95)
The news is full of pics of the ship aground off the Devon coast, I wonder how soon before they decided to beach her was the final decision made, they probably didn’t have much time with the cracks spreading in the bad weather.
As usual the reports on the “hazardous cargo” are being blown out of all proportion with wild speculation in the news and about the thousands of tonnes of hazardous cago. The worst thing now is the oil slick, I haven’t heard any official cargo manifest and hazardous goods are classified from explosives to batteries and asphalt so who knows what they have on board. The news also used the phrase “stricken freighter” as they use for all types of ships, when in distress. Ships are rarely in the news except when they are sinking or spilling or burning, no wonder the general public has such a poor view of ships and seafarers. It will all be forgotten about when some Big Brother house guest bares her breasts or Posh Beckham gets another tatoo on her arse, now thats what I call news.
Â
http://www.ouest-france.fr/dossiers/galerie_napoli.asp?path=napoli&page=1
Cardiff, my fave Welsh city, the place was full of peope and accents and rugby vibes, I had a few hours shore leave to buy some music and books for the kids. So refreshing to be among crowds of people again, to be able to be anonymous and free.
The cruiser HMS Exeter on a visit to Cardiff, she looked like she had taken a pasting in the storm also. A lick of paint and a washdown and she’ll be looking killer good in no time.
Cardiffs Millenium Centre catching the light on the January sun, I had to take a few snaps.
Something that one doesn’t see on the menu too often, in Sweden or Ireland. At Cardiff market, it was a kind of food I’m told £1.80 a plate. I bough a few CD’s at a second hand place with the compulsory purchase of Super Furry Animals which I’m trying to get my head around now!
One of the corners of the Rugby stadium in Cardiff, the long shadow gave it a look of the bowsprit of a tallship, the fists holding a rope had no explanation…some lad dragging a rope…done that a few times.
We have anchored safely in the Severn estuary SW of the Breaksea Buoy, near enough to Cardiff our eventual destination. We can all sigh a collective sigh of relief after our experience with the severe storm we passed through yesterday, a Force 11. The ship (and everything inside it)Â was tossed about like a cork and all we could do was hang on and enjoy the spin. We escaped with minor damage to the ship, a few railings got twisted off, after taking a few big green ones on the bow. In our vicinity yesterday 50 miles south of Lizard Point a container ship the MSC Napoli got into trouble and started sinking. She started taking water into the engine room and lost power, so the old man decided to abandon ship. There were 50 foot waves when they took to the liferafts fortunately all hands were rescued by helicopter in a joint French-British rescue effort.
Â
Â
MSC Napoli didn’t sink and was being towed in a salvage operation today. Apparently she developed a hole in the side of the ship, in the engine room and took in water. The worrying phrase there is “developed a hole” it’s a bit like I grew an extra arm or just off to the moon for the afternoon, you know unlikely. How on Gods green planet did a hole develop in the side of the ship, that is the question. Probably a crack that wasn’t noticed when the ship was approved at her last survey, holes just don’t appear. I’m glad I’m on a 2 year old ship.
We heard all the action on the VHF radio, starting with Dover Coast Guard having a conversation with HMS Nottingham it was all very efficient and British, the radio operator on Nottingham had the kind of clipped, concise, professional accent all in military code undecipherable to the layman and very overdriven, the coastguard asked for the warships position, he proceeded to give a long list of numbers and letters taking about 5 minutes, then he said -we are anchored off Portsmouth, he could have just said the latter. Anyway helicopters were scrambled and the VHF was alive with ROGER and WILCO and Tally ho and Bobs your uncle. Fair play to them they rescued 26 men in terrible conditions.
Green is one of my favourite colours, in fact it is up there in the top 3 alongside red and black. In Ireland it could reflect a political leaning also, wearing of the green etc. but I don’t have all year to discuss Republicanism in Ireland. I was thinking more about the Green Party(MP) in Sweden, unfortunately for them they lost the last election, they were in a coalition with the Left Party(V)and the Social Democrats(S). I blame them for the election loss more than the incompetence of (S) in losing ground to the right wing Alliance, because of their negative environmental campaign.
Now Colm if you are reading this don’t get all out of the pram, we all know that the greens mean well, and we all want a good environment for our children and we want dolphins to swim in clean oceans.I don’t want to see the rainforest chopped down or another Chernobyl disaster, and we recycle our rubbish at home, in fact Sweden is the best in the world at recycling.
So why do I want to have a go at the greens? Simple, stop telling us what we can’t do, tell us what we can do that is environmentally friendly. Stop treating the population like idiots and practice what you preach. Putting the price of petrol up is not popular, you can’t do that lads without some kind of backlash, all stick and no carrot will only piss off a donkey in the end. Give us alternatives alongside the current systems, show us that they are better, more environmentally friendly, stop driving big petrol guzzlers yourselves. If you wonder why you are not in power today, well you ony have yourselves to blame. And the same goes for the Nuclear power stations, you can’t just close them down with no alternative, and you definitely can’t close them and import Nuclear electricity from Russia, talk about sticking your head in the sand. Alternatives have to be in place and running and taking up the slack before shutting down the nuke power stations, otherwise you are going to batter your head against a brick wall, and not win any more elections.
Â
I heard recently (TV4 news from Sweden) that Norwegian tv channel NRK had decided to edit some of the old texts of Astrid Lindgrens Pippi LÃ¥ngstrump (Pippi Longstocking) stories, the language used at the time of writing is seen to be politically incorrect for today. The phrase “negerkung” or ” nigger king” translated to english has been edited to just king. The decision to edit the word has started a debate in Sweden (home of Astrid Lindgren and author of Pippi LÃ¥ngstrump) about whether or not it should be removed in Sweden also, and it appears that many don’t want it removed. The same happened a few years ago about a type of Swedish chocolate cake called “Negerboll” translates to “Nigger Ball”, it was renamed “Cocosboll” to be more politically correct. Still there remains a debate about how stupid it is to change these names, people get all upset and say “we’ve always called them “negerboll” why should we change that. (Another link about racist words)
 I had a discussion at a coffee break at my last place of employment about how the Swedes use the word “neger”, they all assured me that it was not racist and that I was being ridiculous saying that I felt it was insulting and degrading. I challenged the leader of the verbal attack to stand up in the middle of the street and call anyone with black skin a nigger and see how long he would be standing. He said trying further to defend the “culture and heritage” of Sweden that “they call themselves nigger” I retorted and I call my Irish friends “paddy” or “mick” but if an English guy tried it he would be probably trying to insult me. Anyway I got nowhere in my argument being laughed down by some people who were uncomfortable with the subject, easier to make a joke about it than have to face the reality, I consoled myself with the words the ma once said to me “you can’t argue with fools”.
The use of racist words helps racism flourish, the fact is that words once seemingly harmless are harmfull today. Get modern and grow up Sweden. Editing these words out of texts won’t make the story any less readable unless of course it’s the Klu Klux Klan handbook.
Hugo Chavez, the champion of the proletariat and Bush baiter extraordinaire. The face of modern South American socialism and confidant to El Commandante Fidel. The anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, red flag waving , vitriolic in his condemnation of the US and the west and, sitting on a large deposit of oil……black gold……Texas T………
But the bould Hugo is no eejit, his large supply of oil bringeth in vast quantities of $$$ into Venezuela and his fleet of tankers do be getting auld. So he has to build new ones, and where is the steel coming from for his new ships?
The land of the free and the home of the Bush…..yes he’s buying American steel, so next time you see big Hugo mouthing off on the telly about the Imperialist US of A take it with a pinch of salt.
Recent Comments