A warning sign graphically describes what you will get if you get too close to the bars below.
Now the hole in the bars was just big enough to rest the camera lens, for a long range shot of Shere Kahn and friends, I didn’t see this divil coming out of stage right until I felt his whiskers rubbing against my right hand. I let out a low wail and jumped backwards about 4 metres much to the delight of the other visitors. I was shaking for about an hour after, good job he was just curious and not hungry.
I’m the one in the lovely orange suit, the deck cadet is in blue, he is the computer expert and it’d his fault I got into wordpress, however he was not the one complaining about the wireless internet. Anyway, we are rigging the gangway in anticipation of a visit from a couple of service engineers, and they do arrive by chopper and can be seen below. The engine started to act the bollix so we had to stop, and seeing as how the Baltic was frozen solid it was just a matter of turning the engine off and the ship parks itself. So two chaps from Rolls-Royce came to fix our problem, and they did it in no time and we up and running again. Of course Rolls-Royce make all sorts of stuff from jet engines to deck winches and luxury cars, but that division is small in the grand RR scheme of things.
I once sailed with an engineer who had worked as an apprentice with RR in Scotland, he was making a tool on the lathe and the metal was glowing white hot, when a tiny bit flew off and hit his overalls square in the groin area and burned through like a hot knife in butter, he told us that he felt a sudden extreme pain in his penis as the metal had burned all the way to the skin and left a pinhole scar at the top of the “helmet” area. He was going to show us the scar but we took his word, he was too eager to whip out the evidence so to speak for it to be a make belief story and who would make that kind of stuff up. His wife left him, and he needed consolation so he came to Cork and went on the hit and miss, I met him one night in a pub on the Coal Quay, Dennehy’s Pub to be precise, he went off to the jacks after a while and there was a fierce commotion, he had gone into the ladies, I immediately thought he wanted to show off the scar tissue, but the reason was more simple, Dennehy’s has the toilet names as gaeilge so he figures Fir was F for female and Mná was M for male, wrong. Innocent mistake for a Jock to make I suppose.
I don’t know how often the Irish flag gets to see blizzard conditions but today in Sweden it had to share air space with lots of the snowy stuff.
The locals gave a few odd glances at the strange flag flying, where normally a Swedish flag might fly, but there were no protests or demonstrations, in fact it was hard to believe it was St. Patricks day at all apart from my bottle of 12 year old Jameson, the pound of Dennys sausages and the ribbons sent over by the Ma. And the stereo was playing a few Irish tunes, or a few more than normal.
Another Irish person popular in Sweden is the bould Johnny Logan, there is an ad on the telly with Johnny and pals singing Molly Malone and other songs in a sort of a pub scene with pints of the black stuff….in fact you can click on the youtube link below. Is this on sale in Ireland? I don’t think so….cash in time, whats another year?
The Chief Officer from the Wilson Garston http://timstimes.net/2007/12/30/drunken-sailor/ that ran aground on Christmas Day received a prison sentence of 3 months for “grovsjöfylleri” as they say in Swedish. For being drunk in charge of a ship in other words. The 33 year old Russian officer was alone on the bridge at the time and was asleep due to the influence alcohol and medication. He had 0.89 per mg of alcohol in his blood, the law in Sweden states that 1,0 mg is “grovsjöfylleri” but in this case because he was asleep and the ship grounded he got that sentence.
Swedish links Sydsvenskan with photographs and here also Sydsvenskan which shows how the ship became a tourist attraction.
Fartyg is of course the Swedish for “Ship” and I am fairly sure the designers felt this name would convey a nautical theme to the product….unfortunately the majority of the English speaking world have a laugh at Farty G!
The largest of the Swedish navy’s ships the HMS Carlskrona has an uncertain future, the lack of officers and government cutbacks have meant that she will be mothballed and maybe even scrapped. She was rebuilt a few years ago for 225 million kronor…..thats about $33 million, a sure sign of getting the chop in this country, pump in a shit load of money then pull the plug.
Anyway I sailed with a converted naval officer, that is he converted from military to civilian or the Merchant Navy/Mercantile marine call it what you will, and the same chap had served on one of HMS Carlskronas long voyages for which she was famous for. During his time there the ship was on an official visit to Finland, some Swedes still lament the loss of Finland to Peter the Great and Finland still has Swedish as one of it’s official languages, I digress. The commander knew he could speak Swedish with the Finns but wanted to make a special effort and do a greeting in the Finnish language for the visiting dignitaries from Finland’s Navy, so the word went out to all the officers and conscript crew if anyone could speak any Finnish, one conscript was found willing and was given the job of greeting the Finns in their own tongue as they arrived.
The Finns walked up the gangplank were greeted in Finnish they all looked slightly surprised at the speech they all individually received but maintained the official dignified look and the whole visit went down very well.
The next day before the ship was about to sail, a parcel arrived from the Navy of Finland, when unwrapped it was found to be a chainsaw painted in gray camouflage and naval insignia, the commander was baffled, it turns out the conscript either by accident or design was saying to each of the dignitaries ” Do you have a chainsaw?” so they got one. It apparently had pride of place in the ships mess and was taken down for parties and the like, the chain was removed for the sake of good order.
I wonder what will happen to that when the ship gets scrapped.
The countryside around where I live is full of magnificent nature, you can wander for hours without seeing another person. You might meet a hare or deer, I have even seen a lynx making tracks fast in the opposite direction to me. However even though you might not see another human you can always tell that they have been there. I always considered that Swedes were law abiding honest decent hard working, and into tennis and Abba, then I moved to Sweden. The Swedish people are just as law abiding as any other type of people, when it suits them, and they have a holier than thou attitude against those that are openly caught committing crime while secretly thinking of ways to perfect their own criminal activities. Ok maybe thats a bit hard, most people no matter where are honest and law abiding, but the police go around with Glocks on their side here and exploding armoured money transport vans a fairly regular occurrence.
Back to my walk in the forest, there I was enjoying the fresh air and slightly damp smell of vegetation when I spied the following…..
3 out of 4 used tyres on rims, carefully placed in the woods in case anyone needs them. I know that all tyre outlets have to take used tyres and wheels in for recycling, and that is a law here they can’t refuse, so whoever placed these wheels in the forest had to go far out of their way. So it can’t have been laziness, maybe stupidity, or an emergency brought on by a sudden chemical imbalance and they felt they were under threat from the wheels so had to dump them quickly. The last explanation may not be so crazy as later on in my stroll the following plants known for their distinctive shape and many uses appeared in a clearing….
Not your normal forest flora in this part of the world, but may have been for making hemp rope and the like……or for smoking? I didn’t hang around to have a friendly chat with the grower, self preservation being high on my personal list of priorities! My forest stroll turned rapidly in to a brisk jog away from the clearing and towards civilization…it is safer there.
The sailing ship Götheborg was open to the public last Saturday at the old Röda Bolaget pier on the fashionable northern shore of the Göta River in Gothenburg. They wanted 100 crowns to walk around the deck, and get a feel of the authentic East India company replica which has recently returned from a round the world cruise, at a cost of half a billion crowns, however the publicity generated and contracts signed in China where the ship sailed to are said to be worth 5 billion crowns, so I’d say it was worth the money. Taking 100 crowns a head on the day for a tour of the ship was only crowd control really.
She was looking a bit battered from her journey but that it made the whole voyage in more or less one piece is remarkable, her predecessor sank on the way in to Gothenburg in 1745 after her third voyage from China, loaded with spice and silk and China!
It’s a pity the Irish ship Dunbrody couldn’t get sailing, it feels a bit of a waste to build a sea going ship for it to sit tied up in New Ross getting sea grass on the hull. Maybe they could take a leaf from the Götheborg story. Update I have received info from Jim see below that the Dunbrody has actually been sailing, glad to hear it. I would like to hear about an Atlantic voyage like her namesake did in the 1800’s, does anyone know if that is on the cards?
The new folk phenomenon in Sweden, home made wooden dog sculptures are appearing in roundabouts all over the country, as a protest against an act of vandalism to a dog sculpture. At first banned by the Roads Authority they decided to make them legal last week as long as they don’t hinder the traffic. Banning them was not very clever, their popularity exploded, making them legal has only increased the popularity, the authorities just can’t win in these situations. It could be coming your way soon……
Fartyg is of course the Swedish for “Ship” and I am fairly sure the designers felt this name would convey a nautical theme to the product….unfortunately the majority of the English speaking world have a laugh at Farty G!
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