milk archive at Tims Times

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Keeping the peace

Published July 30, 2008 in milk, deck and engine room, oil and water, About, Deckies, From the ship, Engineers and On the ship. 3 Comments

Sacred Heart

Note to self…don’t order fresh milk for the ship again in the hot summer months.

There were a few sour tempers between the deck and engine room departments today so I had to use all my skills as a mediator even though I knew that the spanners were to blame. I can’t take sides as I did before, even if I’d like to. It was a bit of a storm in the preverbial tea cup, but it had it’s lead up, minor words here and there and then an all out shouting match that would have the security guards charging in with riot gear.But we don’t have any security guards only me. I waited for the heckles to lie down a bit and then called a meeting between the warring parties. I asked for silence and said that I would speak having spoken to both sides individually. I could see in the eyes of the two factions that it would not be easy and for some reason I was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

The milk was probably standing on the back of a truck somewhere with the rest of the stores overnight, growing cultures of bacteria. The frozen stuff was Ok, and the fruit and veg, but the milk was off, again.

Thinking about the milk stopped me from laughing, I gave some bullshit about peace and harmony and threw in a few lines I’d heard on “The Wire” TV show about “showing me the love” and in the end they agreed to act in a more harmonious way. A compromise was reached and mutual respect was agreed on. Later the two individuals came up to me at separate intervals and said that the other guy was “mentally ill” and “a stupid f..cker” respectively….so much for showing me the love. Ah well as long as they don’t kill each other.

Now years earlier when I was a second mate, there was an incident on a ship that started off with an engineer slagging off a radio officer. Seemingly harmless gibes about being a “half deckie, half engineer” and “useless at both”. Now yer man the engineer was a Scouser and yer other man the R/O was from Limerick. If you know anything about Limerick people you don’t want to start picking on the wrong one, it ended up with the Scouser calling out to the R/O in front of the other engineers “hey Paddy I think the skipper needs you to wipe his arse” there was dead silence. And Paddy (not his real name by the way) went off quietly and said nothing.
Now as far as I knew this Paddy guy was an angel, in his cabin he had a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the bulkhead, and he had a photo of his mother beside the bible on his locker. He didn’t smoke and only had an occasional beer, always on time for work and did his job well….model citizen?
That evening at the dinner table in the saloon, there were steaks on the menu and just when everyone was busy scoffing down their prime beef, Paddy jumps up from his place with steak knife in hand and places it firmly up against the neck of the bould Scouser.
The place died. The silence was murderous. Then Paddy pipes up in a quiet voice…” you ya f..cker, if you ever look at me again I’ll f..cking well open you up” with that he went back to his place and continued to eat his meat. Our friend the engineer, didn’t have anything clever to say then and there, and he walked out of the room , very pale and with his tail between his legs.
The old man who had witnessed the entire proceedings said nothing, and neither did anyone else, there was a collective holding of breaths until Paddy left the room.
Now the gas thing was, we were weeks away from port, so the two of them had to work onboard until Paddy went home on “sick leave”. I don’t know what the old man did or said to either of them but the steak knife brandishing was the high point of the affair. (no pun intended), but it was amusing watching them meet in the alleyways and around the saloon. There was a magnetic effect, of opposition!

I’m glad I only have to worry about sour milk and a bit of shouting.

Ship swindler

Published July 3, 2008 in Seafood, milk, pinch of salt required, From the ship and On the ship. 1 Comment

AKA the Shipchandler. (The definition is not definitive)

Traders come in all shapes and sizes, colours and smells. There are good ones and bad ones, in between too. Some are honest and some are crooks. Then you have the shipchandler.

Markup. Thats the first thing that happens, everything costs more and even if you get a discount which is only a feelgood psychological trick you are getting done.

Stale. That is the second thing. You get to pay more for out of date stuff, stuff that has been taken off the supermarket shelf because of a short date gets repackaged as fresh goods for the poor bastards on the ship. I just had a bowl of cornflakes with milk (fresh so I thought), the first spoon went into my gob and out again rapidly followed by milk wet cornflakes spluttering from my face thanks to the acid sour taste. It is the 3rd of July, the milk had 2nd of July on the package, bought the day before in a former communist state now part of the EU. There is only one thing to say, get used to long life milk.

Brand replicas. You ask for Kellogg’s corn flakes and you get something in a similar sized box and nearly the same colour flake, but tastes like crap.

For Marine use only. You get products that the EU won’t allow on the shelves because of banned additives and colourants.

Frozen. Or refrozen, I joined a ship in the Persian gulf once it was so hot that my shoe police liquefied. The chandler had frozen meat covered in canvas, no container………you don’t want to think about this too much, or just eat vegetarian.

Careless. We had one guy deliver bags of rice, big 50kg bags the classic hessian sack. He left them on the jetty in the pouring rain. Hello, rice water??

Of course the majority of them are OK, the few give a bad rep to the rest of the trade and hence the term Ship swindler.
Bad cornflakes and sour milk. Life can be tough!

Wake up

Published May 4, 2007 in orange juice, milk, coffee, stations and On the ship. 4 Comments

Early on the a.m. of the 1st of May, I was jolted to a state of wakedness close to zombie by the phone ringing in my cabin, a voice told me ” mooring stations in 20 minutes, fresh coffee on the bridge”. I pulled on clothes and stumbled up to the bridge, the old man and the pilot were standing facing the radars one apiece. I call him the old man but there is only a month between us in age, but aeons between us otherwise. The green glow of the radar screens gave the two men a space age look, the VHF was spluttering numbers and names and the engines were rumbling at manouevering speed. I mumbled a good morning, and set about the task of waking up with a good cup of strong Swedish roast coffee, Gevalia dark roast, black roast, the Swedes drink it neat, I have to have milk.
Observe if you will the 2 cartons in the photo, one is milk the other orange juice. Both are the same size, and have a similar screw top cap. Tetrapak standards. Imagine a near dark bridge and a hand groping in the fridge for the milk, feeling something that resembles the mentally stored object in the head and pours it into the coffee and before you can say, why is there a smell of orange juice splat in the sink followed by eurrrgh what the fuhhhk!. The unwanted cocktail woke me up though.
Funny how coffee and orange juice are great for breakfast along with toast and the morning papers, not together at 3 am before mooring stations though.