Category: General

I found this on the web a little while ago and it brought back a few memories, courtesy of the website of Mr Ambrose- Jones, who joined as the replacement Chief Officer.

http://www.oldsalts.org.uk/index-_ambrose_lof.html

I joined the London Harmony as an apprentice deck officer at the tender age of seventeen. As apprentices we worked with the crew for most of the time, which didn’t make it the most comfortable place to be on the ship when the crew mutinied. It did, however, rapidly improve my observational powers when walking around on the main deck alone.

This is Mr Ambrose-Jones account of the events that took place after he joined the ship

London Harmony Incident Continue reading “Mutiny on the Harmony”

You would think that in so called civilised western wealthy democracies that homelessness would be dealt with a degree of efficiency.

Not so, it is obvious that it is on the rise quite dramatically in Canada, Great Britain and the USA. It may well be happening elsewhere in Europe too, I do not know.  Stories reported recently here.  Four have died in Portland of hypothermia since the beginning of the year.  They have 8 immigrants in hospital in Toronto.  Stupid Africans who tried to walk across the border north from Minnesota at this time of year (-40 below) who have now lost hands, feet and digits from frostbite.  Heavens knows how many have died in BC.

Continue reading “Homelessness”

In 1900 three experienced lighthouse keepers disappeared from the Flannan Isles Lighthouse. For those who are unfamiliar with the case, or with geography of a distinctly Jockish flavour, relevant lighthouse was some 20 miles west of Lewis, Western Isles. The lighthouse itself was in good order with the only physical sign of distress being an overturned chair. The lighthouse journal told of strange events that took place over the final days. Normally strong, even combative, men who had worked as keepers for decades became sullen, one even wept constantly. No bodies were ever found. On the final recorded days no unusually bad storms were recorded for that region. Some geologists have speculated that the deaths had an incredibly dull cause. The isle on which the lighthouse is built has many geos, or deeply-cut gullies. Water, especially when seas are rough, can be forced up sweeping anyone near into the sea.

My opinion? Scotland is one of the most atmospheric places I’ve ever had the fortune of visiting. There’s something dark and brooding, a heaviness in the atmosphere that I’m yet to experience elsewhere. Perhaps a synthesis of their isolation and an unusually thick atmosphere led them to toss caution to the wind. There was severe damage to one side of the island so it’s likely they were taken by the sea.

God, does it never stop?

Now that slug Cameron is being promulgated as a putative leader of Nato.  Can you imagine that vacillating lump of lard taking a stand against Putin or anyone else come to that?  The only stand he can manage is that where one takes potshots at poor unsuspecting pheasants that have no way of fighting back!  Probably can’t manage that without a loader either. (Arm the pheasants, send in the drones!!)

Continue reading “Chumocracy”

The Øresund Bridge was obscured by the lights of my train. I wanted to see it again. Alas, I could not. Well, at least not very much of it. That’s the curse of travelling trains by night. Still, I arrived safely in Gentofte and managed to find my way to Viking-type Chum’s flat. At my insistence he didn’t meet me at station. It seemed pointless to make him stand outside in the dank, cold Danish December night. Continue reading “Jeg er i live.”

 

 

 

Continue reading “On the flanks of Plynlimon(Pumlumon Fawr)”

 

Continue reading “Some Mid Wales sh/leepy pics”

I was glad that Luxembourg Airlines fly over northern Germany and Denmark on their flight to Stockholm. The reason is very simple: it’s always nerve-wracking to fly over large bodies of water in a tiny Bombardier aeroplane. I had a row to myself. Flights to Sweden from Luxembourg are rarely full in the winter and I was only too happy to see Skåne below me. Continue reading “Swedish Pseudovisions.”

So the Limp Dims have overturned a 20,000-vote majority for Zac Goldsmith. Not terribly surprising, really, considering the impetuousness and rash irresponsibility of the man. He had a comfortable level of support in the London mayoral election. Then, he not only snatched defeat form the jaws of victory but positively rammed it down Khan’s throat. Then, in a most febrile of atmospheres — and in what was until 2010 a marginal Limp Dim seat — he resigned from the Conservative Party and forced a by-election. Good riddance. The Delightful Mrs May may hardly be delighted by the loss of a seat, but he’s been a tremendous thorn in HM’s Government’s side for some time.

I am somewhat amused to see the ecstatic enthusiasm with which the Guardian readers are welcoming the thought of being able to remain as individuals within the EU.

Presumably this would take the form of a Visa or Eu passport for which they will have to pay.  What none of them consider is quite how much they will have to pay!  Will they have to use it or lose it?  All sorts of wrinkles there that may prove very expensive indeed.

Continue reading “Ruminating Remainers”