Testing times Tom. Sincere condolences.

A good age and, to coin a phrase, innings too I trust. Condolences of course.

I have to say that I am expecting a funeral breakfast in a day or so after a lunching friend died on Sunday. It is now almost a tradition that on the coldest days we meet at the crematorium in the absolute certainty that that whoever we are there to see off will soon have company. A sort of chain-grate reaction.

The grim reaper has been a tad too busy lately, a friend passed on last week, funeral tomorrow.

Condolences to you Tom, and your family. You have our thoughts with you.

Tmac, we will be thinking of you.

Right Lads, lets keep this Good Lady ticking over 'till the Chief returns. I'll take the 4 to 8, Eric the 8 to 12, Squeek the 12 to4 and Mr V will do meal reliefs and St By's. I've never met a Lecky who couldn't stand a Watch.
Ulster Fry's all round.

Standbys, of course but meal reliefs? I did do 'day onboard' once when all bar the Chief buggered off ashore in Annapolis. Not sure the Chief had a very restful day, however.

Traditional station for Leckie on standbys is behind the switchboard so the others can only imagine wildly what mischief he plans for an embarrassing blackout. Calmez vous mes enfants, calmez vous. He also serves who only brews the tea.

I can always help out below ES. Just shout if you need a hand with any maintainance tasks mate.

Pilot aboard -- standing into Melbourne Harbour. Docking at the Cruise Ship Terminal. Numerous bars within crawling distance? :)

Many thanks for the offer Billy and we will keep it in mind. At the moment you can best give us a bit of a lift by cleaning out the pipes in the draught Hull Brewery Bitter tap. Any crud in the pipe causes a certain looseness in Eric and Squeek and increased maintenance on the STP. As it is, it is operating at its limit, this crew drinks far too much Bitter; indeed Sir Joseph Bazalgette would have trouble dealing with it.

Yep, leave it to me ES. I will scour them out mate.

"Drink some bitter from the engine room tap" has for many years been one of the sovereign remedies on the GD, and very efficacious it is too. As our shepherd once described the beer in one of the local pubs (starngely, the one he favoured) "Like drinking a cross-cut saw".

Joseph Bazelgette sorted out the capitals sh1t, only to have the whole country swamped by one of his descendants promoting the outflowing flood of excrement of "Big Brother". Joseph wept.

Hello, hello...och bollocks this macordiaphone isn't working obviously David (varley) is asleep in the shack again... OK so back to the old fashioned flag signals from the top of the airport roof......

I um redy two cum backe agin fight is @ 36:98 whores IRA aboord si 28:19 hrs pls hve funl sweet reddi per arival on bord.

Maybe I should just telephone in case the watch keeper is asleep/pissed/in the heads as usual.... beep beep... sorry the party is busy and cannot take your call..... $*^% !!!!!

I was not asleep. It is just that someone tried to use the key with the aplomb of hefalump with all left feet - might as well have used flags from an airport roof.

I have been on the moonphone for hours trying to find out who was trying to call us and am now on loudspeaker watch on the monkey island watching out in case the message is being ampliated via heliograph.

Injuneers do NOT use delicate equipment, we usually bash things with a large hammer, we only resort to wire pulling in an emergency:thumb:.... I still maintain you wuz having a kip ensconced behind the switchboard..;) I have seen where you stash your extensive collection of the Beano, Bunty and Bare Arse Monthly....

I shall be on the quay ready to board within the hour...... assuming the sparks chappie has turned off the cloaking device :paper:

[QUOTE=Tmac1720;21558] obviously David (varley) is asleep in the shack again... QUOTE]



Great to see you in-transit, looking forward to a good handover and a small beverage with you.


You gave me quite a shock when you qualified "David" with the bracketed "Varley"; "Sweet Je5us", I said to myself, "don't tell me there's two of them".
To have one DAVID aboard is considered unfortunate, to have two would be a calamity and we would have to kill an albatross for good luck.

[QUOTE=Engine Serang;21563]I had to read that more than once before I realised it didn't read "hangover."

TMac's semifore/morsse/raydio cermoonikayshun scrambled my word recognition capabilities I'm afrayed.

Got it at last. Delivered by carrier albatross.

Erm… Well... my morse can't be that bad. It reads in a sort of post-amputee crab copperplate:

I um redy two cum backe agin fight is @ 36:98 whores IRA aboord si 28:19 hrs pls hve funl sweet reddi per arival on bord.

Must be code (Could have saved some money by putting it in five character groups). Tmac's good at codes, we'll leave it until he gets back.

How the albatross figured out the address I don't know but it looks quite exhausted as if it has tried every monkey island between here and Portishead. It doesn't really look terribly tickety boo, in fact it looks very untickety indeed and hardly boo in the slightest.

I think I'll leave it resting in Tmac's cabin (he's ashore at the moment and no sign yet of any joining instructions) and call the Chief Steward to see about dosing it with something.

I hope that mad Irishman will lay off the potato sauce and gies us all some peace. He's been almost incoherent since he had to put on his nice new boiler suit and go below - burbling about Diwali and sweet Jesus, needs to get his deities in order.

Varley, some of the Hull brewery bitter from the uncleaned pipes will have that Albert Ross chap in fine fettle in no time, and ease his constipation. Give it about 5 pints and shut it in Tmac's accom, that should be right.

Whats with all the flag waving Mr Varley?... are we celebrating summat?
Weird looking Turkey thing wandering around Aft. I sent it to the Galley. Might make a good meal.
bit of Anchovy sause will flovaour it up a bit HIC!!
Had to sample some of the bitter from the feed pipe HIC!!

Farmer John -- have 20 lambs ready to load - should be transferred to the Garden Deck as the lawn needs trimming. The old ewes should be shorn so we can knit Tmac a wool boiler suit for when the weather gets chilly.

In Mr. McCloggies apparent absence could you please get a cut out to sound all the tanks to make sure what should be dry is and what is full is supposed to be?

I think a bread poultice was to be given the bird, I heard it as bread sauce but that would ridiculous. I don't know why Sir W is tempting it with Patum Peperium, I hope he hasn't broached the vintage stuff.

(Anyway he should be up here doing the bunting stuff. Deckie job. Not sparkie job, even if we would do it better, bloody cold - I think I'll have some Lamb's Gravy in my Lamb's Gravy).

I've made a start Tom, I can confirm the sea is wet and outside, the hull is a little damp in some places but drier than the sea. I've sheared the ewes and wrapped the fleeces, the bags of doddings are laid up seperate, I've walked the stores over the grass, that was all that was needed.

Thank you, John. I suppose we should separate the fleeces and dye them in different colours, so when we fabricate the wool boiler suit for Tmac it should be in his family Tartan.
:thumb:

Until McCloggie returns off leave I'll cook lunch.

First Course will be liquid, to customers requirements,

Main Course will be lambs chitterlings or doddings as FJ so quaintly calls them. I will lightly dust them in flour, dip them in beaten egg and panko breadcrumbs and deep fry them in healthy virgin olive oil. They will be served with golden home fries and a green salad.

Pudding Course, bugger-off you fat fcukers.


MGGGA (Make Golden Dreamer Great Again).

E-S! Those sheeps was for lawn mowing and untalkative female company, not eating. As for dodging the afters - that's not cause and effect. I don't have afters.

Greamer?

Doddings are the bits that rattle as the sheep walk about (or, more nastily, hang down in great soggy green lumps).

I think I will go heavily on the First Course and skip the Main.

They are kept separate from the fleeces so the wool is not contaminated.

For Tmac's boiler suit, it would be best to make it and then dye it tartan, a tricky process but it will seem easy to those who have had enough Main Course.

Not as appetising as I would have wished. Perhaps a dash of Tabasco would mask the more dungy bits.
A woollen boiler suit will be very warm and could cause T to sweat. This he has avoided for ages, the last time was waiting for Bruce Ismay to sign for the Titanic. What a relief when he put pen to paper and permitted us all to say she was ok when she left here.
Enough, a wee pair of Tartan Trews will suffice, he can wear a nice H&W Welders T-Shirt, his bollox may sweat a bit but it will be a good conversation piece.

This is the garment proposed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/canadiana_org/11409446294

A dash of Tabasco will not be adequate to flavour doddings to the ordinary person's taste.

Our man will need more room around the ballpark area, more than a little bulge. Something approaching the dome of St Pauls Cathedral. The elasticated cuffs at the ankles must be augmented by loops for bicycle clips as breakfasts of porridge can be troublesome.

We can always weave bits in, I suppose, but frankly I would prefer that The Injuneers get training to allow them to accommodate their physical magnificence and their determination not to be anally retentive. Doddings of the Jaeger substrate will also not be suitable for Main Courses, I want to make that quite clear.

Oxtail stew makes many blench.

Shouldn't be difficult. I've just sent the Apprentice ashore to purchase some tartan dye for Tmac's overalls and some tartan paint to freshen up his accommodation. He should be back on board some time the day after next.

Bugger -- you beat me to it!! But we do have some Tartan paint in the fo'c'sle right next to the black and while striped paint. :)

We have an apprentice?? What do we call him other than " 'ey you " Probably find him some strum boxes to clean out?

Be careful with that Tabasco in the paint locker. It was never in Dom's recipe for the gloss and may prove dangerous if mixed with any that's left.

I'd also be careful with flavouring 'bulgewear' with the stuff. Rather like taking a leak without washing hands of raw chilli choppings.

The bo'sun's sougee was en excellent paint stripper. :chuckle::chuckle:

Oh...one glass of that and if it wasnt through you in 24 hours you were a dead un Tom.

And you weren't only dead, you were embalmed! :supercool:

Tannoy: attention all crew. there will be a Pre-Docking party in the PAX lounge in half an hour. On my tab so all welcome. Steward!, Notify engine room staff will you theres a good chap. Bulkhead phone apears to be not ringing down there.

Too much time in the paint stores! Where are we arriving now? I should know this, as First Ossifer "Recently passed Test", I left some marks on the chart that couldn't be licked off.

My sentiments entirely, FJ. In my position as Commodore. I thought I would know that we were still in Melbourne, not having been notified of any movement, bowel or otherwise. I can only presume our illustrious owner, Sir William has snuck us around the Coast to our next destination of Freemantle. :)

Illustrious owner, shurly an oxymoo/oxxymoe/whatever
I'm not a great supporter of owners and a big fan of Co-Ops.


I am now putting everyone on notice that with Brexit imminent and comrade Corbyn heading for No 10 the Injun Room Crowd will be putting out a Plank and Owners and their running dogs may be walking it. Then we can cruise to St Petersburg and Sochi and re-flag to the USSR.