Real engineers, such as myself, would only use a Bahco. I am a legend for asking Tmac to leave the machinery spaces for nipping up a gland with Mole Grips. (He was the worse for wear).
BB keep your King Dick, it's as close as you'll get to …………… Happy Christmas.

Legend = inflated story of long dead mini hero kept current by the gullibility of many.

So, you looked daggers at our magnificent Injuneer when he took the last piece of toast, and have felt nervous ever since.

Lifting, indeed looking covetously at, the last edible item on the tea tray is a mortal faux-pas and will ensure you are never invited back. Poor old T has never been invited back to Lady Cynthia's swarrys.

As I've said many times I shouldn't use Food, Edible and this bloody ship in the same sentence. Somebody should do something about the cook, or chef as he calls himself.

The cutouts have hoisted our tree and decorations and mighty fine they look. Some said the 150ft tree was too big, but it does look very imposing. Any volunteers to be the fairy on the top? It is a heavy lift tree, so anyone can have a go.

you could be in luck FJ. it seems we have some plastic fairys aboard.

OI!! who rocking the boat. 6.9 earthquake here. Me booze sloping around in the bottle.

Best drink it, don't want to spill it.

Are you sure it's a 'quake? I thought that fat fairy on top of such a tall tree might require someone to check the rolling period at least.

I have a feeling he'll not be up there for long I think they have made a fundamental error with the pointy bit of the tree ("They don't like it up 'em Mr Mainwaring, .....")

Glad you and the good lady are all safe. Varley has it all wrong as usual, the reason there is a fairy on top of a Christmas tree is simples..... Santa told the Queen of the Fairies to go out and get him one tree for each of the twelve days of Christmas. Unfortunately she was as good at mathematics as Diane Abbot and brought thirteen. "What will I do with the extra one?" she asked, Santa told her which is why you get a fairy on the top of a tree....

Tmac's patented shock absorbing wave damping apparatus saves the day!!

And tested extensively in the earthquake hotspot of suburban Belfast.
Patent the gizmo before John Chinaman sees it.

We would have worried had you not announced your wellbeing before MSN had announced the subterranean Kerfuffle.

I see there have been fatalities sad time of year for a country with such a rich believership.

V you are a heathen and will be given burger and chips on Christmas Day, with diluted orange juice.

Strange you should come up with that. Many moons past when I last saw school chaplain (Rev. Challis - great name for a Christ shaman, recently became 'late' I regret) he greeted me just like that "Ah, David. Still a heathen?".

My post however was prompted by the thought that calamity around a festival must be worse for those who 'owned' the festival. Rather than to poke fun of any particular superstition. I am jealous of the comfort they give. Just not the intellectual canon.

(I am procuring the birds for M'Lady, to whose table I am invited. They will not be coming from across the road!).

Sir W. That does not mean you cannot take advantage of it surely? (Providing it doesn't bring in the ceiling). I hope GD is in sufficiently deep water to avoid tsunami.

Y'know at times like these I thank God I'm an atheist :jester:

A very Merry and Happy Christmas to you all and my sincere thanks for your companionship over the past years. :flowers:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters)

This raises the question, the Ulster question; Are you one of our atheists or one of their's.

Myself I'm very much an A La Carte Christian. I would give it up completely but this is not the time to be making enemies.

I declare myself to be a stout and convinced atheist, secure in the knowledge that if I am wrong, I will be forgiven. Just don't give me a harp and some Horlicks (meant as spelt, not pronounced.

They used to serve Christians A La Carte at that famous eatery "Cannibals Express."


Or was it Cannonball Express?

Anyroadup, a very Happy Christmas to all hands, no matter what they are holding on to.

Must say, the old girl looks nice with that Christmas tree up the foremast. The red and green lights might be a bit confusing to some seafarers though.

Certainly an Anglican atheist. Despite a High Church upbringing (not at home but at School) I am more deeply suspicious of those employing the graven image than the plain totem. My then colleague Capt. Oztaskin I termed an Anglican Muslim. Both attending EB Carrier (recovering from various insults at Sembawang) he would join us for a bacon sandwich in the galley before 'work' and finished the day with a modest glass of Whisky. Except for the Prophet's Birthday when he was observant (in fact he was upset that he missed the date in Singapore and urgently 'phoned his wife to see if it had been declared the day after in Turkey = it being a 'when the moon is first sighted after' or some such gobbledegook). Nothing to complain of in that. I will also settle down to Carols from King's on 24th. It is at that time I will wish us all the compliments of the season and all the best for 2020. Until then...Bah Humbug!

Thank heavens! I thought we'd collided head on with something woody with a cargo of baubles. "When a red you see in front.....

Our lights are based on the "whirling Mandala" of colours from Infra-red to Ultra-violet. Beautiful and awesome. Bearing in mind that we are in Lerwick, all lights are set to very low. Like a glowing ember and not a searchlight. Think of the Northern lights, not the set of Come Dancing. Something has just made me shudder.

I know a joke about Come dancing but even I draw the line somewhere so won't tell it. Anyhoo I am distraught at the news from Norn Iron this Christmas. The annual nativity play has been cancelled up at Stormont...apparently they can't find three wise men and the search for a virgin has proved fruitless. The good news is there are plenty of ass (holes) available to fill a stable. :yawn:

Tell you what ES, let's you and me go down the pub, start a fight and bitch about the crew.... remind you of the good old Belfast Christmas spirit ?? :chuckle:

I,m not getting involved in that Tmac. You were so piscatorial last time you mistook me for one of the enemy. I still have the impression of a shifter on my head from that do!

This is fine though Sir William, since it says "King Dick" but reversed it is taken as an accolade from the last Ladys Sewing Circle you visited.

Here it is. Vernier took me life with it so he did

Now that's what I call an invitation. A drink, a fight and the opportunity to bad-mouth Varley and all his mates. Sorry Mates.
Here's to us, who's like us, devil the one.

Good Old Belfast Christmas hooch - presumably just poteen aged over the twelve days that it took to smuggle it across the not-at-all-a-border. Me and my mate (your didn't mean the 's' did you?) will watch you oiks at fisticuffs from the civilised environment of the lounge bar. You know? if you were to have an unstained tie and clean socks you could join us.

I don't wear socks, my feet are black enough already :bad_mad:

You are right. Socks won't help you disguise those. Not quite as much an offence on the eye as they are on the nose.

E S is sitting this one out.
In the hope nobody comments on his vest and pants.
I'm a bit more sensitive to ridicule than Tmax.

A vest and boilersuit. Isn't that as weedy as socks with sandals?

(Sensitive? As is the potato to the AVO!)

I'm in my Polar Bear onesie with red tartan sash, to hell with the rest of you. Sartorial elegance comes nowhere at Midwinter in Lerwick, the shipping forecast is endless rain,

In that case, what you wear isn't an issue provided you also wear a sou'wester with a big brim.

And braces with bermuda's

The Lounge Bar, there's posh.
Pay 25 pence a pint extra to drink with a bunch of social climbers and in IOM a bunch of embezzlers.