Thank you kind sir, goes well with a toasted soda :eat_arrow:

Anyone seen my jar of Vitam-R ?

saw a jar of blue diamond shaped pills in the control room. would that be them?

Really, no not That jar, not mine, must be Varley's.
I mean the rather tastier German yeast extract. I don't know whether Frau Merkel will let me have any more under the new arrangements.

German yeast extract? Would it be a class of mustard. Great mit Bratwurst aber nicht mit die Currywurst. Mit zwei flasche dunkel bier. Por favor.

If you are eying up my breath-mints as a pharmacological connubial adjuvant I'd suggest there may be some lack of satisfaction when you try to have Mrs Merkel again, new arrangement or old.

back in the land of the living again now chaps. had a bit of a fall. shook me up a bat an made left knee joint rather sore. Tmac gave me some Blue Unction to rub on it and its much better now(apart from the black stains from the Graphite powder.

Anything medicinal Tmax gave me was drank and it did me the world of good. Try a tablespoon of his Blue Unction stirred into half glass of hot water and drink it up, if it needs sweetening a wee drop of Shirley Bassey helps.
Rub any leftover BU into your chest. You will be Riverdancing on your left knee before the night is out.

Is it really blue or is it just the colour of the bottle?
Beware of Australian imitations it is black rather than blue and comes in a clear jar.

Jeez, YM, don't be so pernickety.
Drink it up and shut up.
You'll be as right as rain in two shakes of a lambs tail.

Black with a yellow cap??? we got rastafarians aboard now?

With what the hell does one wash the bedlinens to remove marmite smear? Following Sir William's knee saga with one of my own (only the starboard one, the port side being already knackered) I applied a warm butter and marmite poultice to it (well I couldn't hot-butter a knee could I?).

I still had to call Mandoc at 0145 to check how much ibuprofen I was allowed as the engine room's patent antikneeknock was as much use as capping a gauge cock with a lavatory brush.

Marvelous, leg pain now gone but so has my back so no work today for me.
sorry to hear about Davids health problems. But I guess at our age its to be accepted. Getting old is like being punished for a crime you have not commited.

Mandoc has stopped reacting to certain middle of the night calls because the Marmite smears are actually "Skid Marks". To the sense of Sight we can add Smell, ManDoc certainly did.

On supermarket shelves in Dublin we have Marmite XO and Marmite Dynamite, Phew. I strongly advise the Tynwald to ban it from the Isle otherwise Ariel and other detergents will have to be imported in industrial quantities.

Speak for yourself, I have done the crime.

Our PSTN can't switch smell along with voice and picture. Evidence of this would be that such a blemish upon the luxury domestic flax would be immediately identified. Not as an unexpected escape of night-soil but as careless droppage from taking toast in bed, spread thinly with Gentleman's Relish (the toast, not the bed). Similar in visual rendition, I agree, but easily differentiated by smell (unless the odour of your ordure is anchovy). There would be no confusion should I have been consuming crumpets where a post hot-butterous Marmite application is de rigueur. They could tell that that didn't have a bowellian source as they could see it was black and that is not on my faecal colour palate.

They could tell that that didn't have a bowellian source as they could see it was black and that is not on my faecal colour palate.

Drink more Guinness.

The last time I enjoyed Guinness was around the age of 12 in Dublin. On return to civilization I realized it was too bitter a brew for me when Ma tried to dose me with it to build up the too skinny No.2 son. A determined woman, baulking at a daily bottle of said elixir she tried me on Mackeson.

A fortnight is all it took to reveal her error, too late by 13 days. For some years my crate of Mackeson arrived as regularly as Pa's Whitbread Pale Ale (well, during the school holidays anyway).

I do not remember that ever having the chrominance adjustment on stoolular brown that you are claiming - are you sure you are accepting the routine health service offer to post them your turds to monitor your bottom end bowel condition?

Ma was right in one regard. No one has called me skinny since.

It is a bit of a palaver but I have broken down into bite sized actions which even this old Yarrow 3 Drum fitter can understand;

1. Capture a stool

2.

Dear V, I am unable to undertake this task 2 hours before or after a meal. It really is stomach churning.
To be continued.


shave a sliver

1) Make three saucer shaped ice shelfs out of layers of wetted lavo-paper frozen. Appropriately sized to stop stool hitting trap water whilst at the same time allowing adequate 'drop height'.

2) Place an ice shelf in crapper.

3) Move to prove.

4) Take the little ice cream paddles to two different areas of stool, avoiding peanuts.

5) Smear two of the little windows using only one ice cream spoon for each and shut the flap.

6) Take you morning bath and return to find there has been a downward motion of the motion into the trap as the paper has melted.

7) Flush.

Repeat from 2) until all three sets of windows have been been browned off.

8) Dispatch, making sure you have disguised any suspiciously brown markings on the envelope.

Better your stomach occasionally does some churning than your family looses you to an early burning.

??? heard of Hot mail and G Mail seems we have crap mail now then

BillyBoy has never had a surprise in the post, a wee 3 door Advent Calendar c/w 3 cardboard spatulas, with directions not half as useful as Mr V's, believe it or not. Indeed I would suggest he runs a Webinar on Zoom to explain the techniques required to successfully complete the "Job".

Remember if you get it wrong you could drop yourself in it.

I am always "in it"...just the depth that varies.

message from the Agent. we are to proceed to Freemantle where we have a towing job. ship there lost its prop. only a skeleton crew left aboard. she's anchored off shore. we are to take it to Sydney for dry docking. Harbour tugs will take it off us. we will go alongside circular quay for fuel and provisions then go moor at Darling Harbour.

You make it sound like it'll all be over by tea-time. Contract towage or LOF?

My apologies. An important omission.

Do not use the little ice cream spoons again for ice cream and do not dispose of them in the public sewage system.

(A circular quay? Surely we would have to go aroundside rather than alongside).

BB just make sure that we stock up on Vegemite whilst in Sydney. I am trying to introduce certain crew members to its acquired taste.

We won't be able to 'launder' our towage money in either of the Sydney (or Melbourne) Casinos. Both are under great clouds for money laundering and other corrupt/criminal activity. A Royal Commission has just been announced to look into Crown in Melbourne:applause::applause:. The directors are falling like flies but, thankfully for them, their fall will be cushioned by huge mattresses stuffed with money. :bye:

No doubt there will be other things in Sydney to spend our money on.

Do not repeat DO NOT play with this "advent calendar" I did and it started a whole world of grief :shock: Next thing is you get another but similar test to play with, then you find yourself with various bits of assorted plumbing inserted into the stern gland. This results in you being a captive audience watching a horror film with your internal pipework as the location. :really_mad:

Friends and fellow maritime persons, take a warning from an "oul hand"..unless you have masochistic tendencies do NOT experiment with the little windows. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it otherwise you will find yourselves in the sh1t in more ways than one :shock::yawn:

Breakdown Maintenance or Preventative Maintenance? I'm for the latter, every time.
I've had two Advent Calendars from the NHS which were, with the best will in the world, messy. And one from my Private Health Insurer which required an ear bud rubbed along the bottom, before Mrs Andrex, and sealed in a wee glass bottle. All were negative and I'm sure no sane person would want to poke around there just to keep things ticking over until lunch time.

Good advice from ES folks, never, repeat NEVER ignore any bridge alarm, always investigate the cause even if it turns out to be a false alarm. In these days of UMS going with the "oul injuneers gut feeling" can be a life saver. Trust me I've been there and have the boilersuit to prove it.

I am not sure how I would do a webinar. I do not 'do' computing on my portable telephone. Some of those that do, solo, are quite successful but when couples joined our Friday zoomtails (when Friday lunch was locked out) most were not. When two share a clever telephone they remind me of nothing more than a pair of gerbils peering out of a doll's house window.

I 'do' the vidstuff with a webcam at my playroom desk. I fear the techniques I have outlined for keeping brown investigations in their proper place do not lend themselves to being transferred from their normal site, three doors down. I can assure you the only faecal matter that has been deposited in my playroom has been entirely of the accidental kind.

I also find it a bit rich that the antipodeans snipe at this temperate Isle in their daytime televisual mind rotting productions for alleged financial crime. In this they are copying the whinging of a certain Hibernian, whose homeland in that regard is certainly 'no better than it should be' (in the below-stairs vernacular) and who posts here often.

Our record is spotless (perhaps not in care but certainly in policy) now we find those carping from a distance are up to their little sunburned arses in corruption. In spades (probably also hearts, diamonds and clubs. Not too mention double zeroes). He that is with a greenhouse among you. Let him cast the first stone at us!

I don't know what occasioned such a rant but it's the old story, rant away and put up a smokescreen to divert eyes away from the streets of Douglas awash with dirty money. Her Britannic Majesty must be proud of her God Fearing, but shady, citizens and subjects.
Will the Lockdown be eased for the TT's? I'm spending the afternoon lapping in the valves on my Norton Dominator, Tmax thinks I use a Chris Marine machine, bless him.

Weighing anchor, all hands to stations (no trains)
Fire em up Tmac!...slow ahead both...we are off through the suet channel bound for Freemantle.

I demand to be told where Vegemite sits on the IMDG Code. Is it an explosive? I am aware that it can cause explosions and is as unstable as Octel.
Why should I risk life and limb to have a brown sludge on my toast at breakfast or prendre le petit déjeuner as they say in Mundrabilla.

I think that it is the involvement with that assassin of the intellect, 'daytime TV', that rankles most. The great unwashed (surely avid daytime TV watchers) may take the script as documentary.

I have just discovered a guest at tonight's braised brisket is a vegetarian. Will adding Vegmite be enough to vegetarianise the stew?

Add Octel, best recipe for vgeans and their Ilk.
Wish I was having brisket tonight. Big fan of brisket, shin, ox-tail, liver and kidneys but heart I give a wide berth.

Whom the eating gods would destroy they first make mad?

Liver and bacon, kidney in the snake'n'pygmy. Not so much of the others.

well we are passed the Pie-Ramids and that queer thing with a lions head. JUst them long legged things with the humps about now.

Internal Memo.

To: Chief Tmax British Steel.

From: Staff Chief E-S.

Our Deep Tank is empty. I washed out the last of The Hon V's moustache wax last night so as it would help kill the smell of the Suet Canal. Which it did, grand stuff.
The Deep Tanks are now available to accept a packet of bulk liquid Vegemite should you and YM agree an acceptable trade-off. It's a tricky cargo needing a 4 valve separation at all times, 2 valves to isolate from HP Sauce and Mango Chutney and 2 valves to keep it from God Fearing People.
Boss I'll leave it to you.

'About now'. I can't put that in an ETA or TOGO. Just ignore them, if we hit one the office will never know.

Perhaps if E-S looked a little less like a French Foreign Legionnaire in weekend Mufti they might not be so attracted to us in the first place.

(I am not Belgian. I do not wax it!)

Same appearance, DG class and handling precautions as Bunker C. It can make quite a mess. Not sure as to its calorific value.