Are we still in Sydney waiting for 'whoever' to return for duty (and return the probably worn out credit card)?

Agent has found us a nice little job! we move down to Circular Quay and pick up some VIP's (and their wives) for a cruise up to Brisbane. they will fly home from there. during the cruise they will be holding a business meeting in the PAX lounge in order to deliberate on something.
Cut outs and Stewards to stand to please. I want the PAX cabins cleaned and prepared for our guests.
We move ship in 2 hours.

I'd sooner Tmac had his slackers back on board for standby shifting ship. It puts my nerves on edge to be left in the control room by myself with the Chief ('in his office') in response to embarrassing 'can I speak to the Chief?' calls from the bridge.

Brisbane? Brisbane, never heard of it, but I'll accept it exists. Probably some sort of a jetty sticking out of the jungle or the bush or the outback with a billabong nearby. It is sure to be populated by opal hunters and other malcontents forcibly resettled from that big red rock thing in the middle. The gangway watch will have to be on the outlook for box jellyfish, blue ringed things, eastern browns, spiders and of course local girls with Covid and many other types of virus's or virii?
A fun filled weekend in store.

You left out the cane toads and ticks of one sort or another plus the multitudes living there who spend their entire lives bending bananas.

I wouldn't worry too much about the bananas as we in the EU employ very many people to straighten the things.
I know this to be true because Boris told me.

Surely the only establishment in Hibernia with enough industrial clout for commercial banana straightening is in that part of it that has just left the EU.

I think the earliest enforcement of the improper banana directive must have been by the dockers. The cargo that Tilapa was to have been offloaded in Southampton in 1972 when I signed off was, instead, dumped in the Channel.

Are LH versus RH bended bananas more favoured in the EU?
Just checking in case the Chinese ban the import of Oz bananas (like just about everything else from here) and we have to export them elsewhere.

All aboard? ... Gangway in Please....single up to a slipper cutouts!
Let go!! both thrusters to starboard.....Stop thrusters... slow ahead both. Keep her in the middle coxwain. Half ahead both.
Full away Tmac. Revs for 15 knots please. Yes Yes a case of Black bush on its way to you now.

Chief? Do I put that ten second bit about thrusters in the movement book? He should know by now that we don't have any.

Be nice to BB or he may do a FJ on us and we would have to put YM in command.
Stand by for heavy rolling.

In all the best TV movies involving mechanical devices there is a button or lever for 'Turbo boost' - Do we have one of those?

Of course we do along with the console of indicator lights, gauges and knobs with brass nautical sounding nameplates. The knobs switch on and off the lights and the lever position is shown on the gauges. They are to keep the deck types occupied in the same way a lifeboat set is designed to occupy the doomed while they contemplate their fate. Only the ones marked as navigation lights, Christmas tree and telegraph actually perform any other function.

(Did anyone else have a Norcontrol DB4? With the aid of a conventional radar's daylight viewing hood two could play 'Golden Shot').

Oh such power ...............

Master of all that I survey'. (Gawd he is getting carried away!)

Never thought that I would need it but I might just happen to have a foot or two of gold braid mixed in with the cotton waste somewhere.

Can I attach it to a dirty T shirt or will a stripe or four around the handle of my shovel suffice.

On reflection, I think that FJ, BB, ES and Tmac had all better stay where they are. Hope that they have all had their Covid shots as we seem to have lost all our nursing staff.

:wave:

Four rings it is. But on your wheel tappers hammer helve not the shovel's.

I have a personal movements book, I keep it in the heads :jester:

Obviously nobody has shown you our magical BIG red button :mad:

For God's sake do not touch, fiddle, play, caress or pump it otherwise you will be responsible for the consequences :yawn:

Are we away yet? I sensed a slight vibration in my pint of Black Bush, almost caused a tinkle in the ice cube bucket.

My babies are soooooooooo smooth it's like sh1t off a shovel :big_tongue:

Fret ye not Mr Mundrabilia just use a similar amount of gold braid ( yellow Lecky tape) as the Station Master in Cook Junction. Civvies will look up to you.

Attention all crew. Our gentlemen guests will hold a meeting today in the Pax lounge. whilst the meeting is in progress we are to entertain the ladies. show them around the ship and perhaps a drinkie or three in the crew bar. Thank you.

Thank you ES I will try it! No one has ever looked up to me before being here on the ground floor of the GD and a landlubber as well.

Could it be that I have, inadvertently, of course, looked down upon them?

:wave:

A clean T shirt and socks etc etc are obviously called for. Perhaps the ladies will be impressed by the four rings of Lecky tape on my arm as suggested by ES.

4 rings on your arm reminds me of the joke about 4 budgerigars.

yes but, the 4th budgie was standing on one leg.

Indeed BB, indeed.

Yellow? For a small price. But aren't you aiming a bit low - as usual. Green is the colour of requirement for the most erudite of our technical team (and that has nothing to do with Hibernia despite the number of her sons employed by the late Guglielmo who were allowed a shade of it as well).

Ever Given's baby is reputably very smooth but I am not sure she has managed yet to rid herself of the shilt or the many shovels used to shift it so far. If the ice does clink, log it (it'll only be used against you if the bar bill looks a bit shy of your usual).

Ah this way Ladies, we will start and finish our tour in the Crew bar. (Whispering> except for you my dear you may enjoy my owners suite with private bar)

Bank Holiday Weekend and nobody on board except Patti LaBelle, Michael McDonald and me. I think I'll invite The Tremeloes' over for a wee drinkie as its much easier to entertain when V and BS are not on board. It had to be said.

??? Have to worry about you sometimes. here we are slowly cruising towards Brisbane with a party of business men aboard with their wifes and you thinking you are the only one aboard! I think the stresses of the Engine room are getting to you. Get a grip man and help tour these ladies around the ship. It will take your mind off mechanical things below.

I resemble that remark. I entertain and am entertained easily. I may bollix the enjoyment of others but that is something other.

If he takes his mind off mechanical things (especially those involved with boiling water and then worrying about how much of it he has left afterwards) that just leaves him to think of 'below' - I take it Miss LaBelle is such as to excite his 'below'.

I'll have to get that drawing out again. I was sure Tremeloe was a setting on the Main Switchboard - but like the big red button, never knew exactly what it did. FM on the Main bus is usually followed by rapid-onset gloom.

Ah BB, A warm welcome aboard on your occasional visit to exercise command. Please enjoy all this great ship has to offer.

The Commodore, Captain and first mate are on sick leave...Only reason i take command.
I find it all rather stressful at times and really need an acting Captain to rule the roost as it were.
I will have to advertise for more staff.

A thespian of field rank? An odd bird that would be but good enough for this bunch of comic singers I suppose. Caution, 'though, we wouldn't want 'treading the boards' confused with 'walking the plank'.

Nor "Tinkling the ivories" being confused with "Tickling the ovaries" although Cdr V and T British Steel have trodden that path.

CREW MEMBERS URGENTLY REQUIRED: COMMODORE, CAPTAIN AND 1st MATE. Immediate start available. anyone who can row a boat is qualified.

Wot, no requirement to sight read?

No the cut outs can do the reading bit.
It would be a shame to have to put this ship into semi permanent lay up due to the lack of crew David.

Over a thousand members on this site. surely there must be 3 who can step up to fill the vacancies.
If not then its the River Fal with a view of the King Harry ferry. Nice little pub there though.

Of great concern in this regard was something that I witnessed today 12/5 whilst out on my bike in search of shipping to photograph. It was a bright sunny, if cool (18°C), Autumn day in Melbourne.

There was not a ship, boat, barge or other floating object to be seen but I enjoyed the 40 odd km ride.

What I did see was what might be the launch of the replacement GD into the Moonee Ponds Creek. Naturally said vessel was unmanned / unpersoned / unwomanned which made me think of the GD and its present predicament.

The launched thing was about a metre square and bristled with cameras, drones, thrusters, aerials and all manner of flashing light thingys. It was sailing in circles controlled by somebody on the bank playing with his joystick. It wasn't ES but I might have been a cutout. It was much too hi-tech for me as a old stoker. :jester:

I hope that this is not the way of the future for the GD as being aboard has been much more fun that dealing with the dickheads and children that infest a couple of rail sites that I throw the occasional grenade into.

I had thought that we might hold conferences onboard again. Then I remembered the problem we had with the Flat Earth Research Society's Survey Group.

One good night at the bar with our bridge team and they want to take sights with a Planimeter and Plumbbob.

(Mind you I have often thought that their efforts would be outdone had we dowsing rods interfaced with the ECDIS)

There was the Homeopathy conference that doubled as a blind testing for their proposed seasickness cure - a teeny weeny concentration of rough-sea water (the inevitable failure was blamed on the purity of the evaporator output used in the dilution). A similar potion using quinine water and gin proved more effective although some complained of strange aftereffects of loss of appetite, headache and sleeping-in- the-wrong-cabin syndrome. I think the plastcos did quite well with tips (certainly some of the chatter was quite gratuitous).

We daren't offer the facilities to the Institutes of marine engineering or navigation. We would have our lots on the razzle full time and the delegates would be sneaking about trying to re=live old times with our ultra modern tech stuff (that escapes our understanding, they would have no hope).

We will have to do something 'though or YM will start hurling ordnance around (and that is certain to disturb the Old man's afternoon forty winks).