FTP as we used to say in the simple world of IKP and Major Bunting.

I only use Aldi for the cheap fizz (and formerly, inclusive delivery). Now I hear they are limiting me to three cucumbers and three bags of tomatoes. What the hell am I going to do with salad? When will I be allowed to buy only one cucumber at a time (I don't subscribe to 'it' myself but some other gin soaks I know care for a slice with the quinine water)?

UG I took that to be a very large flag. Although WG I am not sure whether they didn't flap in the political wind.

(Until Googled, When Googled)

." Now I hear they are limiting me to three cucumbers"

Faversham reckons three cucumbers should be enough for anyone.

Eyup varley, you can stick your I.O.M. cucumbers.

IKP and Major Bunting.... :shock::shock::shock: you never fail to astound me with the company you keep :jester: Were you crew on the Clyde Valley perhaps?

Gentlemen, gentlemen enough of the castigations Mr Varley is entitled to do whatever he chooses with his Cucumbers but I understand his Plums are rather nice :big_tongue:

Whilst I have suspected Faversham has had experiences with fruits one would have run out of gin before one's guests were half way through a single cucumber (and if he's going to admire my plums too, he can do so from a distance. A great distance).

I think in Favershams case it was the rough end of a pineapple.

Faversham didnt know a pineapple HAD a rough end.

Sorry been busy with paper work and chart corrections. and now we have earthquakes to ten with 5 in less than a week, 2 today plus after shocks. House fared well but not so some of the shopping malls. Catch up with you all laters shipmates

?? Hmmm cabin not shaking, No alarm sirens, Guess we must be alongside a wall.
Anyone know where we are?

I don’t recognise it, but quay walls all look the same from lower decks.

I remember the smell from the wall in Dieppe which I could touch through my cabin porthole. We are definitely not in Dieppe.. My cabin was atop the forard boiler so we had to have it open alongside there.

If i lived near an earthquake zone I wouldn't have let Mr O'Reilly build my apartment block.

On a serious note surely in this year of grace 2023 it is not beyond the ability of man to design an earthquake proof building to house a family. Am I missing something?

You are missing something......MONEY!

From pagoda's with shifting floors suspended/restrained from a central pole to skyscrappers with dynamically positioned mass (would flume bob be an analogy?) man has developed various countermeasures for earthquakes. What man has failed to do is to restrain/dampen the greed with which builders and customers are influenced in the balancing of those with the risks.

Rusty has it. And more snappily too.

Thank you Varley, you are now my best friend ever. Just follow the money, in Ireland it is a rare thing to find a house that is built with brick if you do see one it is only the front that is brick they throw their houses up using concrete blocks that they make themselves, a brick has to be imported and will add big money to the cost, no clay in Ireland just rocks and bogs.....Idon't ksow why i wrote all that as it is nowt to do with earthquakes, Varley threw me.

In our lounge, which is square, we have a concrete post all four corners. the steels in them quite substantial. 8 of them in each post. we have concrete beams top and bottom of all walls, also amply reinforced with steel. safest part of the house. in a BAD Earthquake the walls might crack, but i doubt it, but they wont fall down on us. Had several Quakes here since we had it built and no cracks as yet thank God.

You could just as easily ask "why would you build a tower block then put flammable material all round the outside ?"

Ans... see RT

Still trying to get my head round Pizza. Made round, sold in square boxes and eaten in triangles.

Sir W. Did nanny not tell you that the mouth is the part used for getting around pizza? Perhaps, like another William's son recommended, you would find suet more manageable.

(Dare I quote Dodgson? I don't want to get a poke from the woke).

Perhaps the stranger thing about flammable cladding (for the sailor boy anything around flammable surely provides for less restful sleep - I know with my SiL's bloody candles I could not get my head down in the top floor guest room util I was sure they were all extinguished) is that some were retrofitted to make their building look less brutal, so making them more costly overall than others that may have been safer.

What has lewis carroll got to do with it ?

Oh frabjous day, callooh callay - suet is the key.

.....

"You are old" said his son, "and you teeth are not fit
for anything tougher than suet
Yet you finish the bird, with the bones and the beak.
Pray how do you manage to do it?"

"When young" said his father, "I took to the law
and argued each case with my wife.
The muscular strength that gave to my jaw
has lasted the rest of my life".

And the Lord said "let there be light" and there was light, you could see for feckin' miles courtesy of the Lott's road power company.

On another topic are we to follow the "woke" agenda and rename the Isle of Man the Isle of Them? I think Mr Varley should issue a Papal Nuncio in this regard.

Dont forget Varley.....IT'S THE SQUEAK'Y WHEEL THAT GETS THE OIL......

Well, being Underground they were probably grateful for it, possibly a lot grateful. A good point 'though unfortunately I can't comment. I have never spoken woken. But you're in the same boat over there too aren't you? Can't have an island half heathen, surely, without considering the sheathen half too (bugger, I forgot, can't use sheaths either).

Isn't there some ditty about the incompatibility of Vatican Cities and bulls?

Perhaps the Noble Lord needs the assistance of Hillary Ballcock

No, no. It is the peer of Finchley that I would have had as guide should he have been more careful when it came to earth leakage.

Signor Varley thinks Papal Nuncio plays for Inter Milan.

Nah, its the Isle of 3 legged men right enough. You not seen Mr Varley doing his tripod impression I take it.

After moving to Mona many months ago I was told it would take some while to assume the status of tripod. ~Perhaps it's the water but I'm still Jenny Legged. Fake Mona oversold again.

I didn't realise that you had moved. I just assumed that you were sailing under a flag of convenience to avoid someone or something? :jester:

Correct once again, YM. I am doing my best to avoid the Taxman. It's Dodgy Mona or Boring Van Diemen's Land.
Have I made the correct decision?

You done avoid the taxman when sheltering here (nor will your vessel ownership qualify as a convenience). The taxman, however, will (except in the case of Duty and VAT) be collecting for the treasury HM keeps here and not the one he keeps on the adjacent Isle to our East.

Added to the delights of tail deformed cats I ran into a hedgehog on my way back from a nightime pee. My first thoughts this morning was that I had had too much port and he(she) was part of a dream, I did not notice it on rising. Before taking the pledge and ditching my last thirty bottles I thought I had better check. A kind you lady at the end of a local hedgehog help line has instructed me on how to coax it out from under my bed where it is presently comfortably ensconced.

A neighbour regularly gives local hedgehogs a little saucer of Guinness which they seem to like. I'm convinced Mrs Tiggy-Winkle could be similarly persuaded.

Avoid the Taxman, no question of Evading him especially as he&she are so accommodating. And I have the satisfaction of knowing my little contribution supports birching, aka spanking, teenagers who eat Big Macs in public.

The expert lady from MHPS (Hedgehog preservation society) suggestions worked very well - water and cat food left nearby in cat carrier. Wait until after dark and return. Food gone unfortunately not with the prickly diner remaining in the box. Not to worry, little blighter found in play room so gathered up and transferred to garage with more water and cat food.

I suppose faced with having to drink water or Guinness I, too, might have been tempted towards that bitterbogsqueezing. However it has been a long time since anyone has wasted their breath offering me such a choice.

I admit I have months of swally-ing many pints of Guinness at a session and long stretches when the thought of a pint of G scunders me and I revert to beer or lager. Such is life in a modern European Democracy,

Guinness, Murphys and Beamish all the same except Guinness has a slightly more bitter taste.
Not that I imbibe it these days. age has taken its toll on me. Have to watch the old blood sugar levels nowadays.