Is Harriet guilty?

Could it be true that Harriet Harperson was involved in a motor accident whilst using her mobile phone?

Another Scotland moment maybe?

H/T to Sunday Telegraph

My guess is that she'll get off scot free.

Marine Engineering 101, Part 2

The saga continues.

Glossary:

FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.
Bilge....................A sort of drain trap for fluids.
UMS....................Unmanned space.
OIC......................Officer in charge
BA........................Breathing Apparatus
FRPP...................Fire and repair party post.

Well we had got to 1630 hadn't we?

1630. Fire detection alarm starts sounding throughout the vessel. (Vessel is another name for a ship). It's the weekly exercise.

FE heads rapidly to the FRPP, it looks bad if the OIC is the last to arrive, when he is probably the head of all matters dedicated to firefighting and damage control. (HQ1 would disagree).

First job is to commence a muster of personnel, in order to ensure that no-one is missing. Not as easy as it may appear, most seaman are loud except when they are being mustered, then they seem to lose their voices.

The FRPP consists of about 20 persons and all have been allocated various tasks by the FE. OIC(FE), 2IC, Incident board marker, Communications number, Two 5 man BA teams complete with control number, and a few spares. (The glossary in case you've forgotten)

(if you're bored, please feel free to leave, unfortunately onboard ship we can't leave)(I saw you sneaking out Mummylonglegs)**

By this time the location of the pretend fire has been broadcast over the ship's system and the incident board marker is doodling on his incident board for me to peruse.

First rule of shipboard firefighting is to send the first two BA men dressed to the scene to assist those who are initially attacking the fire. This strategy is called an aggressive rolling attack. It's accepted doctrine that if you cannot control the incident within 8 minutes from the start, then you are completely f*ck*d. Then you send the rest who hopefully put the fire out.

One of the biggest problems with the above is the amount of equipment that the teams have to don. Firesuit, boots, BA, thermal imaging camera for the team leader ( we have more on this one ship than most county fire brigades have), wedge for propping opening doors, torches, Helmets with built in communications. All this has to be checked before FE can release the teams into the wild. It gets very close to the 8 minutes.

The worst part of it all, is that once I have despatched the teams, is the thought, did I send them fully briefed, equipped, and have I sufficiently trained them? Being the OIC is a shit place to be.

For the sake of brevity, this exercise went well. We train hard as in the worst case scenario we have a major fire, in force 10 weather. Where do we go? A lifeboat in those conditions is suicide.

"Bump in the night" will be resumed in part three "FE the movie"

** Shameless plug.

It's your last chance

SUNshine in the Brighton bunker

Harriet hoisted with her own Petard

Harriet Harman says she has asked California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut down a website containing reviews of prostitutes.


Here is the letter from the site owners:

Dear Mrs. Harman,

I have a few points to make regarding your recent remarks regarding my website and your fantastic demand that the Governor of California close it down.

Firstly, PunterNet is not violating any laws. If it were, then surely the many websites catering to the US prostitution scene (where sex for pay is almost completely illegal) would already have been closed down.

In the USA, there is a concept called "freedom of speech" which is considered the most important personal right guaranteed by the Constitution. It exists specifically to prevent the sort of abuse of power that you are attempting. The Governor (indeed, even the President) has no authority with which to shut down a perfectly lawful enterprise such as PunterNet.

PunterNet was not the first, and is certainly not the only, website in the UK with the same subject matter. Rather than creating the demand for commercial sex, sites like PunterNet are a response to that demand, which has existed since the dawn of mankind and certainly long before the advent of the Internet!

One of the missions of PunterNet is education - to provide information and guidance in hopes that the commercial sex scene is limited to consenting adults and those who choose of their own free will to engage in it.

If sites like this one did not exist, and if prostitution were outlawed, then it would effectively be handed to organised crime on a platter - just as happened with liquor during Prohibition. If, on the other hand, sexwork is recognised as a legitimate, honourable profession, then there will be no market for the criminal elements, and the truly despicable aspects of the scene such as sex slavery and trafficking will die out. Surely that is a far more desirable goal than driving it back underground where it will then consist only of criminals and victims?

In closing, I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.

Stupid Po faced cow got her comeuppance.

H/T to Manwiddicombe

Marine Engineering 101

You may or may not have read a previous post, where I jokingly described part of my day as a marine engineer.

I'll now tell you the true tale

Glossary:


FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.
Bilge....................A sort of drain trap for fluids.
UMS....................Unmanned space.

0645. Alarm goes of and theFilthy Engineer leaps out of bed. (That bit was utter twaddle).

0700. Make a cup of tea.

0715. Down to the poop deck for a fag or two.

All true so far

0745. Down below to the MCR to get ahead by accessing the planned maintenance programme.

0800. Bugger, I'm duty Engineer today.

0815. Handover from yesterday's duty Engineer complete.
a) One of my diesel generators had to be shut down during the night as the intercooler was about to fall off.
b) The running RO plant also stopped mysteriously.

0830. Off for a fag

0832. Start of a set of rounds. This consists of going to all spaces on the ship that contains machinery, and believe you me, that is a lot of distance to cover. I'll just give you a small sample of typical spaces.



Steering gear compartment.
Main machinery space.
Port generator room. (Port is left when looking towards the bow)
Starboard generator room.
Shaft tunnel.
Refrigeration machinery room.
Air conditioning machinery room.
cargo pump room.
Forward pumproom.
Forward stabiliser compartment

etc, etc.

When you consider the vessel is 350 ft long and ten stories high, then you may appreciate how long this can take. About an hour and a half if you don't find anything wrong.

1000. Smokoe at last. Time for a cuppa and a fag.

1005. Pager goes off. Dash to the MCR, look at the alarm panel and note that the fuel pressure to the Port main engine is low.

1015 Finished changing over the fuel filter, old cartridge in the ultra sonic cleaning plant.

1030. Down to the RO plant to see why it stopped. Ah Ha, the SW supply pump has seized up. However we have no spare, so will have to remove the one off the other RO plant, ( That plant doesn't work as a pipe has split and we are awaiting a new one.) and fit it.


1300. Finished changing pumps over and the RO plant is at last making water. What no lunch you say? An engineer's life. At least it keeps me slim.

1310. Commence paperwork that should have been done before lunch. (Yes even marine engineers have paperwork)

1400. Pump out the bilges.(See glossary if you haven't already done so)

1430. commence afternoon rounds. Quick cuppa and a fag first.

1630. Completed afternoon rounds.




End of part one.

Next episode: "What went bump in the night"

Eire. Say no to Lisbon

H/T to Subrosa

Lets have higher drink prices. (NOT)

"Alcohol focus Scotland", has a poll asking us to vote Yes or No to the proposition “Cheap alcohol is damaging health and society. I support minimum pricing.”

You know it makes sense.

Go over here and fuck up their poll by voting NO. 66% have already.

H/T to Red Nev & the Pub curmudgeon

Oh so plain

They're still banging on about how plain packaging of cigarettes will stop youngsters smoking.

As many commentators on this article stated, "This will just mean that many customers will ask for the cheapest, thus starting a price war and driving down the price."

I do not think this is a good idea, if all cigarettes came in identical packaging it wouldn't make me stop smoking. I also think that taking brand loyalty out of the equation will cause a price war between the tobacco companies. I would no longer go and ask for a specific brand but for the cheapest. This would cause the price of cigarettes to plummet and young people would by them because they are so cheap. Sorry ASH i think your shooting yourself in the foot here!

Time for a fag.

Game

I just came across these paragraphs on another site. They seemed most apt.

I was more than slightly amused the other day to hear a 'loyal' Labour MP referring to the Prime Minister as 'a man on top of his game'. It smacked of the syndrome decribed in the piece below, but more than anything else it made my head start playing with the word 'game'. The word has several meanings, but three above all: a type of meat that is still hunted; a team activity in sport; and a distraction played for amusement, of little or no relevance to big life issues. These are listed in order of seriousness.

Gordon Brown has a powerful whiff of game about him at the moment. Already shot several times, he is hanging upside down until such time as another, better bird can be found - at which time he will be eaten....or thrown away. And yet despite that, you could never describe him as 'a game bird'. Mr Brown is, as everyone but him now realises, a dead duck.

H/T to Not born yesterday