Please bring me beer. The kids are drinking my stocks at an alarming rate. Extra mince pies will be left out. And you can help yourself to a large single malt.
Yours truly
A soon to be beerless, Filthy Engineer.
P.S They drink Corona.
PPS. They’ve now started Whining on the wine.
PPPS. If they get near the whiskey, then you may only have to pass over their graves next year. It’ll save you a stop.
I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the
world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.
II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th. of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the
speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself.
On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the Oflying¹ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can¹t be done with eight or even nine of them Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
IV. 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance. This would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth¹s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion Joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in a milli-second, would be subjected to forces of 17,500 G¹s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned
to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
Just saying.
Shamelessly nicked from Subrosa
The house is filling up fast.
Nice though it is, there’s a problem. They’re drinking all the beer.
Still I suppose it’s Christmas.
Bah Humbug Merry Christmas.
All is peaceful in the FE household tonight.
The shopping has nearly finished, although I need real lager as Mrs FE bought non alcoholic crap. That’s tomorrow’s pilgrimage.
I’m quietly sitting here writing my usual drivel whilst sipping a large whisky, and Mrs FE, son and partner are attempting a jig saw.
The open fire is just dying down, having given a gentle glow complete with flickers of light in the living room.
At this mellow moment I would like to wish all those who read this ridiculous blog a very merry Christmas. I’m quite humbled by how many visits per day I get to this blog, and my main sin is in not replying to some of the comments I receive. However some of the comments are far better than what I write in the articles. They leave me speechless. (Bloody good excuse).
Being a man of few words, I’ve found that writing articles on this blog has been a burden that I never thought I would manage. I really wish that I had the imagination and fluidity that others possess.
I’ve written articles about my early life in the marine industry and I’m considering writing about my my last few years in that industry, where I’ll try and highlight the changes for good or bad. (OMG. I’m in terminal ramble mode).
I might get a post in tomorrow, but I’ve got to pick up my niece in Southampton and brink her to chez FE.
And of course buy beer.
Have a very, very, Merry, Christmas one and all.
Especially David Wheeler. Thankyou.
Red-faced U.S. Air Force officials admitted today that they accidentally shot down Santa Claus' sleigh and severely injured Santa and most of the reindeer as the sleigh hovered over a field near Edwards Air Force Base in California.
"We admit the error but we that does not alleviate Mr. Claus of his own responsibility", stated Col. Jerry Gandy, 95th Air Base Wing commander.
Gandy said that Santa is allowed his yearly trek across North America under the conditions that he clearly identify his sleigh, retains radio contact with Air Force officials and remains at least 300 yards from any airports or U.S. Air Force installations.
"I radioed my coordinates well in advance and I was just outside the 300 yard perimeter", Santa stated from his hospital bed where is listed in stable condition recovering from bullet wounds, spinal damage, bruises and contusions. "I think this was a deliberate act by the U.S. Government to prevent Christmas from happening this year".
Gandy also stated that Santa's sleigh was not clearly identifiable as it had no distinguishing identification tags.
"That's ridiculous", Santa stated. "How many other damned sleighs are there out there being pulled by a pack of reindeer?"
Hospital officials say that Santa is expected to make a full recovery and veterinary officials state the same for the reindeer, except for Rudolph.
"I'm afraid Rudolph's nose was blown off", said one of the veterinarians on condition of anonymity. "We can build him a new nose but it won't have that trademark red glow".
President Barack Obama said that he will discipline the air force officials over this outrage.
"I won’t get the Wii I asked for this year because of them", Obama stated.
A Tesco store at the largest military base in Western Europe has provoked outrage after failing to sell the Military Wives’ number one single.
The shop at Catterick - one of the Army's oldest and biggest bases - claimed that it was too small to stock the hit charity song 'Wherever You Are’ – which is currently outselling the rest of the top 20 combined.
But the store DOES stock Little Mix’s single Cannonball.
Staff have now been ordered to quickly order copies after customers complained they could not get hold of it.
So says the Daily Mail.
Well you can listen to it here then.
H/T to Captain Haddock for pointing me to the article.
SIGN IN A STORE WINDOW.
'WE WOULD RATHER DO BUSINESS WITH 1000 AL QAEDA TERRORISTS THAN WITH ONE SINGLE BRITISH SOLDIER!'
This sign was prominently displayed in the window of a business in CAMPBELTOWN, SCOTLAND.
You are probably outraged at the thought of such an inflammatory statement.
However, we are a society which holds Freedom of Speech as perhaps our greatest liberty.
After all, it is ONLY A SIGN.
You may say: 'What kind of business would dare to post such a sign?'
Answer:
A FUNERAL PARLOUR.
(WHO SAID SCOTTISH UNDERTAKERS HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOUR?)
YOU GOTTA LOVE IT!!!
= God Bless Scotland =
"The Ferrari F1 team fired their entire pit crew yesterday."
This announcement followed Ferrari's decision to take advantage of the British government's 'Work for your Dole' scheme and employ some Liverpudlian youngsters.
The decision to hire them was brought about by a recent documentary on how unemployed youths from Toxteth were able to remove a set of wheels in less than 6 seconds without proper equipment, whereas Ferrari's existing crew could only do it in 8 seconds with millions of pounds worth of high tech gear.
It was thought to be an excellent, bold move by the Ferrari management team as most races are won and lost in the pits, giving Ferrari an advantage over every other team.
However, Ferrari got more than they bargained for!
At the crew's first practice session, not only was the scouse pit crew able to change all four wheels in under 6 seconds but, within 12 seconds, they had re-sprayed, re-badged and sold the car to the McLaren team for 8 cases of Stella, a bag of weed and some photos of Lewis Hamilton's bird in the shower
