I forget where I read this factoid, but if you make any absurdly unreasonable request of a stranger, like cutting in line at the supermarket, your odds of a successful request increase from 1% to 90%, if you provide a ‘because’ justification. E.g., Saying, ‘Can I skip ahead of you’ on its own is less […]
Category: culture
Well. Where to begin? Tonight, in Vlissingen the Dutch begin to celebrate Carnival. A crazy celebration involving costumes and role reversal, that will last until Ash Wednesday. Carnival celebrations traditionally involve masks, cross-dressing, jesters acting like the king, and lords and ladies waiting on their servants. Linked to Purim, it indicates how the proper order […]
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Twits and Titans
Very little of what passes for ‘culture’ today, is anything more than a cult or a sub-culture. The political movements of our time have more in common with a bowel movement than any of the guiding principles they use as camouflage. The focus on the outcast, the downtrodden or the marginal has become so fetishised […]
Good evening. It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday night, so naturally, I’m sipping a Ribena and reading about IR35 tax reform. I’ve been ashore for a week now, and the kids all have some respiratory infection that has given me a rather itchy throat. However, the days are lengthening, and I can sense spring on […]
Charlie Munger has two great quotes that I’ve been mulling over for several weeks: ‘It’s not greed that drives the world, but envy’. And ‘What good is envy? It’s the one sin you can’t have any fun at’. So, are we living in a world driven by humourless desire? Perhaps on Wall Street that is […]
My hire car came early on Monday afternoon, and my flight to Edinburgh from Stansted on Tuesday was looking dicey due to the winter travel disruption around London. Only one thing for it. I finished my jobs in the shipyard and signed myself off the ship early. A quick eight-hour drive through the freezing fog […]
I was told a few days before coming to this vessel that my main client had no work for me this month, as previously promised. The client doesn’t have enough business to keep their ‘on-the-books’ staff busy, let alone contractors. I’m self-employed, so this was to be expected at some point. Logical enough, as the […]
Remembrance Sunday is a tough one for me. I’m no fan of the modern concept of the Nation-State. As one who enjoys the freedom of the seas, I know how artificial national boundaries can be. The historic three-nautical mile limit offshore was conceived as belonging to the state, on the logic that the range of […]
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Deutschland Immer Wieder
I drafted this article after I’d been in a metaphorical decompression chamber for about a week, since leaving that last ship. A little 25 Gross Ton workboat. I’d been on her for only a few days before that visit, so I didn’t know the guts of her well. This time I spent 21 days on […]
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Damage Control
It has been over a month since I posted. Apologies to loyal readers expecting their weekly tot. It has simply been too difficult to write recently. Has much happened this past month? FTX fraud and collapse? Uprisings in Iran and Communist China? The Dutch attempting to leave the WEF? Sunak and Hunt taking the supposedly […]