Well, my friends. I’ve been on board my new ship now for twelve days as Master, and for about six of those I’ve been alone. The first week, I had the previous skipper to give me an induction and show me the ropes, both literally and figuratively. An invaluable assistance for a few days, until […]
Category: freedom
Categories
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 […]
Categories
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 […]
Apologies for the slight delay in this (last) week’s edition of the blog. I’ll owe y’all one. I have been repositioning a little workboat from the Netherlands to Germany, and we had a few issues with watertight integrity, steering, power, and so on. Turns out engines and electrics don’t like being ankle-deep in seawater. It […]
Good morning, all. I hope you are well. I certainly am. The kids were off school this week for their October break. For non-Scots, this is a ten-day holiday subtracted from the summer holidays, to allow the children to help with the potato-picking season. And indeed, we did get a very full bucket of potatoes […]
Apologies for the delayed article. I’m afraid I’ll be a little brief this week due to contracting a lovely little pathogen from my children and spending 13 hours in bed with a fever dream today. I’m feeling better this evening, but it now seems it’s my wife’s turn to suffer. Suffering, of course, being the […]
Little Green Lies No salty anecdotes for you this week, my friends. I have returned home from the sea to colder weather. Commercial duties are swapped for domestic ones, and the gloriously mundane comforts of brushing teeth, bedtime stories, and changing nappies. Home is never the same as you left it. My youngest daughter, 22 […]
My first duty this week is to thank my new friend Steven Wilkinson, of the excellent Substack Pitchfork Papers and his company Good and Prosper, for his continued support and encouragement. I’ve been following his work for some time, and his kind words on Friday, when he allowed me to guest post my article ‘Half-Mast’ […]
Monarchy, Mortality, and Morality. I never met The Queen. Neither did most of you. But I’m willing to bet that every single one of you had some sort of emotional reaction to the news of her passing. For my part, I have been reading the book of revelation, and Paul’s address to the Romans, in […]
This week, I’m exhausted. Although I’ve never been happier. I have a beautiful wife and three beautiful children. I’m making decent money and learning how to actually manage it for the first time in 37 years. Meeting wonderful people. Enjoying the autonomy and education of self-employment. Learning new skills and building on old ones. I […]