Monthly Archives: August 2012

Against the Flow

God bless these fashionistas !

So last night, after watching the sunset on the western tip of the island, i cycled for home good and hard.  In general terms, good and hard means with little or no consideration for the local laws – I prefer it that way.

On my very last leg, I happened across Nantuckets equivalent of a CSO – or community support officer – generally considered wanna be coppers that couldn´t quite make the grade.

“Sir, Sir – Are you aware you are travelling the wrong way with your light flashing?” he yelled at me as I sped across the cobbles á toute grande vitesse`as they might say in France.

At this point – several responses flashed into my mind

1. Are you aware you are exceeding the weight limit for your belt?

2. Oh really? I thought all of the cars were going the wrong way!

3. I am sorry – I don’t speak American old chap! (of course this would have been in my best British accent!)

Of course, not wanting to get into a confrontation with the rotund little beggar, I simply replied – ‘Yes, indeed I am’.

It’s time to head back to Newport again, racing at the weekend – if you can call it racing.  This big old bus is about 3 times the size of an Americas Cup boat and around 20 times slower. I also seem to have completely knackered the rear wheel bearings in my very bloody expensive bike – so the theory of buying expensive and lasting longer is right out of the window – unless of course the shop changes it on warranty, we shall know by wednesday

The babies and horses gallery is now officially closed – I am pleased to say that, as expected, I got exactly the kind of shite that I had hoped for.  I am open for ideas for something new, something fresh, something a little bit different.

Answers on a post card please


The Poo Barrier

I am not talking about the sound barrier – nor am I talking about the pain barrier, although both of these can be associated with my running style.

I am talking about the poo barrier.  The point in your run when you realise that ‘yes – carry on and enjoy the run’ or ‘nope – gonna need to unload somewhere quick sharp!’

Now for me, this normally happens at around 1 mile – the mile mark is also my first pain barrier to cross (the second is at 3 miles) so at that mile marker, my discomfort can sometimes be two fold.  Take Wednesday night for instance, first night back on land and headed out for a quick 3 miler on Nantucket.  Went for a dump before I left the boat thinking this would be a good run but was foiled at the 1.02 mile mark by the high pressure build up in my butt hole.  It was so quick and intense that I knew my run was over unless I could offload – worse still, I knew I had to walk or I would be in severe trouble.  Luckily for me, there was a restaurant nearby.

I walked in, still clenching.  Asked the greeter at the door if I could use the toilet and to my joy she said yes.  Of course I made it to the ceramic god to drop my payload like a B52 in the Cold war and even managed a quick sharp turn around so that I could get running again.

There is one very huge problem with this though.  Try running a mile and then sitting down for a couple of minutes.  As I entered the restaurant, I was still looking pretty fresh, after all, a mile is easy – just a warm up right?  Then sit on the toilet for a few minutes and wait for the sweat to appear.  So, that very nice girl that greeted me in a reasonably calm and non sweaty manner, is then seeing me exit some 5 minutes later covered and dripping in sweat, in fact sweating like a rapist is a phrase that would describe it best.  Worse still, she knew I only wanted to use the toilet so what the hell had I been doing in there for 5 minutes?????

To add insult to injury, when I took a look on my Runkeeper satellite tracker, it clearly shows a spike in activity where I had to stop to use the dunny.  Click the link below and wait for it to load, scroll down below the map and look at the blue line – nice spike at my pitstop.

http://runkeeper.com/user/hairygoose/activity/110081059?&mobile=false

 

I will leave you now – I have some work to do before we take this old bus racing.

 

 

 

 


Goombay Dance Band

It’s worrying – the things I can think about while I am in the shower washing my tackle.  The older amongst you will remember this little track, 7 Tears – well it just came to me in a flash of inspiration so please take a moment and click the link, turn up the volume, put on your flares and sing along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKikIsRCkvs

After you have finished wiping the tears of laughter away, there is still St Winifreds School Choir to contend with

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x76VCJKsa38

and to finish with, and to balance the sexual equality stakes, Clive Dunn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KJGJRd8pGE

 

It was a good year, 1969 – many a thing happened of great importance

The Americans put a man on the moon

They also started pulling troops out of Vietnam

Then spread the love with a little festival called ‘Woodstock’

Concorde flew for the first time (before you smart arses try and say it was `71 – that was when it first went into service)

de Gaulle resigned of President of France (aparently for smelling of cheese)

The original and by far the most superior version of the film ‘The Italian Job’ was made

The Harrier jump jet entered service with the RAF

British troops deployed in Northern Ireland

and of course – I was born!

 

Babies and Horses – should I be surprised?  The two Coopers flooded me with pictures.  so many that I had to get selective and only upload around 20 of them.  You can see them on the right hand side of the page under the heading ‘babies and horses’ strangely enough – if you still have some to send, let me have them soon before I close the invitation off.

Welcome on board to Mr Yates finally – I kind of forced his hand a little bit but he needed a nudge, the old fudge packer

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4RnduOjyw&feature=related


Just what is the secret of Lisa Melvin?

I am curious – every time without fail, when I log onto my blog to see what’s been happening, I can see the search strings that people use to get here – ALWAYS – Lisa bloody Melvin’s name is there! What has she done to be so popular?

There are several downsides to working at sea.  So far this year I have missed two weddings, the Queens Jubilee, the Olympics Opening Ceremony and today’s closing ceremony.  Add to that, I last saw my girlfriend way back in the first half of June and we are currently planning to meet up in Vegas at the beginning of October.  Always, Christmas is missed as I am usually over here in the Caribbean but missing the fuss of Christmas is not really a big deal.

Today I watched the text highlights on the BBC website of the closing ceremony – Can’t stream live because I am officially in the wrong territory, but I can read someone else’s text.  To be fair, this is how I have seen all of the Formula 1 races this year so far – as a live text feed put in by someone else.

I am heavily bored today – we have guests on and are hopping our way up the East Coast of the U. S of A – fuck yeah !  Having guests on severely limits the work I can do, in general its a time for reading manuals and work histories – but that doesn’t stop it getting boring.  I also can’t get off the boat for any exercise which is driving me bloody mental.

Life without Facebook is proving surprisingly spectacular – I haven’t missed it – baby and horse photos all over the place and all that gibberish shit that twats like to post.  I have encouraged a few new readers this week and to honour them, I am considering a photo gallery totally dedicated to …………….Babies and Horses !!

Please welcome the terrible Cooper sisters, Amy and Lynsey and of course Amy Horne too – I reckon between the 3 of them, they could fill a whole photo album with the above mentioned shite.

So lets have it then – Baby and Horse photos mailed to me at the usual address for inclusion in the gallery of the year.  Use your imagination though – astound me, surprise me with your artistic content – although those comments do worry me with what I might receive from the Jelly and Custard stable – it could get messy.

What’s in store for the coming week?  Who knows.  I have just agreed to stay on past my 2 month probation period on board Timoneer. You can have a look at this old beauty at www.timoneer.org

So, Races next week I think and then the Newport Bucket is calling – much beyond that, we don’t really know where or what we will be doing.

I would like to leave you with a little thought for the evening (or Monday morning where you are ) – without exercise, my poos have turned from a huge mound of steaming organic waste to something that more resembles what next door’s cat might leave on your pebble driveway – does this mean I will be gaining weight at a couple of pounds a day ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


British Gold Medals at the Olympics

What’s the difference between a blog and a web site ?

Here to help me explain, is a sample of a website by Connor

http://jellyandcustard.wordpress.com/about/

As you will see – Connor’s website is a story about his car.  The story is written and thus the website will not change, whilst my blog is always changing, or to be absolutely correct, ‘evolving’.  So there you have it, the diffrence between a blog and a website explained in a jiffy.

Now for something more interesting.

I am bloody knackered.  Struggled to complete a 2.75 mile run tonight, legs as heavy as Nigela’s left breast – and that is heavy.  Back to Nantucket tomorrow, while I am there I will be missing my second wedding of the year over in Mallorca and I really wanted to go to that one too.

The boat is being very badly behaved – it seems like every day there are two things breaking and I only manage to get one fixed.  I turned down a 2 month job in Alaska yesterday too – I am beginning to wish I hadn’t been quite so hasty – a job on a 6 year old Royal Huisman…….I wonder if it is too late to get in touch with the guy again?

All in all – I need a motivational boost.  My two month probationary period is up on the 12th and I have to decide if I want to stay – I guess what happens in the next week will make my decision for me – if the boat continues to fail, I will be off – if it behaves well, I should stay.

Now, I hear you cry, jumping a sinking ship and all that – I have little quarms about doing so – that probationary period is as much for me to check out the boat as it is for the boat to check out me – and ultimately, this boat is not the shining pin that the previous engineer suggested it was.  On those grounds, I shouldn’t feel bad about walking away.  Let`s face it, if I had told them I was a wizzard at navigation and turned out not to be, they would have little hesitation to drop me  like a hot brick of shit – so fair is fair.

On the up side – it is quite a good programme.  Lots of space on board for my surf board, mountain bike and running shoes, I might struggle to find another vessel with that amount of space, although, what I initially thought was a good salary offer has already been matched twice this week by two other vessels so maybe I should give this one some serious considerations.

So, something to think about.

I see good old Blighty is doing rather well in the medals tables – good old Team GB! I can think of little more satisfying than winning an Olympic Gold Medal for your country – the down side, I can’t watch any of it over here on the boat!

Now, an early night beckons, and it’s not even 9pm

Bye!


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