My DayFollow

*******. All we got around here are old slave pens and giant kilns.

True, but at least it's a British PC so it has a "£" key and two "U" keys

Edited, Sep 20th 2008 4:39pm by Nobby

I remember when we visited Canterbury cathedral and looking at the spot where Thomas Becket died. Gives you pause to think of the gravity of the act and the effects it would have from that point forward.

I saw the film Master and Commander, which I enjoyed very much. Especially the beautiful moments of friendship between the captain and the surgeon (Aubrey and Maturin). I Also loved the music. So I read some of the Patrick O'Brian books, to prolong the pleasure of the film.

The books were stunning in their nautical and particularly nautical-engineering detail. I had never appreciated before just how complex sailing ships were, or what a profoundly impressive feat of engineering they were, or how very much constant work went into constantly maintaining them.

I had had some idea of the brutality of life at sea in the tall-ship era, but these books gave me that final insight into WHY it was so brutal. They really didn't have the room they needed to house and feed the manpower they needed to keep those things afloat and functioning, without modern technology and materials.

When people talk about how bad the conditions were on ship I simply say "Compared to what?" You wont get me down a coal mine like my cousins." Its fresh air,3 square meals, wiskey twice a day. Yes it can be hard and dangerous but darn few folks can do it!" Or as another friend of mine says, 'treated worse than dogs, worked harder than horses and proud of it because it was so hard and dangerous."
Conditions in the USN were slighty better than the RN however. In foreign ports sailors always tried to trade the US tars for their ships biscuit as it was better.

I helped cut down two trees that were falling over after the remnants of Hurricane Ike passed over us.

I read this as "kvetch" and was momentarily confused.