Splice the mainbrace!
WHICH is the more desirable branch of service – army, navy or air force? Captain Allen Brink, my old messmate from the training ship days at the General Botha, in Gordon's Bay, puts in a powerful argument for a life at sea.
USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides", was a combat vessel that carried 48 600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (fresh water distillers).
According to her ship's log, on July27, 1798, USS Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48 600 gallons of fresh water, 7 400 cannon shot, 11 600lb of black powder and 79 400 gallons of rum.
Her mission: To destroy and harass English shipping.
Making Jamaica on October6, she took on 826lb of flour and 68 300 gallons of rum. Then she headed for the Azores , arriving on November 12. She provisioned with 550lb of beef and 64 300 gallons of Portuguese wine.
On November 18 she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.
By January 26, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although unarmed, she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40 000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.
USS Constitution arrived in Boston on February 20, 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky, and 38 600 gallons of water.
Join the navy and shee the world - hic!
Pitstop skills
NEWS from the world of Formula 1. Ferrari have fired their entire pit crew, replacing them with Glasgow teenagers.
This follows research which showed that unemployed youths from Easterhouse could remove a set of wheels in less than six seconds, without proper equipment, whereas Ferrari's existing crew could do it only in eight seconds with expensive high-tech equipment.
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, at the crew's first practice session not only was the Glasgow pit crew able to change all four wheels in under six seconds but, within 12 seconds, they had re-sprayed, re-badged and sold the car to the Mclaren team for eight cases of Stella, a bag of heroin and some photos of Lewis Hamilton's bird in the shower.
Shakespeare quest
MICHAEL Green, retired editor of our sister newspaper, the Daily News, says the Wits University academic who wants to open William Shakespeare's grave, to find out if he smoked dagga, must be a bold fellow. The inscription on the tombstone (written by Shakespeare himself) reads:
Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare
Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones.
"Shakespeare died in1616. And if he were found to have smoked pot, so what? Does it diminish anything he wrote?
"I am reminded of President Abraham Lincoln's reply to people who said that Ulysses S Grant, his best general in the American Civil War, drank too much. Lincoln told them: 'Find out what he drinks and send my other commanders a case'."
Yes, and I seem to recall that in a previous instance where the church authorities gave permission for Shakespeare's grave in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, to be opened, they couldn't find a workman anywhere in England who was prepared to risk incurring that curse.
Hillcrest hiatus
DISCORD continues in the poetic glades of Hillcrest. Poet Laureate Ian Gibson responds to the criticism by his self-appointed Deputy, Mike Dunleavy (address: Hillcrest Bowling Club bar), of his (Ian's) criticism of the new Ethekwini Speaker, Logie Naidoo.
That aspirant poet called Mike
Is quite overcome by 'Thekwini's hype;
From his posture supine
He says Logie's divine,
An oracle for ratepayers uptight.
Tailpiece
My girlfriend thinks I'm a stalker. Well, she's not exactly my girlfriend yet.
Last word
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
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