Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Idler, Wednesday, August 6

A rum affair

THEY'RE sticklers for history and tradition over at Royal Natal Yacht Club. I'm told that last week they decorously downed a tot of rum in remembrance of "black tot day" which was when, 44 years ago, the Royal Navy stopped issuing the daily rum ration.

It had been a tradition that went back over the centuries. In the early days, British sailors got a daily ration of a gallon of beer. Then that became half a pint of rum. It must have been pretty jolly out there on the high seas. But the ration was eventually whittled down to the imperial tot of rum the tars were being issued every day, up until July 31, 1970.

The ration would be preceded by the piped call on the ship's intercom: "Up spirits!" By tradition the bosun - who dispensed the ration – would put his thumb in the tot measure. The rum so displaced would be his own to claim, so with a crew of perhaps a couple of hundred men there was a lot to be said for being bosun.

But all that is history. All the Commonwealth navies eventually followed the British example. My friend from RNYC bitterly ascribes the decline to the meddling of the British Labour Party. But he's perhaps being a little unfair. It was actually the senior officers of the Royal Navy themselves who called for the scrapping of the rum ration as it was out of keeping with the technological control needed in the modern navy.

I'm not sure what measure of rum the RNYC chaps took in commemoration, nor whether they took to the waters afterwards. But there have been no reports of erratic small craft movements in the harbour.

 

Mystery wreck

THE wreckage of an old ship has been found in the foundations of the World Trade Center site in New York. It's an extraordinary find. How it got there is not explained.

But it's been identified as a Dutch-designed, Philadelphia-built sloop meant for carrying passengers and cargo. Scientists have identified its wood as white oak and have dated its cutting from the forest to about 1773, which was two years before the American War of Independence and three before the actual Declaration of Independence.

But how did it get there? The World Trade Center stands well back from the Hudson River.

The Americans didn't abolish the rum ration at sea until 1862, so it could possibly have been some erratic navigation.

But, given the 9/11 connotations, we can probably rely on the conspiracy theorists. It was the CIA who did the whole thing.

 

 

 

Sprout and snout

A FELLOW has pushed a Brussels sprout up Mount Snowdon, in Wales, with his nose.

It took Stuart Kettell three days to roll the sprout up the 1 085m mountain and it cost him a great deal of skin from the knees and elbows, though his snout was protected by some sort of surgical mask.

It was in aid of charity. Kettell next plans to walk from England to France, across the seabed of the English Channel with an airhose to the surface. He has previously raised funds by staying in a box for a week.

It's understood that after his Channel jaunt Kettel plans to dribble a papaw all the way from Kranskop to Nkandla. But observers believe he might have to think again, find something really unusual to attract the interest of the punters.

So many people are dribbling papaws between Kranskop and Nkandla these days that the terrain is positively squishy with them, there's no novelty in the thing.

Crop circle

A BALLOONIST flying over a wheat field near Weilheim, in Germany, was startled to see below him a giant crop circle – 75m in diameter – containing the most intricate and absolutely symmetrical patterns.

It's attracted thousands of visitors from far and wide, who have flocked to the scene to sing, dance and meditate within the ornate design.

What caused this? Was it little green men from outer space, with a flair for artistic design? College students, also with a flair for artistic design?

Back again to the conspiracy theorists. It was the CIA.

 

 

 

Tailpiece

Although they had no first aid class,

Egyptians were not dummies.

They knew the art of bandaging,

They learned it from their mummies.

 

Last word

No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it.

Charles M Schulz

 

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