My holiday departure has been foiled by the weather gods - you know what they say: God laughs at plans, and all transport off island has been cancelled for the last 3 days. Humza Useless has been on the Scottish TV telling us all to stay at home. The supermarket shelves are empty of fresh stuff and we've just had a power cut. I've seen my plants pulled up by the roots flying past the window. Radio Orkney instructed us to bring in anything from the garden that might constitute an airborne hazard and I haven't seen the lid of my compost bin for days - probably weaponised into an airborne hazard. You know - just living the dream.
I'm still hoping to get the next midnight ferry South to Aberdeen - just hope that all the flood waters have drained away by the time I get there.
Best wishes to Ishmaelites everywhere - stay warm, stay dry and stay home.
3 comments:
Broad sunlight here, mrs i, and dead calm, if a bit chilly last night.
Bits of these ferries, mrs i, apparently have been built of the "wrong" sort of steel. We tedious engineering types can advise you that making bits of ships out of the wrong sort of steel - mild instead of stainless - is like making buildings out of biscuits instead of bricks.
NB Stainless steel costs (v v crudely) 3 or 4 times as much as mild and it is harder to work. So a fancy bit gets to be 5X or 6X as expensive. It is not uncommon, I am afraid, to spec cheaper materials at the contract stage and have the errors show up only after contracts are let and revisions start to raise their ugly expensive heads under the protection of sunk costs and oh-well-isms. One wonders sometimes how well or badly contract specs are perused by the various personnel, and about their err, ahem, personal motivations, and the err, exotic unofficial reward structures that ease these things along.
"exotic unofficial reward structure" (EURS?) is a terrific coinage, mr mongoose. Ishmaelia strikes again.
v./
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