Worrying: Kiss of Death?

[Dave McGouldrick]

Hey Naytikos - see what you've started ?
Have a nice 2000andwhateveritis

[Les Gibson]

I didn't see it

[Jolly Jack]

See what?


JJ.

[Les Gibson]

Quoting from Mourinho and Wenger the 2 famous (infamous) past football managers who said that whenever they were asked for their comments when one of their team hacked an opposition player down and got away with it.

[BobClay]

Who's for a quick trip on a box boat ? … and yer don't have to pack bags or catch planes. Just sit in front of the screen and enjoy the time lapse ..

https://youtu.be/AHrCI9eSJGQ

[Farmer John]

Not very romantic, sadly. Arriving on Hong Kong! Looks like a load of boxes and handling gear. It would be interesting to see a similar video from the bow so you could see the sea.

[Farmer John]

I imagine we are all sensible enough to be flat earthers, can anyone explain why this chap Elong Musk has spent so much money faking up a load more japery when it is still perfectly current to say that the flag on the moon quite visibly signalled "fake" in semaphore?

[BobClay]

This should be something to see if you've got a spare ten thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years:-

A true kiss of death …..

https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA

[Ron Stringer]

Sorry, Bob, I can't spare the time - need to go and get the milk.

[Farmer John]

No wonder Patrick Moore was known for his speed of speech.

[BobClay]

10¹⁰⁰ years.

(I've been trying to superscript for hours and finally cracked it by cheating. You try typing 'trillion' eight bloody times …)

[Harry Nicholson]

Originally Posted by BobClay

This should be something to see if you've got a spare ten thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years:-

A true kiss of death …..

https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA

That's all a bit worrying - particularly when I've just set out my first earlies (Sharpes Express this time). I worried about it some years ago, and wrote this:

FIFTEEN POINTS FOR THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

How would it be if all this collapsed into a singularity?
Will W.B. Yeats’ tombstone be ripped from the Sligo earth to whirl through time into unspeakably compressed blackness, calling out as it goes:
“Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman pass by.”

The lines of migrating geese, where would they go in Autumn?

And Carlos Williams’ white chickens finally bereft of the red wheelbarrow......

Will there be puffs of smoke from the Vatican? And what colour will they be?

When God rings up, who will answer the phone?

Will it ring in the Vatican or on the Rabbi’s desk in Jerusalem?
Or will some mullah break off in mid rant to grab his mobile?

Will that funny black thing in Mecca begin to speak and will it say:
“I’ve been out to lunch, is something happening?”

What would happen to the Queen’s underclothes, hung out to dry, on lines, in secret places?

Should we put the jam in the fridge and give a final check to the humane mouse traps?

Should we have a bell five minutes beforehand, and after we have eaten all the chocolate?

Would Tony Blair speak unto us one last sound-bite, telling us “it will all turn out for the best“?

Would the Americans switch off the lights?

Will we be interested when the missing weapons of mass destruction start going off, deep in caves in the Hindu Kush?

What will be the last poem? Will it be any good?

And how will the ewe, down by the loch, find her lamb?

June 2004 Loch Voil

[BobClay]

I'm minded of an epitaph proposed for the 300 Spartans who died at Thermopylae … not that different from the early quote in your post:

Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Of course, this is as much legend as anything, although I'm not saying it reduces the power of the words. (Sadly I've seen it displayed as the great defence against the evils of Islam, rather strangely as the event took place long before Islam (or Christianity for that matter) ever existed.

Another wonderful quote famously used by Robert Oppenheimer after he witnessed the first atomic explosion, in which he himself pretty much played a major part, was:

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

This was taken from the Hindu text Bhagavad Gita. But it is interesting that this is down to translation by western scholars. Another translation I've read is that the text reads:

"I am time, destroyer of all things."

The reason I kind of like the second one is that it pretty much echoes a fundamental law of physics called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

But you have draw your own conclusions, I'm inclined to go with what you might possibly think is the more pessimistic view. (On these sorts of time scales, none of it means shit anyway.)

[Varley]

You can't make heat travel from the cooler to the hotter?

You can try it if you like but you far better not-a

(Flanders and Swann not Charles and Boyle)

Why is it then that the young people think 'cool' is a good thing? They might as well use, as did F&S, 'That's entropy, man'.

[Tom Alexander]

Originally Posted by Varley

You can't make heat travel from the cooler to the hotter?

You can try it if you like but you far better not-a

(Flanders and Swann not Charles and Boyle)

Why is it then that the young people think 'cool' is a good thing? They might as well use, as did F&S, 'That's entropy, man'.

He said with a grin, as he wiped off his chin --"Have some Madeira, my dear"

[Varley]

And a beard in her earhole which tickled and said...….

(But not much use if you share the same tendency with respect to gin!)

[Tom Alexander]

Until the next morning, she woke up in bed,
With a smile on her face, and an ache in her head ----

Originally Posted by Varley

And a beard in her earhole which tickled and said...….

(But not much use if you share the same tendency with respect to gin!)

My general rule of thumb is that if contains alcohol, it's OK (With the exception of Ouzo and Retsina.)

[BobClay]

I had a few Ouzo's in Suva once and the next morning I felt terrible. However, after careful scientific analysis I noted that since I had felt fine when I went to my bunk, but diabolical when I got out of it, it wasn't the Ouzo that did it, but the sleep.

There have been a number of occasions since when I've noted the same thing with various beverages.

It's the sleep that does it.

[BobClay]

Have to say this (if for no other reason than to keep this thread going,) I watched a drama/documentary on BBC4 tonight called 'Last Breath.'

I'm not normally a fan of drama/documentaries, but this was so well done, using the actual people involved and some actual terrifying footage of the event, this was as dramatic as any Hollywood production.

Deep divers …. ?

Crazy bastards, but how can you not tip your hat to them .. ? (And of course the support crews.)

[Varley]

Helium breathers are doing a job most of us would fit a second rudder for the sake of steering clear of. I am still not sure we should allow them to breed, their madness maybe genetic!

[Engine Serang]

I've been around quite a few of them, many ex RN MCDO's, and they are not mad. Most are cold, calculating professionals whose main aim is to earn pots of money before their shoulder sockets give in.
I watched the programme and was engrossed but I would have liked an analysis of the DP failure and why the OOW did not change over to manual control quicker. Was the SMS amended following the incident?

[BobClay]

Couldn't think where else to put this so figured I'd make a try for the last word.

I was rooting around on the web for information on the SS Princess Maud when I came across this site. When I was a kid in the 50's my Mum would take me 'Home' for the school summer holidays, often for weeks at a time. This was with her family on a hill farm in Co. Limerick. I vividly remember the journeys on the British Rail ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire, some pretty rough. This article describes some of these journeys perfectly (particularly the smell of sick.) The paraphrased song on the site fits her well.

I was very lucky as sea sickness never bothered me, so as kid I'd explore the ship as much as I could and her name is etched on my memory.

She had some history too by the look of it, unloading American troops at Omaha on D Day. That would probably have been only 10 years before I took my yearly trips on her.

She ended up in the Med, before being scrapped in 1973. She lasted 40 years.

http://londonanduktaxitours.com/acrosstheseatoireland/

[Tom Alexander]

Originally Posted by BobClay

Couldn't think where else to put this so figured I'd make a try for the last word.

Really ??

[BobClay]

Meanie !!

[Dave McGouldrick]

This could run and run