Rant of the Day v2.

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llondel
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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1721 Post by llondel » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:22 pm

We always used the non-citizen queue on arrival at US airports. We did try the citizen line once (might have been Boston) but the chap apologised, said he didn't have the correct stamps for my passport so I'd have to go join the other line. At least he was diplomatic about it. Contrast that to Heathrow, where they were happy to process us both through the citizen queue. I think Luton was the only UK airport that insisted my wife take the other queue so we went and joined that one instead.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1722 Post by Magnus » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:47 pm

I always enjoyed Santa Monica, but that might be because I spent most of my time in Hooters on the Blvd.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1723 Post by OFSO » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:47 pm

Wasn't there also an airliner shot/missiled down off the tip of Italy during an exercise ? Always denied, of course.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1724 Post by OFSO » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:53 pm

Friend of ours just back from two weeks in CA. Couldn't believe the squalor, excrement and urine on the streets of LA, rudeness of locals, finally had to flee a motel late at night when gang attacked. Mad blacks on street shouting 'white bitch' at her. Stopped and searched at gunpoint outside naval base in San Diego while just driving by. Her seven year old son taken off and interrogated. She's a street-wise very canny city lady but said she'll never complain about London again.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1725 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:56 pm

Never get out of the boat

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1726 Post by OFSO » Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:38 pm

Friend of mine went twice round the world on the Ark Royal and only went ashore once, in Singers. Hated it, full of foreigners. Stayed on the carrier after that.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1727 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:06 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:56 pm
Never get out of the boat
Yup, getting that way when we cruise. Good to enjoy the ship in port when the hordes flee.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1728 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:19 pm

Charlottetown is quite a popular stop now - there are almost a hundred stopping this year. It's safe to get off in Atlantic Canada. By far the majority are in September and October, for Fall flavours (early-mid Sep) and colours (late Sep on). I think they do Cape Breton also. Halifax and Quebec City are the architecture ticks. None of the shore excursions get further than Cavendish (Anne of Green Gables), so we are safe up here.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1729 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:21 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:19 pm
. None of the shore excursions get further . . . so we are safe up here.
One Caribbean cruise there was a superb bar at the foot of the gang plank. Very inviting, large shaded bar with equally attractive veranda all round. Perfect opportunity to sample some local drinks.

Closed.

What time does it open?

Six.

We sailed at 5. Clearly like many of us here we tolerate tourists, not at all.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1730 Post by Undried Plum » Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:29 pm

OFSO wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:47 pm
Wasn't there also an airliner shot/missiled down off the tip of Italy during an exercise ? Always denied, of course.
I was aboard the first search vessel onscene, Subsea Buccaneer. We were working on the Messina section of the TransMed pipeline project and had a pair of deep dive manned submersibles as well as what in those days was state of the art Survey gear. An Italian ship with Italian marine crew but entirely British crew of hydrographic surveyors and submarine pilots.

We were requisitioned by the Italian Admiralty, cleared out the meat locker and the chill room to make way for bodies, collected a hundred body bags and a couple of senior naval officers from Reggio Calabria and sailed to the locus. It was massively too deep there for our subs which were only rated to 605 metres, but we collected what we could from the surface.

It was revolting. It was the height of summer and stinking hot with nary a puff of breeze. The body parts were everywhere and rotting in front of our eyes. We sat on the bridge, sipping Camparis and munching canapes while the poor bloody deck crew and the two Z-boat crews were scooping gooey bits of human flesh off the surface of the sea. Another memory I have of the scene is the paper. There seemed to be thousands of bits of paper, mostly A4 sized, but other sizes too.

The Italians were raging, including the senior officers of the Ammiragliato. They had no doubt whatsoever that the DC-9 had been shot down by the Americans. It wasn't a doubt thing at all. It was simply known.

For all of us it was a bit personal. We all flew on those Itavia DC9s between Palermo and Fiumicino on routine crew changes on the three year project and we knew most of hosties on first name terms. To have recognisable pieces of them picked up with the mail net (a long-handled butterfly net, used to pass mail between ships at sea) and stuffed into rubber bags was galling.

The gen dit at the time was that a Libyan MiG on an overwater navex had got lost and strayed into the American sphere of interest and they tried to shoot it down. It was later found, crashed into a Calabrian hillside with no sign of having been hit by anything other than a hard bit of Italy. The missile, it seemed, had gone after the much more conspicuous Diesel9.

Much later, they did a deepwater recovery and concluded, perhaps a bit too conveniently, that the signs of a missile fragmentation hit were also consistent with a bomb in the lavatory. Phew! That's the Americans off the hook then.

They wouldn't shoot down an airliner, would they?

BTW, several minutes of radar data, from several radar sources, straddling the time of the shootdown toilet explosion, went missing for some reason and cannot be recovered. Funny how that happens, innit.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1731 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:26 pm

Mos-f#cking-Quitos!!!!!

Thank you.
I feel better now.

Slasher

Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1732 Post by Slasher » Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:08 am

I think the Mexican islamic ones congregate in mosquetos.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1733 Post by G-CPTN » Fri Jun 21, 2019 6:28 am

Seems like I have acquired the usual (after group contact) sniffles - it's as if my body is fighting-off infection beyond its own germs.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1734 Post by Magnus » Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:09 am

Fox3, only once had a real mosquito problem. We bought a small (5m) above-ground pool when we moved to Oz. Installed it, filled it, treated it, let it settle. After a couple of days, I went out to vacuum up the sediment and when I got back indoors, MrsP counted 37 mosquito bites on my arse (bent over, black swimmers). Generally it's MrsP who gets bitten.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1735 Post by Woody » Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:14 am

Magnus wrote:
Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:09 am
Fox3, only once had a real mosquito problem. We bought a small (5m) above-ground pool when we moved to Oz. Installed it, filled it, treated it, let it settle. After a couple of days, I went out to vacuum up the sediment and when I got back indoors, MrsP counted 37 mosquito bites on my arse (bent over, black swimmers). Generally it's MrsP who gets bitten.
At least you spared us the pictures :))
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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1736 Post by Smeagol » Fri Jun 21, 2019 10:13 am

Just had a minor case of apoplexy when reading this:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... inner.html

Anyone feel like me that far from being investigated or being asked to resign the MP concerned should have got a loud round of applause. If what he did was assault then I have bad feelings about the future of the UK.
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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1737 Post by Woody » Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:13 am

Possibly going to be a few more of these :D

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-48720176
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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1738 Post by OFSO » Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:15 am

Smeagol, agree. Evicting a trespasser should be grounds for praise, no matter what supposed grounds they have for a protest.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1739 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Jun 21, 2019 7:31 pm

Woody wrote:
Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:13 am
Possibly going to be a few more of these :D

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-48720176
Bit of a Pandora's box. Great in theory but how about proroguing your MP in a marginal constituency when the Government majority is minimal. 10% is not that many to prorogue.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1740 Post by Woody » Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:15 pm

Bit of a Pandora's box. Great in theory but how about proroguing your MP in a marginal constituency when the Government majority is minimal. 10% is not that many to prorogue.
Not much point in Windsor, even though the majority was for Remain, our MP has consistently voted against any deal, if only I lived a couple of miles down the road in the Maidenhead Consitiuency :ymdevil:
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