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Cold Innit?

Well, Winter is well and truly here then.

As we all know anyone who lives in Britain talks about the weather every single day. As I’ve said before it is simply because we get so much of it. 

As you can see interruption to transport services due to inclement weather is not exactly a new phenomenon.

A Croatian acquaintance of mine who works outdoors in England delights in the fact that he can get soaked, windswept and burned to a crisp all on the same day!

So for all Britons the chance to moan about snow, ice slush and the inefficiency of the local authority gritting the roads and pavements (or should I say NOT gritting etc.) offers a delightful opportunity to complain to anyone who will listen, plus most who won’t, about the current situation.

If you live in Scandinavia or Canada it’s easy.

Every year it snows, on go the tyre chains and you’re off. Try that in Essex or Middlesex and you’ll be fine to the top of the road when the bit the Council managed to grit will cause the metal to become redundant and disappear in about half a mile, not to mention the possible tyre damage.

Don’t fit the spiky beasts and you might not make it out of your own drive, let alone up the frog and toad.

Underneath it all however most reasonable people know that everyone is doing their best. Neighbours who barely nod to each other for the rest of the year talk whilst they clear paths and their kids lob snowballs at them. Folks do a bit of shopping for the older residents. Gritter drivers work all night to keep the highway clear, no way in the world will they ever be able to oblige in the side roads, if Councils lay in five times the normal amount of rock salt they need a bigger depot and we all moan about the rates.

The upper echelons are as confused as ever. The men from the Ministry spend all year trying to catch drivers out on their hours, one bit of snow and suddenly the Government says the Euro rules don’t count and “can you please take that spreading lorry out and work all day and night, there’s a luv.”

Of course there’s a darker side, the media (present company excepted) talk of Armageddon and pensioners frozen into statues, phone and electrical failures, central heating fuel running out etc. causing everything edible in the shops to be bought up.

By the look of our local Tesco on Saturday (don’t ask) some blokes will still be having soup for dinner in August.

All in all though we residents of this Sceptred Isle love a bit of a crisis, so this cold snap is right up our street. Despite all the whingeing I notice the post has arrived every single day, albeit at variable times. The legion of delivery men who call from Play.com and M & S humping their precious merchandise for youngest sprog with money and her who’s the boss, seem to arrive here with the same monotonous regularity so well done to all the guys behind the wheel and those who struggle into the hubs for keeping things going.

I had a clip to show from Seaton but it’s been withdrawn (I’m guessing because it looked like someone had set up the whole thing with a hosepipe on a frozen hill) so you’ll have to make do with these.

And last but certainly not least !!!

That Kenyan Shipping Corruption Allegation..........

The story covered on the Handy Shipping Guide News Page today outlines various allegations regarding corruption in and around the Port of Mombasa.

What is even more worrying are the hints carried in other media sources that elements within Kenya may be in contact with Somali pirate groups who now routinely attack unguarded ships off the East African coast.

Here follows the full series of Videos made by the Kenya Television network which have caused the latest furore.

There is no doubt that the Kenya Revenue Authority has taken substantial steps toward cleaning up the port evidenced by increased revenue levels.

What is plain from the tapes is that they may well have some way to go yet.

We present the report shown without taking sides.

There is no dispute that revenues for the Kenyan Authorities have increased massively since the inception of the Kenyan Revenue Authority and it is in the media's interests to produce sensational programme.

KTN say they have been threatened with legal action over the films.

Up to now no action seems to have been taken.

Feel free to post your comments below.

The Captain’s Christmas Message

And Ho Ho Ho to one and all…….

…..But especially the drivers of Arrow Trucking in the US who found out two days before Christmas that they were losing their jobs – and their rigs – with immediate effect.

Others in the trucking community have set out to do what they can (see the Facebook link on the original Handy Shipping Guide story) and we wish all you guys a happy Christmas despite your getting dumped by a firm, which by all accounts, wasn’t up to much anyway. Let’s hope it’s a turning point for you all.

…..And to the drivers who use the only access point to get into Wales, namely the Severn Bridge, after the English and Welsh authorities colluded to increase the toll charges despite a deep recession and fair words saying how much they care for the .community with a strong desire to increase opportunities for trade in the area.

…..And to the management at Eurotunnel who, despite my excusing them for all delays by stating that at least they hadn’t used the old “wrong type of snow” argument, obviously read the latest Captains Blog and decided that, actually, that was a pretty damn good excuse for all their trains breaking down and immediately issued a press release that “cold fluffy snow of an unusual type” had actually caused all the problems. Shame it wasn’t the normal square, warm stuff we usually get then.

…..And of course the politicians who worked so hard at the Copenhagen conference that they managed all the objectives they had promised, or rather precisely none of them, which of course was exactly what the bulk of us thought they would achieve.

Thought it best to put that in as I seem to have slipped into sarcasm at some point there so it’s probably best just to thank all the regular readers of the Handy Shipping Guide and those who also find their way onto the blog site for all their support over the past few months.

The news readership now is reaching astonishing levels with thousands of people in 177 different countries using the site daily.

Not bad as we actually went fully on line in September.

Don’t forget that you can freely comment on any of the blog topics just by using the “comments” link.

So thanks to all and a very merry Christmas.

Here’s a final Christmas Video – Just Don’t watch it if you’re easily offended!!!

A Little Bit of Snow and…………..

Here we go again.

If there’s one thing worse than being unprepared for the recent bad weather in the UK it’s the sound of everybody having the same perennial conversation; you know the one,

“Why weren’t we prepared for it? 6 inches of snow and everything comes to a full stop, my road’s impassable Boss, I can’t…”

As you can see, some of the head office staff weren’t too keen on getting on regardless

(despite the fact that because of the breaking news more people read the Handy Shipping Guide news than any other day).

Well this time the effects of a few inches of the cold white stuff, was enough to stop the entire Eurostar service for several days. At least it wasn’t the old British Rail “wrong type of snow” argument this year.

Nope this time it’s too warm in the channel tunnel.

Now everyone who ever bought a DVD for their Gran in the deep midwinter knows you can’t walk straight in the house and open it up.

If you do the condensation will be running around its internal organs the moment the                                                                                                                cellophane comes off.

It has the same effect as dropping a fish in boiling water – it stops working.

Now even though we all know this, apparently the blokes who designed the Eurostar didn’t, and in a way, I have some sympathy.

No one probably ever thought that a sudden cold snap could turn the outside world into a frozen hell whilst the tunnel remained as snug as a polar bears cave, in fact a good deal warmer.

One dose of that heat and Thomas the Tank Engine’s electrics started to look like a fat man in a sauna, with unsurprising results.

Unfortunately the “severe” weather we’re having gives us no credibility with those in the outside world. Our Thai office delight in telling us how this is the “best time of year, it hovers around 26 degrees” whilst in explaining to a contact in Canada that “it really is jolly cold old boy” (have to maintain the colonial image, they expect it) merely results in a stony silence which is actually the sound of his hand over the phone whilst he snorts in derision.

So if I may I’ll use this brief piece to explain and excuse us British for our ambivalent attitude toward snow and weather in general.

We get a lot of weather.

That basically is that. It changes day to day and often hour to hour and that’s why it is an Englishman’s favourite source of conversation.       

A Frenchman or Italian will discuss his love life, or possibly his dinner, an American his Church or his vacation or how big something is, but, first and foremost, the English talk weather. Snow, it has to be said, rarely figures on our radar. It represents a tiny percentage of the vast morass of changing meteorological conditions we endure and enjoy and so, frankly, we generally pay it no mind.

Until it arrives. Now if you own a hill farm somewhere north of Invergarry you will sneer at the southern ponces (about 98% of the British population in your case). You will have your Land Rover and snow chains and shovel as you tour the hills after October.

Even the midges wear Barbour jackets.

But for the average, town dwelling, man in the street the only time he puts a shovel in the boot of his car is when he is burying his cat

(or more likely next doors cat)

in the woods (or possibly on the beach).

So on behalf of my fellow countrymen may I apologise for the fact that every time it snows South of Dundee the population staggers round muttering under its collective breath with a glazed look like they’ve just been given an eviction notice.

And may I also point out that, at some point leading up to and during the weekend, the ferries stopped running.

Because of bad weather in France.

We Have the Technology (Captain)

That is to say, yours truly (the Captain) thinks the technology is now available.

What’s he wittering on about now I hear you say? (metaphorically).

I’d best explain; regular readers are aware that this blog frequently drifts far from the home turf of freight and shipping matters and allows deviation through the back alleys and byways of other diverse subjects.

That said, there is often a logistically based starting point, often not revealed to you, dear reader, being only in the author’s head, which starts the whole composition process off.

The starting blocks for this particular rant were, as so often the case, forged after a conversation In the Handy Shipping Guide UK office, once more a discussion centred around the rapidly declining standards of spoken and written English from many with whom we mere scribblers come into contact, job applicants, delivery drivers etc.

Now I should firstly make this clear, this is not a complaint about the way language naturally evolves, if it was socially unacceptable, nay illegal, to change and vary the way we speak, write and punctuate (to some extent) then your Captain, for one, would currently be serving a long stretch at HM’s pleasure (God bless her).

No, I’m not speaking (or writing actually) about the natural alteration of language over time, I might scream at the spell checker on occasion when the lunar eclipse causes it to switch back to default ruddy English (U.S.) from the Queens own perfect script, that time when then moon causes wives to hurl plates at innocent menfolk and whales beach themselves to the mournful howls of werewolves.

Although I still insist colour should always carry a “u” our cousins across the pond still speak and write consistently in their own way and I shout “vive la difference” (if you’re American that means I’m OK with it). After all it is in fact we English who cannot spell aluminium (see), dropping the second “ I” puts it closer to the original name after all.

The objection I, and many, many others have, is that our language is being corrupted by people who simply fail to grasp that it has reached its present form from necessity.

No matter how the tabloid crud dumb it down it is essential to retain a wide variety of expression, to attempt to avoid clichés, to use language that says precisely what one means.

“Well what can we do good Captain?” I hear you ask (that may be a voice in my head again)

“How can we possibly save society from the social leprosy, words falling from our vocabulary like rotten fingers?”

Relax Oh Reader, we have the answer.

And that is where the technology comes in.

Mobile telephone’s, or as our US cousins would say (so much more succinctly) cellphones (see that’s good verbal evolution, despite the fact my spellchecker is painting the word cherry red – obviously securely good old English(U.K. - As She Should Be Spoken mode).

Let’s face it, people bastardise our language because they’re lazy.

Text speak, what bloody rubbish!

Y dnt U C tht Kds R wld abt Txtin. Fstr thy cn spk bttr fr thm.

If we wish to save our language then technology and education provide the simplest of answers.

Like the cigarettes producers of my youth, mobile phone manufacturers want the young to be introduced to their product as soon as the umbilical is severed, and equally, as parents wanted to prevent those of us who thought it cool to puff on a Woodbine, so parents today want to ensure little Jimmy or Louise don’t end up with brain cancer at 31 because their brats are all cell phone mad.

Now nobody has proved there is any link between phones and cancer, but, like MMR vaccinations no sane mum or dad is going to expose their kids to any threat, no matter how long the odds.

OK, OK, that’s a fake produced by a Blue tooth headset company to scare you into buying their gear but I bet it got you thinking?

Which brings me back to my spell checker. Curse or blessing?

Well with little ingenuity we can turn this into a win, win, win, win situation.

How? I (imagine) I hear you ask.

Simple.

Nokia, Motorola whoever ring up Bill Gates and arrange a meet.

Nokia tell Bill they are going to produce a range of funky cell phones that come with games etc. only they aren’t phones, yes, you can ring maybe one number plus the emergency services but apart from these all calls are barred.

Bill gets to load a programme of his spellchecker on the phone, one countries language, no frills.

Well just one, the phone has a QWERTY (blimey that was easy to type) keyboard and (here’s the kicker) if there are any spelling, punctuation etc. mistakes in a message then the text can’t be sent.

Genius.

Nokia flog a cheap introductory phone to kids, Microsoft supply language software, Ma and Pa get an easy to choose, relatively cheap present for Christmas, Birthday etc. that little ‘un actually wants and youngster get to text all his mates for free (didn’t I mention the cheap rate package that dad signed when he bought it).

Can you copyright an idea?

Somebody let me know please.

Going back to the Woodbine theory just like fags (American citizens adjust spell checker to English (U.K. Gods own language) please) the make of phone the child starts with might well prove to be his brand for life.

Marketing agents can call the captain at the Handy Shipping Guide UK office.

Live Long and Prosper.