Where did I put my lighter?

As any Mycologist would tell you, should be lucky enough to know one, mushrooms and Fungi are terrific things.  They provide medicinal remedies, are used in the brewing of beer and can get you hallucinating, they're wonderful things, not nice to eat but wonderful nevertheless.  They're easy to grow as well, you can do so no problem in your house (as all students know, you just need an old cereal bowl and a dark corner).  They grow best in dark conditions and enjoy a good diet of waste matter.

This is where we get to the nub of the matter, like most of my offshore bretheren I am a barely functioning alcoholic but like ALL those personnel who work for a service company I am definitely a 'mushroom'.  We are the bottom rung of any rig and always the last to know of any plans, even when those plans involve us directly.  We are left in the dark and fed a constant supply of shite!

As this current job dawdles along with weather delays, scheduling problems and a general air of not knowing what the hell is going on we are dropping further and further down the pecking order. Which continued until at some point yesterday afternoon when  we were informed (through 'Smoking Room' gossip) that we may be sent home again.  I was mildy excited and couldn't help myself from looking at the flying schedule for the next day.  This optimism was of course dampened when, upon the posting of the flight list a couple of hours later we saw that our names were not on it.

Never mind, we had the TV and a functioning computer to use and after all we had been stuck here for a while now.  I decided that the best course of action was to settle myself into the routine of getting up and passing time, surely this was the only way to postpone boredom as much as you could.  Then the revised list went up.

Having a smoker on a crew can be burdensome when you need to just finish off a couple of small jobs or are close to starting a test.  You become skilled at scheduling small 'smoke-breaks' into the working day and after all, often it is prudent for the whole crew to have a 'smoke-break' whether they actually smoke or not...On occassions like this though, where we are almost entirely indoors and sedentary a smoker can be your own spy in the house.

Every offshore worker knows that if you want to find something out, you head to the 'smokers' that is where the best gossip and all the useful flight info can be found.

We were indeed to be down-manned tomorrow.  Where did I put my lighter?

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Minor TV ad irritations

There are a few ads at the moment that really grate.  Whereas during my normal day-to-day life I can ignore such things, when you are offshore (and more particularly, offshore doing nothing) thay tend to intrude.  You simply cannot get away from them, they surround you like footballers around a referee or flies round s**t (much the same thing).

I only wish to highlight a couple as of now because otherwise I shall become too angry to type.

British Airways...Could you be more pompous and self important with your new Hobbit-length ad??!!

LV...why are we told that that woman is a safe driver when she swerves into another lane without ever looking in her mirror?!  The first time she even considers those who may be behind her is after she cuts them up and leaves them stuck behind a big penguin which they wouldn't be stuck behind had she not driven too close to that van and swerved in front of them!!!! 
She has a no claims bonus because she's lucky, not safe!

As you can tell, am now a little annoyed (my own fault)

LV are being dicks and not letting me find their ad on the viewer for Google+...I reckon they know I don't like em!!
You've all seen it and next time it's on, you'll be annoyed as me (I hope!)






Neil Hannon Rocks!!