In a rough sea
In a black night
In fog
You must take for granted
There will be a correction
For every ship turn and twist.
We watched 'Castaway'
amazing assumptions
about where you will be when you see such things.
at home in some city
not rolling on the oceans
ready at any moment
to become the subject of the film.
the ship's motion to windward
in a heavy ocean swell:
a slow-motion gallop.
The sea has infinite clever ways to slow up
slow down
arrest
turn aside
deflect
cushion
and absorb the rushing ship
Just when you think it will fail this time
and the ship will push under
or snap in two
the sea astounds you again
with its ingenuity.
I have partially learned
a new skill:
killing whole days
It is a skill at which I am backward -
most people would have learned it years ago
The main problem:
there is only a limited number of days
to practise it.
I do not like artificial light
I do not like being indoors except at night
I do not like doing the same thing for hours
I do not like meetings
Pre-planning
starting journeys
background music
trying to motivate others
waiting
killing time
travelling crowded
being bored
constraint
the constrained
glare
grey skies
nothingness
rain and fug
monotony
doing things the approved way
received wisdom
illness
early nights
routine
appointments
diaries
timetables
rotas
futility
planning to plan things
hoping something will turn up
dishonesty
evasion
elision
elitism
superiority
snobs
snobbishness
meritocracy
assumptions
intolerance
bourgeois democracy
royalty
savoir faire
droit de seigneur
noblesse oblige
heritage
pedigrees
breeding
nobility
property
New Labour
Old Labour
self-deception
Tories
poshness
mutual congratulation
mutual admiration
smugness
self satisfaction
satisfaction
toadies
time servers
time serving toadies
jargon
parasitesThe ban on alcohol
has made this a silent ship
where doors open and close
in hush and whispers
at night the corridors are deserted
a Russian crew would have drink and song
there might even have been poetry
here we have Health and Safety
though healthy
we are reduced
our culture is shut inside
without the means to spill out
of quiet cabins or people
The same Russian music from the kitchen
Tatu -
insight into workplaces with everlasting Radio 1
or Capital Gold or Pirate FM.
How does it work to pass the day?
It would drive me mad in an hour
with its conviction of total futility.
What impression can we make on a world of constant repetition?
1155: Cold now, long trouser weather. The sea is against us with a large swell from the north and some impressive lurches. The radar is on so the wheelhouse roof is off limits.
Previous times, like memories of mucking around with the radio in the Caribbean, only seem attractive because they led up to this point on the way home.
And this point is very tedious indeed.
This job is a bad one. I can hardly imagine how I'm going to fill in the available minutes until I get off. To give some idea of how bad things are, I am actually looking forward to packing.
The plant in the corner of the Officers' Mess.
As the ship moves in the seaway
It appears to twist and breathe.
The same Russian music from the kitchen
Whenever we are out of radio range.
Yesterday, during the fire drill,
The line of helmeted men along the rails of the side deck
Perhaps trained in the Soviet Navy
Made me realise
How different things might have been
They looked at me and through me
Dressed and ready for old-time duty
I didn't recognise them.
What I wonder is
How much and many attitudes
Sustain from the old days
We hear the edicts of employers
In exactly the wry tones that once spoke of the state
In those days, corruption and inefficiency
Now, baffling multinationalism and banditry
But then
That would not mean rejection of the tenets of the state
Or the duty to it.
Perhaps now, baffled, these people straightforwardly attempt
To work sincerely for their masters
Wry but committed
How many nasty shocks they must get
From that martinet master, money.
2245: The wind is a dead header, difficult to estimate with our current speed.
The First Officer told me that this weather is fairly common here in the autumn. We're meeting a cold front and the weather should clear once we cross it. The ship isn't rolling much but there is a lot of pitching.
The tall plant in the corner of the Officers' Mess is very entertaining. There is no context to give away that there is motion of the ship, so the small movements of its branches and leaves make the plant look as though it is breathing, or just very very wide-awake. I filmed it today but I don't know whether it will come out.
I finished reading Jonathon Coe's The House of Sleep today - the fourth book since I left Brighton , and most of them very substantial. And I have been rationing my reading. For want of anything else to do I found myself watching Face Off today on DVD during daylight hours, and this evening with Peter Castaway. A strange thing to watch on a ship in the middle of the ocean in rough weather!0900:
Position N40 21.5 W30 02
Speed: 18.3Kn.
Course: 063
Dist. 1146Nm(?)
ETA: 19.34 Tuesday 2/11/04 (where?)
(To the east we are now north of Madrid; the nearest land to the South is the Antarctic; to the North - Greenland.)
The Captain was in the wheelhouse with the Third Officer. We passed the Azores at 0400 with no sighting in bad visibility.
0815: I'm still none the wiser about whether we have passed the Azores. Visibility has closed down to a few feet outside and we are now pitching into the sea. It's raining but not a useful rain for my purposes - I need something heavier that will show up on camera.
I'll go the wheelhouse soon and get a position.
The movement of the ship is a lot less kind than it has been so far on the return journey. But it is still warm, shorts and sandal weather, though it now looks like November.
If this is what the weather is like in the Azores remind me not to come here at this time of year. But they do seem like fascinating islands. There might even be a ferry from Portugal.
And then
Your fair wind has gone
And the world closes in
And you pitch and roll in a tiny universe
Unable to see out
No evidence of movement
Just agitated in a bucket
Of your own awareness
Your mental urging onwards
And out of this life.
The most tiring thing about boats
Is our useless mental efforts
To correct and allow
To adjust our perceptions to make it all sense
The mental version of seasickness.
We watched 'Castaway'
amazing assumptions
about where you will be when you see such things.
At home in some city
not rolling on the oceans
ready at any moment
to become the subject of the film.
tH