FROM 1-11. South Atlantic-26°S

Apr 07, 2005 – 0530hrs UTC

0530hrs 07 Apr 2005 UTC Map Ref 153

I have a problem – well several actually – the which I will try to digitise for all y’all. For those people who don’t do irony and understatement, I will try to add helpful footnotes.

The problem(s) can be summarised in one word – Fenwick. Fenwick thinks he has friends, us included, who love and cherish him and who exist for his exclusive entertainment. He thinks he knows a bit about sailing, just because he went round Cape Horn once as a kid in nappies and, like all such big noters, he is happy to criticise others from deep within an armchair surrounded by a tacky pile of mouldy tissues, peanut shells, decaying pizza boxes and empty beer cans (VB of course – he has no taste either). He doesn’t shave and his armpits smell.

Helpful footnote – we kinda like this guy.

As all y’all know, we are sitting in a pretend cardboard and old corrugated iron mock up boat in Fox Studios in Sydney churning out this nonsense about gut wrenching storms and albatross aerodynamics as we guzzle copious quantities of The Doctor (we, at least, do have some taste) and dream up ever more outrageous stories for your breakfast fixes of drama and irony. And Leroy Chiao, NASA and the International Space Station are – just like the Moon landings – figments of all this outrageousness and just another mock up in a warehouse in a Hollywood studio. None of this stuff is real -just a fake sms message in the fabric of the universe to be flicked past the bored and atrophied brain cell shared by our two readers out there. At the end of it all, we don’t want you to clap, just throw money – lots of it.

Helpful footnote – so far, it’s been a bit of a headbang and it’s a real thrill to be involved with the ISS.

Enter Fenwick, who can’t read, (so one of those two readers has to move his lips and make noises as he reads), demanding yet more outrageousness from the depths of his armchair. 80 knots – pish, gimme 120 – albatrosses shmalbatrosses, where are the mermaids? – why haven’t you been smashed up by a container ship? – what’s all this crap about sunshine, Sunshine? I want storm and tempest, spouting hurricanoes, scurvy, all that stuff. And another VB. What’s the pizza delivery number?

Helpful footnote – we think he kinda likes us

So, dearest all y’all, you better hadn’t believe anything you read here. It’s all the result of late night drinking sessions and the spaghettied imaginations of a couple of spruikers on acid.

Helpful footnote – you’d better bloody believe it…else I’ll burst into tears and flounce off, centre left.

So to the actual problem – It’s relatively easy to churn out this stuff when things are hard and getting worse. I was most eagerly looking forward to the challenge of that knot of tight little lows near the Horn so as the challenge developed, the words just flowed. In the next few weeks, it may not be so squeezy but I’ll do my best.

Helpful footnote – growing fear promotes verbal diarrhoea, as it recedes, the stream dries up, so to speak.

So – I’ve asked all y’all before – is there a question, like Michelle’s, that you’ve always wanted to ask…no promises, of course.

Comments are closed.