Thread: Tradition in the world Navies.

Originally Posted by 101RRS

Really - going off the rails (pun intended) by of all people two of the Mods - you gotta love it

You need to be setting the example .

Ramblingboys post rang a bell!

jeez its loud if someone swings the clapper hard.....

you pussars know it's called a clapper , don't you?

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

you pussars know it's called a clapper , don't you?

You know nuffin - its called a 'gonger'

how about a uvula then?

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

how about a uvula then?

Nah, apart from possibly snoring, that one doesn't make noise...

yep just checked it in Wiki....

Telling the time is interesting. Sun rise and set is NOT constant as you move. North /south or as we move around the sun ( seasons)

time to get up, time to go to bed is ok to be a bit off. Ships get lost or people die IF time is not reasonably correct at sea.

"Modern maps of the sky are remarkably precise, far more so than the catalogues used to compile the almanac employed by James and Worsley. Had the men been in possession of today's information, they'd have realised their clocks were actually running 22 seconds faster than they were accounting for. Just this error would have put the Endurance more than 3km east of Worsley's log coordinates. "

Link to the entire yarn which is a good one I think

_123236777_chronometer-bbc.jpg

It's a wonder they ever found their way anywhere, or back.

Two chronometers the captain had,

One by Arnold that ran like mad,

One by Kendal in a walnut case,

Poor devoted creature with a hangdog face.



Arnold always hurried with a crazed click-click

Dancing over Greenwich like a lunatic,

Kendal panted faithfully his watch-dog beat,

Climbing out of Yesterday with sticky little feet.



Arnold choked with appetite to wolf up time,

Madly round the numerals his hands would climb,

His cogs rushed over and his wheels ran miles,

Dragging Captain Cook to the Sandwich Isles.



But Kendal dawdled in the tombstoned past,

With a sentimental prejudice to going fast,

And he thought very often of a haberdasher’s door

And a yellow-haired boy who would knock no more.



All through the night-time, clock talked to clock,

In the captain’s cabin, tock-tock-tock,

One ticked fast and one ticked slow,

And Time went over them a hundred years ago.

By Kenith Slessor in 1931.