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[667974_bluestar]

Hi Colin,
We have a similar ability to delete posts and users, but there is a balance we are trying to strike between having the logbook tight as a drum and near unusable to some members (user registrations, moderation of all posts before allowing them on the site, blacklists, etc, etc) or running it wide open to all. I was always impressed by the way the original Log stayed immune to the spammers and other nasties. Ultimately, something nearer to what Fraser built originally would be ideal, but we have a different set of tools to work with since his ISP made changes.

We're actively examining options: the log will have to move off its present server because Xtra users (in New Zealand) are not permitted access, so the plan is to make some other changes when the log is moved to try to make it work better. Work is going in to try to make it "all things to all men": a full featured setup for those of us who have frequent dealings with computers, and at the same time a simple friendly place for those of us who are more familiar with the real world than the Cyberworld.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Jim Blake

[Jimbo]

Dzień dobry wszystkim - Just thought I'd brush up on my Polish Jim C.

[Jim Blake]

And there I was, thinking that you were just employing the kind of language that you used to speak on a Saturday night after a suitable period in the "Chelsea Cat". I was a "Ruperts" man myself, South Shields Marine and Tech has *such* a lot to answer for

Jim Blake

[Big Budgie]

Funny the way that even saying good morning in Polish sounds like a sweary word!! Good plan about the membership vetting process by the way. Hopefully stop those clown in their tracks! By the way, It'll be three weeks come Tuesday since I had my 2nd Hip replacement in Glasgow. I found out the Golden Jubillee Hospital is built on land at Clydebank which used to be Beardmores Shipyard. So I can now claim to be "Clyde Built"
Cheers Colin

[tom sommerville]

Good on you Colin, I am still pondering new knees, it's about time I was making a decision but flying back to the UK each year makes planning difficult especially when your parents (UK residents) are approaching 90. Tom

[Big Budgie]

Hello Tom.
It really depends on whether or not you are able to cope with the pain and lack of mobility. By the time I was forced into packing in work on the tugs in Sullom, I was in a LOT of pain. The day it came to a head I had been down below shutting down after a tanker berthing and when I'd finished up and got to the bottom of the control room stairs I might as well have been looking up at the North face of the Eiger! I came up the stairs on all fours, and when I got to the top, I stood up and decided that was it! I was eating Ibuprofen and Co-Codamol like smarties and as far as the pain went, they might as well have been. I'd been hanging on because the Council (who now operate the tugs as well as the harbour) were downsizing the workforce and I had applied for and been accepted for voluntary redundancy. As it happened, that was delayed and I was sent down the road of Medical severance instead, which actually worked out almost as good. The MCA rules at the time meant that an ENG1 was out of the question with prosthetic joints, but I believe they have now revised those rules and I may have been granted a restricted one for harbour operations. All academic now anyway.
There was a chap in the room opposite me getting a new knee. He was 62 and had been a very active hill walker. he had his op on the Wednesday and would have been out on the Friday, same as me, if he could have got in touch with someone to come and get him! They weren't expecting him to be out until the Monday!! He was looking forward to "Stripping the Willow" again and getting to back to the top of Scheihalloin!
It is all very quick now. I had the op at 1330, was back on the ward in bed at 1600 and the physios had me up at 1800! I was sat in the chair with me jammies on when my cousin came in at 1900. Wednesday I was up & down the ward on a zimmer. Thursday it was back on my sticks, Thursday afternoon they had me up and down stairs and Friday morning I was evicted. It will be three weeks tomorrow since the op (13th March) and I'm already cutting down on the painkillers. Just one Ibuprofen this morning which I'm not actually certain I needed, and I can walk round the house without sticks, although I prefer to have one when I go out.
There are complications regarding flying after such surgery due to increased risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis. Short flights such as my return to Shetland are not generally a problem but long haul may be inadvisable for some time. The medico's will be better able to tell you. DVT is a risk anyway and I have to do a regime of small exercises and take blood thinning meds for 6 weeks to combat it. Also have to wear TED stockings for 6 weeks! Not very becoming!! According to the booklet I got there is a 0.4% risk of mortality due to complications from the procedure.
Anyway, there's the bones of it. Up to you now!!
Regards Colin Hunter

[Jimbo]

30th Anniversary of the start of the Falklands war today and where were you? I was on the Act 7, en route to the UK, having left New Zealand. We must have been around Cape Horn on the 2nd April 1982? I remember the Sparky got a message to tell the Old Man to plot a course 200 miles East of the Falklands, on our way North. Must have come from the Company or the MOD? I can't remember the sparky's name, but he kept us up to date with all the latest news of the Task Force. Paid off at Tilbury on the 26th April, two days after my 26th birthday. Jim C

[Big Budgie]

I was on ACT 4 as 3rd. Joined February in Tilbury And left in Norfolk Va August '82 by which time it was all over. Sailed that trip with Dave Allen who was from Stanley. Understandably he was very worried about his family there. He talked about his sister, Rosemary, who I met later that year on The Norland when I was on my way down to Stanley to join Rangatira. Small world indeed. My book says 8/11/82 til 27/4/83 but it took nearly a fortnight to get there and back! It was a very different experience being on an accommodation ship which actually only went out of harbour to take bunkers. I have lots of memories of that time, nearly all good and some quite fuzzy!
Cheers Colin Hunter

[Fraser Darrah]

Browning at Rio de Janeiro 1981 - Photograph © Kevin Brown
I was on the Browning. http://www.bluestarline.org/lamports/browning3.html We sailed in her from Glasgow on the day Argentine forces invaded South Georgia, with a full cargo for Brazilian ports & Buenos Aires, with the result she never went further south than Rio Grande do Sol.
A large part of the cargo was Scottish Whiskey manifested for Buenos Aires along with Dunlop Tyres. These were discharged in Rio Grande do Sol and I guess were trucked across the border to Argentina. The only cargo that was deemed strategic was paper roll and the tanks of tetra-ethyl lead, some 3 months supply. So the Argies must have had some pretty rough running cars by the end. The whisky probably helped the war effort by effecting the Generals' decision making.
In Brazil the wharfies came onboard each day with the refrain "England 4 - Argentina 1" and seemed not to care for the Argentinians too much.
The bad thing of course was shortly after, the Browning and Boswell no longer had the trade and were sold. ~ Fraser

[David Fox]

RE:Artie Shaw.
I was reading a true story recently by Robert Hichens about the MGB's & MTB's - gunboats, and a name of Lt. D (Arty ) Shaw RN came up, as CO of MGB 63. Could this be our Artie Shaw. I know there was a band leader at the time of the same name and perhaps anybody with the surname of Shaw was nicknamed Artie. Like Dusty Miller, Knocker White etc .
Benedictus