Good Morning Good Night and General Chat.

[Steve_M]

This morning has been spent laying woodchip paths through the garden in glorious sunshine.

[Mickly]

Changed the a Headlamp bulb in Stepdaughters Clio:- I’d like to meet the fiendish French f*ckers who thought this was a good design and shake them warmly by the throat !!

Supposed to remove bumper which means jacking up both sides, removing wheel arch liners & under tray .... to change a fuggin bulb!!

Decided it was easier to remove battery box, fuse box cover and skin my knuckles trying to furtle it out & in, it was a complete git !!

[Tiggie]

@Mickly My Wife had a Renault Megane Mk2. You had to remove the front wheel to change the bulb, ridiculous design that makes no sense. And probably beyond the means of some owners to actually do! 

 

Edit: And having removed the wheel I found the access panel was so small I got my (at the time) 10 year old daughter to fit the bulb as I couldn't be arsed removing all the wheel arch liners 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Tiggie

[S-Westerly]

Series 3 bmw was almost as bad. Had to do it from inside the wheel arch. And if it was the so-called halo lamp that was a cool £70 plus fitting as virtually impossible to do outside a pro garage. Who designs these bloody things?!

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

6 minutes ago, S-Westerly said:

Series 3 bmw was almost as bad. Had to do it from inside the wheel arch. And if it was the so-called halo lamp that was a cool £70 plus fitting as virtually impossible to do outside a pro garage. Who designs these bloody things?!

People who want to keep their approved garages in clover. 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

Our daughter's Aygo is almost as bad. Access is straightforward in that you don't need to get at it via the wheel arch, but the back of the headlamp is tight up against the inner wing.

[rennie]

Good Evening  I've won free fish and chips in a F/B competition 

[rennie]

Good Morning 

[husoi]

Can anybody explain why I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep??? 

[Bender]

16 minutes ago, husoi said:

Can anybody explain why I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep??? 

Yes your suffering same affliction as me.

[husoi]

9 minutes ago, Bender said:

Yes your suffering same affliction as me.

I pretty much doubt it...

[husoi]

Just now, husoi said:

I pretty much doubt it...

Just learned that my best friend's dad passed away 

[dynax]

Good morning raining again

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

@S-Westerly I don’t understand how there’s no global legal standard to cover this. It seems anyone at sea is still at the mercy of an attitude dating back an era that I can’t comprehend still exists!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/15/living-hell-of-stranded-uae-ship-iba?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

[S-Westerly]

There is a global standard- the Maritime  Labour  Convention  (MLC) introduced with great fanfare a few years ago and like most things associated with shipping open to a great deal of skullduggery.

This is because many operators on the fringes of shipping are one step away from good old fashioned pirates.

You have dodgy registries whereby the flag of the vessel is powerless and has absolutely minimal standards. Think Mongolia for example, purely a legal fiction.

Then you have coastal states such as the UAE which basically don't give a shit. As many contract workers there are effectively indentured bonds men for the duration of their work permits the UAE government doesn't give a toss for its legal obligations under the MLC and if a couple of dozen seamen wash up on their coast who cares? 

Finally the citizenship of the seamen involved comes into play. Some countries make quite a fuss over the mistreatment of their citizens,most don't, including  sadly the UK for most of us.

 

From the seamen point of view it also gets complicated. If the owner doesn't pay your wages the crew can exercise a lien on the vessel which basically means that if its forcibly sold even for scrap the proceeds must first pay out all the crews outstanding wages. However if the vessel is classed as a wreck that doesn't apply. (I maybe wrong on this as it's a few years since I studied maritime law and this kind of thing isn't my everyday work life!)

 

Also if the crew leave or abandon the vessel they forfeit their rights to claim.

There's loads more I could write but without going into technicalities that's a broad summary. 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

This is why I used to work for the Flying Angel organisation. Most of our time was spent looking after crews that had been abandoned far from home but they couldn't just leave the ship. 

 

I remember one ship coming in that was sinking in dock so the owners tried to send it back out to sea because it was cheaper to have it sink at sea than in dock. There was surprisingly little by way of regulation to prevent it. Parking our van on the lock gate bridge seemed to do the trick. 

 

Too many ships are registered under a flag of convenience which means that the owners can get away with just about anything.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

1 hour ago, S-Westerly said:

There is a global standard- the Maritime  Labour  Convention  (MLC) introduced with great fanfare a few years ago and like most things associated with shipping open to a great deal of skullduggery.

This is because many operators on the fringes of shipping are one step away from good old fashioned pirates.

You have dodgy registries whereby the flag of the vessel is powerless and has absolutely minimal standards. Think Mongolia for example, purely a legal fiction.

Then you have coastal states such as the UAE which basically don't give a shit. As many contract workers there are effectively indentured bonds men for the duration of their work permits the UAE government doesn't give a toss for its legal obligations under the MLC and if a couple of dozen seamen wash up on their coast who cares? 

Finally the citizenship of the seamen involved comes into play. Some countries make quite a fuss over the mistreatment of their citizens,most don't, including  sadly the UK for most of us.

 

From the seamen point of view it also gets complicated. If the owner doesn't pay your wages the crew can exercise a lien on the vessel which basically means that if its forcibly sold even for scrap the proceeds must first pay out all the crews outstanding wages. However if the vessel is classed as a wreck that doesn't apply. (I maybe wrong on this as it's a few years since I studied maritime law and this kind of thing isn't my everyday work life!)

 

Also if the crew leave or abandon the vessel they forfeit their rights to claim.

There's loads more I could write but without going into technicalities that's a broad summary. 

This is kinda what I gleaned from the article and it did make me think of pirates because it’s hard to understand where these bizarre laws that don’t work have sprung from. Poor souls. 

[S-Westerly]

1 hour ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

This is why I used to work for the Flying Angel organisation. Most of our time was spent looking after crews that had been abandoned far from home but they couldn't just leave the ship. 

 

I remember one ship coming in that was sinking in dock so the owners tried to send it back out to sea because it was cheaper to have it sink at sea than in dock. There was surprisingly little by way of regulation to prevent it. Parking our van on the lock gate bridge seemed to do the trick. 

 

Too many ships are registered under a flag of convenience which means that the owners can get away with just about anything.

FoC though has changed over the years. My current ship is Bermuda  flag which is basically a UK FoC. The old bad boys of Liberia and Panama are pretty respectable.  The current crop of chancers are often small island nations such as St. Kitts or Barbuda or places like Georgia or Mongolia.

Its been like this forever though. In WW2 if your ship was torpedoed and sunk your pay stopped from that day. If you were rescued you got a survivors payment which was enough to kit you out to go back. If you died your family got sod all until the death was confirmed.  Not even a telegram from the King. There's a reason merchant seamen are some of the most cynical bast*rds you can meet.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

You have to be a certain type of person to accept a life full of cowboys or like a lot of us not fully comprehend the consequences of your choices until you’re in too deep. Pretty disgraceful way to treat people. 

[S-Westerly]

Remember that for a lot of third world seamen until things go badly wrong it's a very well paying job. In a decent company the average Filipino seaman earns more than a doctor back home. That said most of them use their hard earned money to educate the hell out of their children so they can get decent jobs elsewhere- US, UK, Europe, Australia being favourite.

For those like me it was a great job until the internet and computers arrived. In my early days I worked for some real cowboy outfits but the money was great, the job was fun and the bullshit minimal. Since then its become shite as know nothing managers ashore try and micromanage every aspect of the job. As soon as I can afford to retire I'll be off.

Edited February 16, 2021 by S-Westerly

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

43 minutes ago, S-Westerly said:

Remember that for a lot of third world seamen until things go badly wrong it's a very well paying job. In a decent company the average Filipino seaman earns more than a doctor back home. That said most of them use their hard earned money to educate the hell out of their children so they can get decent jobs elsewhere- US, UK, Europe, Australia being favourite.

For those like me it was a great job until the internet and computers arrived. In my early days I worked for some real cowboy outfits but the money was great, the job was fun and the bullshit minimal. Since then its become shite as know nothing managers ashore try and micromanage every aspect of the job. As soon as I can afford to retire I'll be off.

Another case of “computer says no”  Not long now for you though is it?

 

Educating children so they can get a decent job abroad is an awful burden for the child. They grow up with one sometimes two parents absent earning the money to pay for it. Brought up by a relative with the goal of the golden child reaching the golden land and sending money back home. A home they become permanently separated from.
They are the child who had money spent on their education so feel obligated for their entire working lives to continue on a career path thats chosen for them in a country that is not theirs. The cost of living over here is not something really understood by the folk at home so they live very poorly in order to send as much as possible.  I lost count of how many times I found nurses from overseas crying they just wanted to go home. They never did, it cost too much. 

[Steve_M]

Good evening. 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

And so it begins.....

 

 

[rennie]

Good Evening 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

43 minutes ago, rennie said:

Good Evening 

Good evening