Thursday 8 August 2013

The not-so-divine ponytail...

Well, shutdown season has finally decided to visit its unique brand of misery open me.  I must say, almost mid-August is something of a record for me.  By this time of year I am usually fed up to the backermost of my wisdom teeth with checking in, checking out, getting delayed, hearing the words 'Technical Difficulties', hearing the words 'Operational Difficulties', hearing the words 'you're not important enough to be on the first flight you contracting scum!', hearing the words...well, you get the idea.

  This year has been different so far, I did manage to get holiday time booked for the summer period, I even managed to get away for a few days (although it was in Scotland. Still counts as a holiday, no matter what my kids keep saying).  Apart from a 7 to 10 day job that stretched out to a three weeker followed by another week separated by only 6 days at home (what is the bloody point of the Vantage system?!) I've had a pretty easy introduction to the holiday-camp scramble of this most busy time of the year.

  Now however it is time to put away such childish things (I always pack my work teddy) and get ready for my first Shutdown related trip...The Elgin/Franklin is calling me and I am contractually obliged to say that I cannot resist its siren song.  I'm not even going for the 'real' shutdown part of it, I'm just going to be kicking my heels on the Franklin waiting for our test gear to head on over from the big boy, Elgin shutdown.  I've never been to the Franklin and have to say that I'm rather looking forward to it (I am one of the world's leading heel kicking exponents after all).

  I do look forward to new experiences, sampling new mess areas and the new types of mess they serve,  seeing exactly HOW underwhelming the Gym is, wondering if the staff on this rig are gits or not, you know, the usual...

  These 'Shutdowns' are quite different from the sort you get in Factories or works near you, when the entire staff decamp to the nearest seaside resort and try to catch as many STD's as it's possible to contract in a limited amount of time.  No, these are perhaps the polar opposite, we actually flock TO these places because they need strangers to sort out the problems it's taken the normal staff a year or two to notice and schedule repairs for.  As a result you can get a lot of confused people wandering round (usually looking up) and going in the wrong doors.

It's gonna be great, I cannot wait!!!!  My taxi's here, see ya...

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A quick note on the imminent return of the football season.  As a Liverpool fan I am steadfastly refusing to get over optimistic about the prospect of fighting for 4th to 7th this season.  In part this is due to Luis Suarez's continued campaign to be hated by EVERYONE in Britain but that sordid episode is only a reflection of what Messers Rooney and Bale are trying to engineer (they should all be rounded up and...not shot exactly...SLAPPED!  That's it, slapped to within an inch of their lives).

  No, the main reason is we've been down the 'promising pre-season' route before.  I remember a few years back when I was in Aberdeen engineering leak test packs for a Shutdown that never actually happened, Liverpool were on TV a few times in pre-season and looked pretty good.  A large part of this was the form of one Andriy Voronin (remember him? The Not-so divine ponytail. Me neither, I had to look him up), he looked like an absolute world beater, form he carried well into mid-August.  And that was it...by October I was thinking that 5th isn't all that bad.  So despite Aspas, Alberto, even Henderson playing well currently I will reserve judgement until, let's say, September 1st.  Let's face it, Suarez is off and all the best replacements have been taken.

  We don't want a repeat of the Andy Carroll incident now do we?  Do we?!

Neil Hannon rocks!

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