Pirates, Indians and Astronaut’s Handbag
Nov 20th, 2008 | By Bock | Category: HumourIsn’t it great to see pirates back in business?
No, seriously, I mean that. Isn’t it a great thing to revive the old traditions, as they’re doing in Somalia? I’d love to visit that town, Eyl, where all the Somali pirates live.
Ahoy, me maties, I’d say, even though that would probably be the wrong thing to say, and possibly in Somali means your father fucks pigs, and then they’d probably cut me into little pieces and feed me to the sharks, so no, on second thoughts I won’t say Ahoy, me maties when I go to visit Eyl.
When I arrive in the pirates’ den, I’ll greet them with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Then I’ll open the conversation with a bit of small talk. Isn’t there great drying today? I’ll show them photos of my family and thank them profusely for their hospitality and good conversation. That’s fuckin great Khat, old buddy.
I’ll bring a little gift for their children. There ya go, ya little fucker, here’s a bag of dobbers, but I’ll be careful not to make personal remarks about their womenfolk, like Jesus Christ, I don’t blame you keepin’ that one covered up!
If they poke a rusty cutlass into my shoulder-blades and blindfold me, I’ll recite a clever tongue-twister, thus demonstrating verbal skill which will win me esteem in Somalia and save me from the plank-walk or the keel-hauling.
waxaan faley waan faleyba
waxaanaan falin waad fashey
maxaad iigu fashishay
Then I’d tell them one in Irish and they’d fuckin love me, cos Irish is the best language in the world for unpronounceable tongue-twisters.
Go mbéadh seacht shliocht ag sliocht do shleachta.
I found all this useful advice on an American military web site which also offers some handy phrases for communicating with Somalis.
For instance, I bet you never knew that WAXAAN NAHAY EEDAMADA CIDAMADA MARAYKANKA means We are American military. Now! See how useful that could be? And then you could say something like GACMACHA KOR U TAAGA! which means hands up! followed by HUBKAAGA OHIG! (put your weapon down!), JIIFSO (lie down) and AMMOOS (shut up).
HA CABSAN, I’ll tell them. Don’t be afraid.
The Somali pirates captured a gigantic supertanker the other day. 
This thing. The Sirius Star.
According to Sky News, it’s the length of five jumbo jets which, incidentally, is a unit of measurement that always amazes me.  The tunnel is long enough to hold a hundred 747s end to end. It’s deep enough to put five Eiffel Towers one on top of the other.
Jesus Christ, talk about doing it the hard way. Dragging a hundred 747s down a hole and then hauling them back out again, when it would be so much easier to use a tape.
The Sirius Star contains enough oil to light up a thousand Eiffel Towers for a million years and to fly eight hundred 747s to the Sun and back twice, and the Somali pirates have it held hostage.
Clever old Somali pirates.
However, they’re not all so smart.
Did you see the news reports about the Indian navy sinking a Somali pirate ship?
What happened? Well, you see, the pirates have now started using captured freighters as mother-ships instead of going out in high-speed inflatables. This is because they’ve expanded the business and now they’re venturing a thousand miles out to sea in search of victims.
Anyway, when these pirates were challenged by an Indian ship, they decided to shoot it out by firing bazookas at them. After they’d stopped laughing, the Indians fired back and blew the pirate ship to bits, although the pirates did manage to escape in fast speedboats.
Now look, maybe I’m not the brightest, but it seems to me that you shouldn’t fire bazookas at one of these. What do you reckon?
Stupid, in my opinion, even though I know little about piracy, and even less about sea-to-sea supersonic missiles or high-powered Russian-built frigates like the INS Tabar.
Not quite as silly as the other story currently in the news, however.
Not quite.
Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was lubricating a solar panel joint on the international space station when a grease gun in her tool bag exploded, spraying lubricant all over her camera and gloves.
Oh no! said Heidi. Look at my gloves. They’re ruined! And my camera! OMG!!!
In the confusion, while cleaning her suit which, in fairness was absolutely destroyed with grease, Heidi let go of her bag and it drifted away into the depths of Space. OMG OMG OMG!! Heidi is reported as saying. I’ve lost my bag!
(Pic by C’est la Craic)
Luckily, the other astronaut, Steve Bowen, had come prepared with his own tool-bag and he comforted the distraught Heidi.
Look, he said, don’t worry about the lube. It was a job for a man anyway. Why don’t you go back inside and put on the kettle while I fix it for you?
Speaking later to reporters, the petite, attractive astronette was in a philosophical mood. It’s ok now, she said. Steve was great. He really looked after me and calmed me down. It wasn’t losing the tool-bag that upset me, cos that’s only a bunch of silly old spanners. The problem was, my vanity case was in it too. And my keys … And my credit cards …
… um, do I look fat in this?
If you lined up all the pirates end-to-end, they’d nearly reach the length of the plank they made the tanker crew walk.
‘Isn’t there great drying today’. ha! lol
Just bring the Captain with you – you’ll be grand!
Women astronauts, eh! I wonder how long she took to get ready before going out in the first place. “I’m not wearing THAT going into outer space, now where did I put the blue blouse with the Leinster crest?”
………(ducking now, before I’m told to AMMOOS)
I heard on the radio today that the pirates are becoming celeberaties in their country. Authorities are worried about the fact that children seem to think that it’s somehow cool to be a pirate. Can you imagine, children wanting to be pirates. What next, cowboys?
You can’t blame the little fuckers though, it beats the shite out doing photo shoots for Trocaire.
What? Children wanting to be pirates?
Before you know it, they’ll want to be train drivers and superheroes. We can’t have that!
How big is it in terms of Double decker buses? I can’t be doing with your new fangled measurements in Jumbo jets…. Pah.
The Routemaster bus is 27 feet 6 inches long, or 8.38 metres.
A Boeing 747 is 231 feet 10 inches long, or 70.6 metres.
Therefore one jumbo jet equals 8.42 double decker buses.
Thus, a ship measuring 5 jumbo jets long measures 42.1 double decker buses.
The Eiffel tower is 1063 feet high, or 324 metres, while a double decker bus is 14 feet 5 inches high, or 4.38 metres.
Therefore, it would take just under 74 buses, one on top of the other, to reach the top of the Eiffel tower. However, this would bring certain practical difficulties as each bus weighs 7.53T. Consequently, the bus at the bottom would have to carry a weight of 549.7 T, which is quite a lot.
Not only would I be concerned about the tyres, and the springs, but I would also worry that the actual structure of the bus would be unable to carry this load without substantial bracing which would of course add to the weight.
Don’t forget that the next bus up also has to carry a considerable weight: 542.4T. Therefore, a good number of the buses would have to be strengthened, which would of course add to the weight in a recursive sort of way, necessitating greater and greater strengthening.
There is of course the possibility that the buses could be hermetically sealed and pressurised instead, which might remove the need for extra strengthening.
In assessing the number of buses needed, you would have to take into account the compression of the tyres and the suspension and if you weren’t careful you might have to add another bus on top to make up the difference.
I would also be concerned that the entire thing might be a little unstable and in danger of falling over or buckling. You couldn’t discount that possibility.
Perhaps we could find some grass that will survive in salt water so we could use the “Football pitch” unit of measure instead.
I imagine those Eifel towers are pretty unstable too.
Did you take the antenna off the tower before you did your measurement?
Football pitches are found to be impractical as a measure of height.
The reason the Astronette dropped her handbag is she thought she saw the missing spider.
btw, anybody got a torrent link for the Munster match?
How many bags of dobbers would it take to fill the supertanker? (If they are the bags of twenty one can get in Tesco ’round Christmastime?)
-Brian
I missed the match myself, but for the moment cannot find the match in torrent form. If you find it, could you post a link (whenever that may be).
As reagards the Eiffel tower, I reckon it’s a tainted unit of measure. These french lads are prone to exaggeration when it comes to fallic symbols.
Dear, oh dear… and not a single Y’arrrrh!
“Ná bock le mac an bhockaigh is nàbockaigh mac an bhockaigh leat,” must be the Bullet’s favourite tongue twister.
Maith an fear, a Chonan!
Ná bock leis an bockach agus ná bock lena mhac.
“it beats the shite out doing photo shoots for Trocaire”
Harrr! Too true.
Bock – using Jumbo Jets as a unit of measurement adds a whole new meaning to ‘Imperial Airways’ – doesn’t sound as good if you call it ‘Metric Airways’, does it?
Nuts
No. And neither does “field measurements”.
now Bock, a lady’s gotta be ready for any occasion, even a space cowboy out in the final frontier…
BOCK, for fuck’s sake, this has been the funniest thing I’ve read on the web for so long, christ almighty, how the fuck do u do this shit so consistently? Like so many, I too await your first book. Please get down to it a.s.a.p.