Sunday 9 June 2013

YP's flying Ryanair!!!

SS Ohio entering Valletta Harbour under tow with only a foot of freeboard and, for the island of Malta, a life saving cargo of fuel oil.  One of only five of the original fourteen merchant ships, but arguably the most important to make it.  We are outraged at the cost of fuel now.  The cost of the fuel on the tanker that saved Malta was, according to official reports:
 
1 Aircraft Carrier sunk (Eagle)
2 Light Cruisers sunk
1 Destroyer sunk
9 merchant ships sunk
1 aircraft carrier damaged
2 Light cruisers damaged
2 submarines sunk (interesting that submarines lost with all hands equate to less than a damaged light cruiser)
1 heavy cruiser damaged
1 light cruiser damaged (Again!  That's three light cruisers damaged and two sunk now isn't it? You can't sneak them by us one by one, the bean counters will notice in the end)
1 Submarine damaged
 
And what is not so well recorded, all those poor bastards who stood their posts and went down with them.
A few days ago Yorkshire Pudding posted that having endured a couple of months in Thailand before returning to England, he will once again abandon his beloved English shores.  And he accuses me of being an escapee expatriate.  He spends less time amongst the verdant hills of England than a swallow.

Of the 190 undisputed states and the 16 whose sovereignty is questionable comprising the world, YP with a passport the size of a  bench pressed volume of Encyclopedia Britannica still had a blank page begging an immigration stamp on page number 237. 

Now I realise, dear reader, that this just doesn't add up.  206 countries in the world, 16 of them disputed yet he has already reached page 237 in his no doubt cumbersome international personal identity document.  But bear in mind that YP is no spring chicken. He was present at the signing, and corrected the grammar of the Magna Carta.  Not only states but empires have risen and fallen during his tenure of the mortal coil.  So with the incomprehensible algorithmics available to all through Google and Trip Advisor, our YP realised he had missed one soverieign state, Malta.

Already on his death bed after an exhausting trip to Asia where he was massaged close to death, his only sustenance now his life depended on the NHS rather than almond eyed school girls being chunks of real Real Yorkshire Pudding dripping with gravy hand fed to him by genuinely chuncky northern lassies letting him lick their fingers and drip feeding him Tetley's beer, he raised a clenched fist in that iconinc anti-Thatcher salute and said, 'Book me a flight to Malta'.

'Malta?' said the nurse, a wee young trainee from the Philipines. 

'Mebbe he want drink make kid go sleep at night, Maltina', shrugged the Polish duty consultant signing off an extra cocktail of intravenous drugs.

Well, when you wake up, YP, this is what you have to look forward to flying Ryan Air courtesy of Tristan St James who has more Air Miles than all the NASA astronaughts combined.

 
Sorry there was no time for you to get the book about Operation Pedestal, but if you have the time in Malta, score a few photos of Valletta Harbour for me especially where the Ohio eventually settled on the putty.

26 comments:

  1. Me and chris had our first crappy holiday in Malta...but I do remember that Valletta harbour was an absolute delight.....the historical photos of WW2 at the museum almost moved me to tears

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  2. First crappy holiday? So you mean you two have had more than one?

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  3. Actually it was the one and. Only

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  4. Love that music clip Hippo ~ that tune will be going around in my head all day now ~ cheap flights, cheap flights

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    1. I hate it when I can't get a tune out of my head but I agree with you, the clip is hilarious!

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  5. Bloody Ryan Air, isn't that the one with sheepdogs to get you on board, and bursts of applause when you land safely?

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  6. Brilliant, brilliant video Sir - well found! I'm now going to scatter it around the web as if it were my own discovery!

    ;-)

    The last cheapskate firm that I "worked" for - AVIVA - used to make us fly 'Easyjet' to save money. Jeee-suss! Bedlam with wings and less room. I don't know why Easyjet and Ryanair and the others bother to use airports, they might as well just fly down and scoop up eighty tons of random passengers from a car park with some kind of cow-catcher arrangement - it would be more dignified and more comfortable!

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    1. Aviva? Apparently my life insurance resides with them now that they have just about bought out all the opposition. Will they answer my queries about the policy so that I can confirm the beneficiary of the policy in the event of my death? Will they Feck.

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    2. I think you'll find that Aviva are very polite when taking money off you, and extremely difficult to get hold of should anyone ever need to make a claim...

      I have a pension fund with them and in five years they have invested it so well that it now has a face value (let alone a "real" value) almost 20% lower than the cash I paid in!

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  7. Have been watching and seriously enjoying Fascinating Aida and their cheap flights for a couple of years now...never fails to amuse

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    1. Ditto. Now I've got the song going round in me head.

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  8. I am snickering at YP's expense.

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  9. I had that video clip sent to me last year. Very funny indeed. As for Malta, (George Cross) never been there. I've been told you should go straight past it to Gozo instead.
    If you want a really annoying ditty in your head, do not think of "Brown girl in the ring" by Boney M. There it is again. Bugger.

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    1. If I was flying the aircraft you would be grateful for Malta. Nowadays I can't hit anything smaller than Frankfurt.

      Aah, "Brown girl in the ring". Memories. Raul's Rose Garden in Belize.

      Who the hell are Boney M?

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  10. I am sitting in my office this morning, howling with laughter and tears running down my face - wonderful clip. I will definately look for more.
    I use Ryanair a lot and I have to say I am impressed with them. They are are nearly always on time, you do not have to check in hours before the flight and as long as you know what you want it CAN be really cheap. When I was working in the Uk we used to fly business class, so there is a bit of a come down but what the feck, I am paying for it now!!

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    1. It may not have escaped your attention that there are no rail service between Angola and Europe neither are there any steamer services so the only option is to fly. Once in Europe, though, it is trains for me.

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  11. That is a wonderful picture of that ship coming in. While that was happening, my Uncle Darrel was rotting in Japanese custody, having been captured at Bataan at seventeen. Gladly, he lives still, in Connecticut with a wonderful woman he met at the hospital shortly after he got home - he'd been hit by a car and broke his arm.

    And a GREAT video.

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    1. Imagine how exhausted the crew were (what was left of them).

      When are you going to start posting again?

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  12. Ha! Ha! Sorry I have only just got round to reading this you bounder! You stitched me up good and proper in this post Hippo! I am mortally embarrassed and pleased that I am currently in a little hideaway on Gozo - away from the press pack that always seems to be hounding me. Shirley! Pass us that half bottle of red will ya?

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  13. And being a right wing Thatcherite fascist bastard you notice how I waited until your back was turned (or at least chained into a Ryanair seat) before stitching you up!

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    1. You didn't have oughta done that Enoch! My repertoire of acerbic wit is legendary and when you are at your lowest ebb I shall endeavour to smear your reputation with metaphorical tar and feathers which will have you submerged in that great lake of yours like a snorting human hippo! Be afraid. Be very afraid for he who laughs last laughs longest.

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    2. Does that mean you didn't take any photos of Valetta harbour for me Mr Scargill?

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  14. We haven't been to Valletta yet. We hope to stop off there when we leave Gozo - on our way to the southern end of Malta. And please don't take King Arthur's name in vain again you...you cad!

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    1. What would be really cool would be to try and take a picture from the same vantage point as the picture of the Ohio entering the harbour was taken.

      Regarding (ahem) King Arthur, I would say more like King Canute...

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