Life, as they say, is a mighty fandragon, and so no greater joy can there be than the fresh release from captivity. Thus has been my state for the last two weeks. But it's not been a doubleweek of roaring and stomping and devastating villages and virgins, rather my fortnight has been spent quietly smouldering, huffing and puffing patiently, surveying my land. In bold-encrusted headings, therefore, here are some of my surveyings.
Alcoholism
I've flirted many times with alcoholism in the past, desperately trying to fully addict myself, but I have resigned myself to failing. Since my return, I have been drinking steadily, but never heavily, and never before teatime. Uusually, I'm restricted to a few Peronis in the evening: this is not the sign of an alcoholic. Rather shockingly, I don't think I've been properly drunk even once in the last two weeks.
Insomnia
I have fully embraced the world of insomnia. At the best of times, I find it difficult to quickly adjust back to a normal pattern after weeks of nightshift, but this time, after having effectively being doing a nightshift since March, my bodyclock refused to play ball and I started getting up at 3am each morning. Eventually, after negotiation with the gods, I had this shifted to 5am, and now I'm nearing something like 8am, which is quite desirable. It meant, for the first week certainly, I was suffering from chronic lack of sleep, and passing out for inconvenient spells in the afternoon.
FIFA
With Chef Green, I have been playing many games of the classic Playstation Uno game FIFA 2001. This is a sincerely fiercely fought computer game that we take very seriously, seriously enough to log the results in a book, into which I also compile a list of statistics. Loss of temper is frequent, as are raging huffs, and Green has been most displeased that I have won the first two "pages". I am most displeased that he has the best result to date, beating me 6-1 with Derby County. Derby! I have known Green for around 17 or 18 years, and I firmly believe that if our friendship is to end it will be because of this 9 year old computer game.
Mother
My mother is doing all sorts of wild things. Honestly, at her age she should just be baking, but instead she has quit her job and retired early, sold the family home and bought a small detached house next to the railway. As well as this, she has a manfriend! This manfriend is trying to convince her to live on a barge with him. Both my mother and the manfriend appear to rather like each other, but have encountered a massive stumbling block with regard to pets: she has one quiet cat, he has five boisterous and non-little dogs. Nobody knows how this can be resolved.
Weather
Gosh, hasn't the weather been lovely. I've spent mornings and afternoons on my roof, celebrating our planet's increasing warmth. Long may it continue. However, this sentiment I do not extend to my neighbours, who also utilise the roof. Straggly students, who enjoy loud music and smoking "reefers", their presence on the roof is to my ongoing chagrin. What a mess these imbeciles make - broken bottles, glasses, scrappy blankets, a wooden sword, a mangled disposable barbecue, the remnants of illegal drugs (as you know, I am appalled by all illegal drugs). I am not impressed by my student neighbours and am trying to come up with some kind of subtle revenge.
Varwell
My good, indeed beloved, friend Varwell got engaged many months ago, as previously reported. Shockingly, he remains engaged still. It's beginning to look like he may actually get married.
Me
I, however, remain unengaged, and uninfluenced by the intoxifying effects of love.
Berlin and London
On Saturday, I'm taking a little jaunt to Berlin, to see the delightful duo of Mary and Carlos. Berlin, as you know, is the capital of Germany, the most populous nation in Europe, unless you count Russia. When in Berlin, I intend to look at buildings, walk about, and go to a thumping warehouse techno club. Immediately following Berlin will be London, where I'll be meeting my cousin and her husband. Is a cousin's husband a cousin-in-law, or does such a term not exist? When in London I intend to visit the British Museum, to furnish my vast mind with even more decoration.
Blinds
Perhaps the biggest event of the summer has been the purchase of some blackout blinds for my attic bedroom Velux windows. Previously, light would stream in at ungody hours and gracelessly wake me and my lucky companion(s) from our slumbers; now I can't even tell whether it's day or night. I heartily recommend blackout blinds.
Other stuff
I'm almost certain there's other stuff worth recording, but I can't remember right now, and really should go and pay my council tax after months of stalling.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Domestic Duties
A 2l bottle of Irn-Bru, a plate of kimchi, and some terrible DJing on my battered decks. Ah, home!
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Rig Simulation
I'm not infrequently asked what it's like to be on a rig. So for those of you wishing to share in the experience I have devised a litte simulator, so that you too can have your very own offshore experience from the comfort of your own home.
First of all, you need to simulate the unit, i.e. the room you'll be spending 12 hours a day. So take a room in your house and divide it in two (a blanket or some bits of board should do the trick): half a typical room is about the size of a typical unit. Remove anything remotely decorative or comfortable, and turn everything remaining grey. Find yourself a metal desk, perhaps a filing cabinet too, and then a chair. Break the chair and try and fix it: make sure you can't sit back and relax. Set up a laptop and other random bits of electronics, and give yourself an intermittent internet connection. If you're feeling particularly determined, have no internet at all.
We have now our basic workspace, but the ambience is all wrong. Crank up the heat to an unbearable level, and install a gigantic air conditioner/fan in the room. Ensure it doesn't work. Allow it to switch and blast air around very noisily, but make sure it isn't remotely cooling. Just outside of the room/unit, you need to create a source of noise. Perhaps 10-15 hoovers might do the trick. This is mere background noise, to accurately simulate the agonising screech of the crane I'm currently enduring, you may need to borrow a friend's cat and have it tortured at ten minute intervals. Really, really hurt this cat, over and over again. In fact, put it in front of a megaphone as you do so.
You may close the door to soften the noises (a little), but if you do so, you must increase the heat greatly.
To simulate the PA system, simply turn on your radio, find a grainy piece of static, and put the volume to full blast at random intervals. Ensure there is no intelligible content within.
If you choose to simulate dayshift, your hours are 6am to 6pm, with meals at 5.30am, 11am and 6pm: nightshift is the inverse. Meals should consist of very well-done steak (not to be eaten) and chips - or gristle. Do not enjoy. For the foreign rig experience, pour sludge into a vat and add some mystery meats: you are now sampling "culture".
You are perfectly entitled to go outside at any time, but must wear luminous coveralls, a hardhat, gloves and safety glasses, and listen to ugly men swear. All communication must be grumpy. Humour is only allowed in small and very bitter doses. Do not smile. Do not be nice. Do not talk about your emotions. Remind those around you how miserable conditions are. If you have a full blown conversation, ensure it is about mechanics or engineering or bits of pipe, and do not try and understand it.
To accurately simulate sleeping conditions, find a single bed too short to stretch out in. You may turn off some of the hoovers. Every couple of nights, simulate the roomboy by having a friend open and close your door, and sometimes turn the light on. Don't say much to him, or he will talk about about "jiggy jiggy".
Here comes the key part of this simulation: it must last for weeks... no, months. In fact, when you begin, try not to even know how long it will last. Have a friend roll a dice in secret, and then have them tell you an entirely different, lower, number. It is vital you begin your simulation believing it to last three weeks when in fact it will last six.
The good news: when you finish your rig simulation you are allowed - nay, obliged - to drink very heavily for weeks and weeks. DO NOT STOP. And then, just when you've spent your final penny on your final bottle of gin, crank up the hoovers, borrow the cat, and plunge yourself into another month or two of sensory shutdown. You are now fully primed to embrace the offshore existence.
First of all, you need to simulate the unit, i.e. the room you'll be spending 12 hours a day. So take a room in your house and divide it in two (a blanket or some bits of board should do the trick): half a typical room is about the size of a typical unit. Remove anything remotely decorative or comfortable, and turn everything remaining grey. Find yourself a metal desk, perhaps a filing cabinet too, and then a chair. Break the chair and try and fix it: make sure you can't sit back and relax. Set up a laptop and other random bits of electronics, and give yourself an intermittent internet connection. If you're feeling particularly determined, have no internet at all.
We have now our basic workspace, but the ambience is all wrong. Crank up the heat to an unbearable level, and install a gigantic air conditioner/fan in the room. Ensure it doesn't work. Allow it to switch and blast air around very noisily, but make sure it isn't remotely cooling. Just outside of the room/unit, you need to create a source of noise. Perhaps 10-15 hoovers might do the trick. This is mere background noise, to accurately simulate the agonising screech of the crane I'm currently enduring, you may need to borrow a friend's cat and have it tortured at ten minute intervals. Really, really hurt this cat, over and over again. In fact, put it in front of a megaphone as you do so.
You may close the door to soften the noises (a little), but if you do so, you must increase the heat greatly.
To simulate the PA system, simply turn on your radio, find a grainy piece of static, and put the volume to full blast at random intervals. Ensure there is no intelligible content within.
If you choose to simulate dayshift, your hours are 6am to 6pm, with meals at 5.30am, 11am and 6pm: nightshift is the inverse. Meals should consist of very well-done steak (not to be eaten) and chips - or gristle. Do not enjoy. For the foreign rig experience, pour sludge into a vat and add some mystery meats: you are now sampling "culture".
You are perfectly entitled to go outside at any time, but must wear luminous coveralls, a hardhat, gloves and safety glasses, and listen to ugly men swear. All communication must be grumpy. Humour is only allowed in small and very bitter doses. Do not smile. Do not be nice. Do not talk about your emotions. Remind those around you how miserable conditions are. If you have a full blown conversation, ensure it is about mechanics or engineering or bits of pipe, and do not try and understand it.
To accurately simulate sleeping conditions, find a single bed too short to stretch out in. You may turn off some of the hoovers. Every couple of nights, simulate the roomboy by having a friend open and close your door, and sometimes turn the light on. Don't say much to him, or he will talk about about "jiggy jiggy".
Here comes the key part of this simulation: it must last for weeks... no, months. In fact, when you begin, try not to even know how long it will last. Have a friend roll a dice in secret, and then have them tell you an entirely different, lower, number. It is vital you begin your simulation believing it to last three weeks when in fact it will last six.
The good news: when you finish your rig simulation you are allowed - nay, obliged - to drink very heavily for weeks and weeks. DO NOT STOP. And then, just when you've spent your final penny on your final bottle of gin, crank up the hoovers, borrow the cat, and plunge yourself into another month or two of sensory shutdown. You are now fully primed to embrace the offshore existence.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
One Step Closer
"One step closer to heaven, baby, one step closer to YOU!" So sang the sparkling shimmer of dinky septet S Club 7 to hordes of 9-year-olds, as bright lights and bouncing (with an acceptable amount of gyration) and a whole ton of bombastic colour reminded us that the only emotion is "happy". Happy, stay happy, the song urged.
Well, the immaculate septet may have long since disbanded, with Rachel doing ladsmag softporn, Hannah breaking the states with an appearance in a Chucky film, Jo O'Meara becoming a racist, Tina disappearing on mystery flight 447, and one of the boys doing a mega DJ set at Aberdeen's Tiger Tiger nightclub for Hogmanay 2008, and all the bopping 9-year-olds have all gone and grown up, but the sentiment of the song remains. Every day, we are one step closer: a step closer to heaven, and thus once again being reunited with our lost loved ones. The days blur together, just a dark and indistinct journey, the only clarity being the destination at the end, that glorious white light of oblivion. Cheers S Club.
And so as with real life the days are vanquished one by one on this rig too. If you will recall, I am somewhere on the Caspian Sea, possibly within sight of Azerbaijan's coast or possibly not (who can say?). Each day, in theory, I take one step closer, to the perceived heaven of the normal, adjusted life that is onshore, and therefore take one step closer to you - yes, you, dear reader. Whoever you are, whyever you read, I want to be closer. Step by step, but closer. Baby.
But, ah!, there is a catch. It is this: nothing is happening. For me to get closer, to anything, there needs to be some kind of progression on this rig. But I've been here two weeks (which is almost seven months), and although there have been a couple of short bursts of job progression, there's still a long journey ahead. Things keep breaking. Not my company's stuff, fortunately, but big rig stuff, and each time something breaks many hours and days can get put onto pause.
Thus my days are spent atrophying. I came onto this rig muscle-bound and with pumped-up guns, but by awesome lack of motion I am becoming spindly. Two rooms are my life: a grey container, or a dark, coffin-like bunk. My life feels like a music video whereby the subject remains still in the centre of shot while the sun and clouds zoom by in fast-motion. The highlight off my last few days was creating a formula; for a game between myself and "Bigboy" in which we had to guess the crow-flown distance between two world cities we needed a formula converting each guess into a % accuracy. Due to negative numbers, this was tricker than expected, but in bed it came to me in a flash: in Excel Spreadsheet format, =(1-SQRT(((C1-D1)/C1)^2))*100. I was delighted, genuinely. I hope you can share this. Our current scores as 28-20 to me (I had a late spurt), with my accuracy being 71.32% to Bigboy's 67.89%. My best guess was Moscow to Ulaan Baator: 2900 miles to the reality of 2878 - 99.24% accuracy.
It is such matters, the excruciating minutae of life, that fill the vast emptiness of being. Coffee and Cornettos help too. Occasionally, thought it grows more and more rare, an email from a beloved friend or family member appears in my Inbox, just to remind me that once I was part of a normal life.
The most concerning thing about this epic inertia, as myself and Bigboy have discussed, is how comfortable it's becoming. Without any serious activities to concern us, we are forging a daily routine. His involves films, two helideck pacing sessions and one 40-minute gym blast; mine involves meeting him for dinner after the gym. Time slips by effortlessly, daily we are shocked that eight hours have gone and only four remain of our shift. Food and shelter being given to us without struggle, we are becoming like household pets, maybe not pampered but kept slow and docile to a distant master.
But trap a cat in a flat and what do you get? The cat becomes nervy and jumpy over time, crazy and paranoid. And some savage their masters.
But for now, I'm docile, and hope to stay that way. And we return to the teachings of S Club for the final lesson, for myself and for this oil rig itself: "Don't Stop Moving". And with their permission, I've printed their sage words below, and boldified the relevant parts. Think of this as a church sermon.
"Don't Stop Moving"
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the S Club beat
DJ's got the party started
theres no end in sight
Everybody's moving to the
rhythm that's inside
It's a crazy world
But tonight's the right situation
Don't get left behind
I can feel the music
moving through me everywhere
Ain't no destination baby
We don't even care
There's a place to be
If you need the right education
Let it take you there
Just go with the magic baby
I can see it there in your eyes (I can see it there in your eyes)
Let it flow
Stop the waiting
Right here
on the dance floor
is where you gotta let it go
Don't stop movin'
Can you feel the music
DJ's got us going around, 'round
Don't stop movin'
find your own way to it
Listen to the music
taking you to places that you've never been before
Baby now
Don't stop moving
to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the S Club beat
You can touch the moment
Almost feel it in the air
Forget about your fears tonight
Listen to your heart
Let's just touch the sky (listen to your heart)
No need to reason why
Just listen to the sound
Let it make you come alive
Soon you'll be home, Nev
S Club dancin' in your room!
Everybody will be groovin'
And getting real funky together
Except the three boys - they'll be somewhere else. And Jo too.
One step closer to heaven, Nevvy,
One step closer with you!
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the S Club beat
Well, the immaculate septet may have long since disbanded, with Rachel doing ladsmag softporn, Hannah breaking the states with an appearance in a Chucky film, Jo O'Meara becoming a racist, Tina disappearing on mystery flight 447, and one of the boys doing a mega DJ set at Aberdeen's Tiger Tiger nightclub for Hogmanay 2008, and all the bopping 9-year-olds have all gone and grown up, but the sentiment of the song remains. Every day, we are one step closer: a step closer to heaven, and thus once again being reunited with our lost loved ones. The days blur together, just a dark and indistinct journey, the only clarity being the destination at the end, that glorious white light of oblivion. Cheers S Club.
And so as with real life the days are vanquished one by one on this rig too. If you will recall, I am somewhere on the Caspian Sea, possibly within sight of Azerbaijan's coast or possibly not (who can say?). Each day, in theory, I take one step closer, to the perceived heaven of the normal, adjusted life that is onshore, and therefore take one step closer to you - yes, you, dear reader. Whoever you are, whyever you read, I want to be closer. Step by step, but closer. Baby.
But, ah!, there is a catch. It is this: nothing is happening. For me to get closer, to anything, there needs to be some kind of progression on this rig. But I've been here two weeks (which is almost seven months), and although there have been a couple of short bursts of job progression, there's still a long journey ahead. Things keep breaking. Not my company's stuff, fortunately, but big rig stuff, and each time something breaks many hours and days can get put onto pause.
Thus my days are spent atrophying. I came onto this rig muscle-bound and with pumped-up guns, but by awesome lack of motion I am becoming spindly. Two rooms are my life: a grey container, or a dark, coffin-like bunk. My life feels like a music video whereby the subject remains still in the centre of shot while the sun and clouds zoom by in fast-motion. The highlight off my last few days was creating a formula; for a game between myself and "Bigboy" in which we had to guess the crow-flown distance between two world cities we needed a formula converting each guess into a % accuracy. Due to negative numbers, this was tricker than expected, but in bed it came to me in a flash: in Excel Spreadsheet format, =(1-SQRT(((C1-D1)/C1)^2))*100. I was delighted, genuinely. I hope you can share this. Our current scores as 28-20 to me (I had a late spurt), with my accuracy being 71.32% to Bigboy's 67.89%. My best guess was Moscow to Ulaan Baator: 2900 miles to the reality of 2878 - 99.24% accuracy.
It is such matters, the excruciating minutae of life, that fill the vast emptiness of being. Coffee and Cornettos help too. Occasionally, thought it grows more and more rare, an email from a beloved friend or family member appears in my Inbox, just to remind me that once I was part of a normal life.
The most concerning thing about this epic inertia, as myself and Bigboy have discussed, is how comfortable it's becoming. Without any serious activities to concern us, we are forging a daily routine. His involves films, two helideck pacing sessions and one 40-minute gym blast; mine involves meeting him for dinner after the gym. Time slips by effortlessly, daily we are shocked that eight hours have gone and only four remain of our shift. Food and shelter being given to us without struggle, we are becoming like household pets, maybe not pampered but kept slow and docile to a distant master.
But trap a cat in a flat and what do you get? The cat becomes nervy and jumpy over time, crazy and paranoid. And some savage their masters.
But for now, I'm docile, and hope to stay that way. And we return to the teachings of S Club for the final lesson, for myself and for this oil rig itself: "Don't Stop Moving". And with their permission, I've printed their sage words below, and boldified the relevant parts. Think of this as a church sermon.
"Don't Stop Moving"
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the S Club beat
DJ's got the party started
theres no end in sight
Everybody's moving to the
rhythm that's inside
It's a crazy world
But tonight's the right situation
Don't get left behind
I can feel the music
moving through me everywhere
Ain't no destination baby
We don't even care
There's a place to be
If you need the right education
Let it take you there
Just go with the magic baby
I can see it there in your eyes (I can see it there in your eyes)
Let it flow
Stop the waiting
Right here
on the dance floor
is where you gotta let it go
Don't stop movin'
Can you feel the music
DJ's got us going around, 'round
Don't stop movin'
find your own way to it
Listen to the music
taking you to places that you've never been before
Baby now
Don't stop moving
to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the S Club beat
You can touch the moment
Almost feel it in the air
Forget about your fears tonight
Listen to your heart
Let's just touch the sky (listen to your heart)
No need to reason why
Just listen to the sound
Let it make you come alive
Soon you'll be home, Nev
S Club dancin' in your room!
Everybody will be groovin'
And getting real funky together
Except the three boys - they'll be somewhere else. And Jo too.
One step closer to heaven, Nevvy,
One step closer with you!
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the funky funky beat
Don't stop moving to the S Club beat
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Art Galley
As you may know, I am very much a man of culture and urbane sophistication (as I believe was proved by my discourse on housecoats last year). Therefore, one may well imagine the hardships I have to go through offshore. I can live with the fact that oil rigs are dirty, noisy, brutal places, populated by burly men of the same nature, but what is most difficult to tolerate is the lack of the arts. Music taste has not moved beyond 80s soft rock or insanely inane local hyper-pop: there is no place for the sonata or German minimal here. The same is the case with visual art. On a rig, most usually, my taste for the fine is as isolated as the remote platform I am inhabiting. Here, the masses gather round photos of scantily clad femmes contorting improbably - that is their art. A Jackson Pollock is derided as a scribble: "Give me some tins of paint and I'll do that after a night out," is one of the wittier resumes.
So one may imagine my delight to be on a rig with real, high quality art. I’m still enjoying my “independence” on the Istiglal, where I’ve been for over seventeen months now, and daily I enjoy my meals of gristle in a galley teeming with original paintings. I know that you, dear reader, are keen to cast your critical eye on some original art, so without further ado I’ll begin my short tour.
We begin with this neutral, but pretty scene, of a little stream. Isn’t it pretty? And isn’t it frightfully neutral? I can barely think of anything to say about it.
But this little gem has more going on. A horse (you can just see its head) and cart, a woman and child, and a big 2D fortress. The textures in the real thing need to be seen to be believed.
I call this one “Golf Course”. It’s not a golf course, but it might as well be. I promise you, they get more exciting after this.
Into this majestic beauty: “Horses At Sunset!” An inspirational picture of freedom and the theme of the platform, independence. Look at these horses gallop! Perhaps it’s a sunrise, not a sunset: all the best pictures have ambiguity. And I am intrigued by the two horses on the edge. Fainter and more ethereal than the central trio, could they be ghosts or echoes of the reality? The implications are significant.
This also hangs in the galley and is more typical of rig art. When on a rig, look at pictures of rigs... Can you see the mentality I am dealing with here?
Mystery and magic, with just a hint of menace. Any further analysis, I feel, would just detract.
This picture is just rubbish. It doesn’t even hang in the main galley, instead being in the kitchen serving area. Look, the artist hasn’t even tried: he’s drawn a dull scene badly. Why they’ve given it a fancy frame, I don’t know. I apologise for subjecting you, faithful reader, to this, but imagine the horror of having this brute glare at you every day.
And finally, possibly my favourite and continuing the horse theme, is this sweet peach of a picture. Horse and foal in the misty, mountainous outdoors, possibly standing in a small pond. The second picture – “2D Fortress” – featured a horse certainly not enjoying independence; “Horses At Sunset” explodes with independence: what then for this evocative enigma? The picture here seems to be just one small part of a longer, maybe epic, story. The horses sure appear to be free, but they also seem surrounded, and overwhelmed by the scene around them.
Bidding starts on June 1st; if anyone gets past the reserve price then I’ll smuggle the pictures back in my bag.
So one may imagine my delight to be on a rig with real, high quality art. I’m still enjoying my “independence” on the Istiglal, where I’ve been for over seventeen months now, and daily I enjoy my meals of gristle in a galley teeming with original paintings. I know that you, dear reader, are keen to cast your critical eye on some original art, so without further ado I’ll begin my short tour.
We begin with this neutral, but pretty scene, of a little stream. Isn’t it pretty? And isn’t it frightfully neutral? I can barely think of anything to say about it.
But this little gem has more going on. A horse (you can just see its head) and cart, a woman and child, and a big 2D fortress. The textures in the real thing need to be seen to be believed.
I call this one “Golf Course”. It’s not a golf course, but it might as well be. I promise you, they get more exciting after this.
Into this majestic beauty: “Horses At Sunset!” An inspirational picture of freedom and the theme of the platform, independence. Look at these horses gallop! Perhaps it’s a sunrise, not a sunset: all the best pictures have ambiguity. And I am intrigued by the two horses on the edge. Fainter and more ethereal than the central trio, could they be ghosts or echoes of the reality? The implications are significant.
This also hangs in the galley and is more typical of rig art. When on a rig, look at pictures of rigs... Can you see the mentality I am dealing with here?
Mystery and magic, with just a hint of menace. Any further analysis, I feel, would just detract.
This picture is just rubbish. It doesn’t even hang in the main galley, instead being in the kitchen serving area. Look, the artist hasn’t even tried: he’s drawn a dull scene badly. Why they’ve given it a fancy frame, I don’t know. I apologise for subjecting you, faithful reader, to this, but imagine the horror of having this brute glare at you every day.
And finally, possibly my favourite and continuing the horse theme, is this sweet peach of a picture. Horse and foal in the misty, mountainous outdoors, possibly standing in a small pond. The second picture – “2D Fortress” – featured a horse certainly not enjoying independence; “Horses At Sunset” explodes with independence: what then for this evocative enigma? The picture here seems to be just one small part of a longer, maybe epic, story. The horses sure appear to be free, but they also seem surrounded, and overwhelmed by the scene around them.Bidding starts on June 1st; if anyone gets past the reserve price then I’ll smuggle the pictures back in my bag.
Friday, 22 May 2009
Independence In Azerbaijan
Istiglal: the name of the rig I am welded to, and the Azeri word for "independence". I need not spell out the irony for you, but needless to say my thoughts, will and ambitions are now collectively gathered as part of the hivemind that is sixty men and one massive machine. I wonder what is the Azeri for "assimilation".
In between now and the last entry, have no fear, I did get home. I endured my forty-two days offshore, popped home for ten, and arrived back on this rig about four days ago. My time at home was mostly spent drinking, or feeling somewhat lethargic, with little else of note. After about seven days, the humanity for so long repressed began again to blossom in my soul, and my naturally beautiful nature began to glow, like a beacon of honey. Work must have got word of this, and so I was thrust once again into the Caspian Sea, back into the world of surly ex-Soviets, unsubtle grinding cranes, and chocolate Cornettos.
I did manage a day in Baku this time, and I can confirm that Baku is dusty and with lots of cars. Despite being very dry and warm (Spring is progressing, but isn't yet in the realms of hot) I managed to find a small puddle of mud to step into. The city centre, next to the sea, was quite pretty, and pedestrianised, and looked to be worth further exploration, but my colleagues and I opted to drink instead. While I have been home, drinking heavily, my colleagues had spent the last week in Baku, drinking heavily. Indeed, upon arriving offshore, back to "Independence", all of us seemed to breath a quiet sigh of relief that we might be able to relax a little. My three colleagues have taken to the gym. I, of course, have not been so rash.
And that, really, is all.
In between now and the last entry, have no fear, I did get home. I endured my forty-two days offshore, popped home for ten, and arrived back on this rig about four days ago. My time at home was mostly spent drinking, or feeling somewhat lethargic, with little else of note. After about seven days, the humanity for so long repressed began again to blossom in my soul, and my naturally beautiful nature began to glow, like a beacon of honey. Work must have got word of this, and so I was thrust once again into the Caspian Sea, back into the world of surly ex-Soviets, unsubtle grinding cranes, and chocolate Cornettos.
I did manage a day in Baku this time, and I can confirm that Baku is dusty and with lots of cars. Despite being very dry and warm (Spring is progressing, but isn't yet in the realms of hot) I managed to find a small puddle of mud to step into. The city centre, next to the sea, was quite pretty, and pedestrianised, and looked to be worth further exploration, but my colleagues and I opted to drink instead. While I have been home, drinking heavily, my colleagues had spent the last week in Baku, drinking heavily. Indeed, upon arriving offshore, back to "Independence", all of us seemed to breath a quiet sigh of relief that we might be able to relax a little. My three colleagues have taken to the gym. I, of course, have not been so rash.
And that, really, is all.
Friday, 1 May 2009
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-eight days. Thirty-eight days I've been on this rig: that's longer than some people have been alive. If days were steps, I'd be one away from a Buchan novel. But this buccaneering lifestyle is no far-fetched yarn: it is endless days of grit and dirt, blood and toil, sweat and filth, pain and suffering; in short, reality in in barest, rawest, truest form. "But what is reality?" angsty fans of "The Matrix" ask, and I reply: "This is, prick."
But my days are numbered, in lifespan certainly though I know not of the number, but in terms of days remaining on this rig I know I can only have another four. I was permitted an extra 50% of the supposed maximum of twenty-eight days, which those with sharpened mathematical skills will know to be forty-two, which those also with sharpened Douglas Adam skills should know also is the answer to the ultimate question of life. It's certainly the ultimate answer to my life for now, as it will mark my reunion with beloved dry land once more, and perhaps too a reunion with some dry gin.
Oddly though, as I watch the calendar month of April slide by, along with it the merry festival of Easter, the emergence of friends' babies, the announcement of Varwell's engagement to some poor girl, and my mother declaring she has bought a new house and will sell the home I lived in since age 5, I find myself growing strangely attached to my surroundings. This, surely, is institutionalisation. My usual progression with rig life is to cope pretty well for the first twenty-one days; yes, for three weeks, I am a veritable bouncing beacon of happiness, all but hugging the roughnecks and making cute eyes at the roustabouts. But after twenty-one days, the wind appears to change and my mood sours. I've usually finished my books, communicate with only scowls to my colleagues, I find myself getting increasingly restless with my restrictions to freedom, and I begin to find it hard to focus so well. On some occasions, notably an endless hitch in Brazil in 2007, I begin to find myself peering into the abyss. I stop shaving, stop caring, and a sincere form of doom hovers over me.
Thus, my expectation for being offshore for double my preferred duration was that I'd be slitting either my wrists or the wrists of others by now. Thirty-one days was my previous maximum, but this hitch has shattered this record. And most curiously of all, I found that since Day 34, I've actually started to really get into the job. Right now, I'm enjoying a moment of calm, but the last four days have seen immense amounts of work. Dismantling tools, assembling tools, seeing big chunks of pipe pulled out of hole and run into hole and nodding thoughtfully as they do so, replacing suspect tools at the last moment, packing away masses of boxes to ever-changing specifications, downloading data, procressing data, dealing with a load of logistics, and emails pinging to and fro: the last four days have seen 12-hour shifts that didn't relent in pace. It should have been horrific. But for some reason, I really quite enjoyed it. As I flung myself down V-doors, up derricks and through mouseholes, and dashed off convincing-looking data on Microsoft Paint, I found the whole experience quite exhilerating. Perhaps this is what happens after I beat the post-twenty-one-day depression. Upon arriving at the thirty-fourth day, a new life and focus enters into me, likely coinciding (I strongly suspect) with the day my subconscious abandons joy and free will and accepts this mechanised life of an automaton, in a world where all men and machines are mere tools.
So, the fate that awaits when I alight to real life, on Tuesday, in Baku, I can't say. I've heard it said that after prolonged spells offshore the initial return to normality sees one behave like a "social retard". My delight at freedom may be tempered by my fear of all these strange people, all these different directions I can move, and having to pay for and cook my own meals... oh, wait, Green does that for me. Phew. It looks like I'll have a couple of days in Baku, fresh from a university shooting killing eight that seems to have been deemed less important than American or German shootings of the same nature by the world's media. There's some bits of pipe to look at in the Schlumberger yard, so I'm eagerly awaiting this onshore assignment, as you may imagine.
And then home, to the loving embrace of my friends and family, who no doubt will gather round, and poke me to make sure I'm real and not some strange creature. So no change there then.
But my days are numbered, in lifespan certainly though I know not of the number, but in terms of days remaining on this rig I know I can only have another four. I was permitted an extra 50% of the supposed maximum of twenty-eight days, which those with sharpened mathematical skills will know to be forty-two, which those also with sharpened Douglas Adam skills should know also is the answer to the ultimate question of life. It's certainly the ultimate answer to my life for now, as it will mark my reunion with beloved dry land once more, and perhaps too a reunion with some dry gin.
Oddly though, as I watch the calendar month of April slide by, along with it the merry festival of Easter, the emergence of friends' babies, the announcement of Varwell's engagement to some poor girl, and my mother declaring she has bought a new house and will sell the home I lived in since age 5, I find myself growing strangely attached to my surroundings. This, surely, is institutionalisation. My usual progression with rig life is to cope pretty well for the first twenty-one days; yes, for three weeks, I am a veritable bouncing beacon of happiness, all but hugging the roughnecks and making cute eyes at the roustabouts. But after twenty-one days, the wind appears to change and my mood sours. I've usually finished my books, communicate with only scowls to my colleagues, I find myself getting increasingly restless with my restrictions to freedom, and I begin to find it hard to focus so well. On some occasions, notably an endless hitch in Brazil in 2007, I begin to find myself peering into the abyss. I stop shaving, stop caring, and a sincere form of doom hovers over me.
Thus, my expectation for being offshore for double my preferred duration was that I'd be slitting either my wrists or the wrists of others by now. Thirty-one days was my previous maximum, but this hitch has shattered this record. And most curiously of all, I found that since Day 34, I've actually started to really get into the job. Right now, I'm enjoying a moment of calm, but the last four days have seen immense amounts of work. Dismantling tools, assembling tools, seeing big chunks of pipe pulled out of hole and run into hole and nodding thoughtfully as they do so, replacing suspect tools at the last moment, packing away masses of boxes to ever-changing specifications, downloading data, procressing data, dealing with a load of logistics, and emails pinging to and fro: the last four days have seen 12-hour shifts that didn't relent in pace. It should have been horrific. But for some reason, I really quite enjoyed it. As I flung myself down V-doors, up derricks and through mouseholes, and dashed off convincing-looking data on Microsoft Paint, I found the whole experience quite exhilerating. Perhaps this is what happens after I beat the post-twenty-one-day depression. Upon arriving at the thirty-fourth day, a new life and focus enters into me, likely coinciding (I strongly suspect) with the day my subconscious abandons joy and free will and accepts this mechanised life of an automaton, in a world where all men and machines are mere tools.
So, the fate that awaits when I alight to real life, on Tuesday, in Baku, I can't say. I've heard it said that after prolonged spells offshore the initial return to normality sees one behave like a "social retard". My delight at freedom may be tempered by my fear of all these strange people, all these different directions I can move, and having to pay for and cook my own meals... oh, wait, Green does that for me. Phew. It looks like I'll have a couple of days in Baku, fresh from a university shooting killing eight that seems to have been deemed less important than American or German shootings of the same nature by the world's media. There's some bits of pipe to look at in the Schlumberger yard, so I'm eagerly awaiting this onshore assignment, as you may imagine.
And then home, to the loving embrace of my friends and family, who no doubt will gather round, and poke me to make sure I'm real and not some strange creature. So no change there then.
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