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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Sharing

With my property empire running smoothly and not requiring daily input, I have turned my muscular financial bulk to the world of stocks and shares. As you may have noticed, those of you who closely follow the news, the entire world has caved in on itself upon realising all the money we had was actually just pretend. Thus, my helping hand was required, and from my network of savings I have pumped money into the London Stock Exchange, to the tune of about £100, about six weeks ago. This is how I have progressed:

My first investment was in "Caspian Holdings PLC". My reasoning for this investment, of £25, was somewhat obscure, based upon a stocks and shares TV programme I used to watch about ten years ago called "Show Me The Money". In this lunchtime programme, company overlords would come on and try and "sell" their company to teams of people buying pretend shares, with the knock-on effect that loads of city people on their lunchbreak would promptly buy their shares for real and substantially boost the value of the company by the end of the half hour show. One such company, a small one, was called Atlantic Caspian, which had something to do with oil, and for some reason it remained in my head. I recall the shares being worth about 15p each. Well, now this company has turned into Caspian Holdings PLC and the 15p shares were a bargain 1/2p. What better time to invest? I bought a bumper 4741 shares. My £25 is now worth £21.33, but it should be noted that as this was my first investment online I mistakenly bought immediately rather than the cost-effective delayed way, which cost me £8.50 rather than £1.50, thus my investment of £25 was only £16.50, and thus my loss is actually a profit. I feel I am very quickly coming to grips with how money actually works in the modern world.

My second investment was something called "NCC Group Plc". I have no idea who they are or what they do; my reason for purchase was because NCC are my own initials. And they've done me proud. My 16 shares, costing me £48.91, are now worth £52.64. If I had invested £489,100, I would have made £37,300. Not bad for six weeks work.

Finally, my third investment was in Tullow Oil PLC. I have no idea why I invested in them, as I've never been on a job for them, and have no insider information either. This lack of nous might be why my two shares costing £18 are now worth just £15.72. I think this may have been an unwise investment, but intend to stick it out until I'm back in profit.

It's a step up, I think, from the online betting I did last summer, while on a job. Here I lost £50 on one bet, when the Polish netball team came back from 2-0 down to beat the Brazilian netball team 3-2! Who could have predicted that? I quit in anger, as it demolished all my good work betting on the darts, and learnt a sage lesson.

Anyway, that's all. In other news... nothing. I wake to the same grey surroundings daily, ignore the dull eyes of the same dour faces in the corridors, sit in the same seat in the same grey unit for 12 hours, and relish the oblivion of sleep, my only escape. Every day is a day less of my youth, a day closer to the inevitable oblivion to which there is no awakening. I have seen the future, and it is here, for evermore, on this featurelessly bleak Groundhog Day rig.

Bye for now!

Eggs

Happy Easter from the Caspian Sea.

From A to Z

I arrived, wedged at the back corner of a planeful of boisterous Azeri 13-year-olds who applauded the landing, in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, last Tuesday. I remained there for approximately 12 hours before being choppered into the Caspian Sea, or more precisely, a semi-submersible enigmatically named “Istiglal.” Thus, after almost two weeks, I can tell you a lot about this small metal space, and rather less about the nation of Azerbaijan.

What I do know is based on mere hearsay and colleagues' tales, plus a night-time taxi drive to my hotel, through the city from the airport. Despite being a Muslim country, the locals love their booze and channel 5 of the TV is dedicated to porn: I think they may have strayed from the Koran. I approve heartily of all this, even if the porn wasn't very good. What glimpses of the city I grabbed seemed to have more charm than recent expeditions, and unlike slums like Luanda or the blocky sprawl of Johannesburg (to be fair, I didn't get a proper look), there seemed a sense of style and history. Architecturally inspired by Islam, with the more recent Soviet monster looming high. But the place appeared distinct – and that is a vital quality in any good city. A recent post by Green perfectly expresses this and what constitutes the “soul” of a city, so I will direct you there for his excellently chosen words rather than regurgitate them here.

Azerbaijan is also noted for being the only country in the world to leap from the first letter of the alphabet to the last – not a bad effort for a small nation (though Zambia has a good shot, but gets it the wrong way round). I suppose Brazil gives it a shot too, but takes a few practice letters to get going. It's the fourth country now I've been to containing the letter “z”, and I can now proudly boast that I've met people from six different ex-Soviet nations. Well done. It's also country no. 40 for me, a milestone I've celebrated by vast consumption of cake.

In years to come, when I regale my offshore experiences in excruciating detail to my tiny and very weary grandchildren, my overriding memories of “Istiglal”, apart from not being able to say it, will be of cake. I shall tell little “Murphy”, “Geraldine” and “Shirley-Claire” (or whatever my stupid kids will call them) about the two different varieties of cake that dominated my first week, and the excitement that exploded when a third, colourful, cake appeared. My favourite cake is still the understated brown cake with a light beige icing – but gosh, isn't that sponge moist. It goes particularly well if some of the nuts from cake 2 have rubbed off on it. Cake 2 is a lot flatter and denser, and one is enough for any shift. The third cake, that caused such ripples of wonder, is adorned with green icing and a purple-icing flower. For me, the icing was a little disappointing, though the hefty wedges of light sponge never fail to satisfy.

Unfortunately, as I will then say in a low tone to my grandchildren, their restlessness only tempered by the vast inheritance they stand to one day gain, the rig is also likely to have developed a reputation in my memory for safety pedanticness. Health and safety on a rig is certainly a vital thing, of that I will not argue, but when extended way beyond useful causes, it just becomes a tool for pettiness. It has ended up with all the rig personnel looking for any excuse to catch you out on some utterly minor point. The worst yet was today, being “caught out” for not walking in the centre of a walkway outside. What? It all stems from the obsessive desire from everyone on the rig to write at least one “STOP” card (cards noting good or bad safety behaviour observed) every day. The problem is, when our lead engineer wrote a very sensible card noting some slightly off standards from a rig supervisor, the head of the rig – the OIM – called him up and basically gave him a bollocking for it, making him enemies of two rig supervisors at the same time. Hence, we have learnt to only write good cards. Well, the others have. I've only ever written two cards in my entire life – I'm just really, really not a fan of this kind of mindless bureaucracy - and so far haven't observed any extreme behaviour here, so don't look like I'll be adding to that quite yet. I suppose I could compliment the cakes.

It's not all been cakes and safety though. There's been plenty of assembling of tools, programming, downloading, disassembling, argonning, pressure testing, function testing, playing computer games, and all kinds of stuff that is better suited to official reports than regaling to my beloved audience here. My beloved grandchildren may not get off so lucky though. Currently, we're in the midst of delays, but these may be getting resolved soon, and the threat of work later in this shift looms. In truth, this is quite a big job, but a four-man team and a decent amount of time have made it very manageable.

So from A to Z, Aberdeen to Azerbaijan, a faux-Christian nation to a faux-Muslim nation, Scottish-style dourness to dourness in the way only ex-Soviets can manage, things are steady, if not exactly dramatic. Just another rig, to be honest. But with decent cakes.