Wrong decisions
I am very impressed by our government.
They have been incredibly consistent over the years.
No matter what obstacles are placed in their path, they always manage to panic and do precisely the wrong thing.
It got me thinking. Suppose our government had been in charge of the Titanic……
First Mate: Excuse me Captain, but some of the passengers say they can see icebergs ahead.
Captain: Our lookouts can’t see any. MORE SPEED!
First Mate: But our lookouts are all in the bar celebrating the voyage.
Captain: What do fucking passengers know anyway. MORE SPEED!
Later…
First Mate: Captain. We have just hit a massive iceberg.
Captain: That’s not our fault. Blame the cold weather. I MUST HAVE MORE SPEED.
First Mate: Captain. The ship is sinking.
Captain: All the more reason to move faster. We have to get to port. GIVE ME MORE SPEED DAMMIT!
First Mate: Shall I send out a distress call?
Captain: Are you saying I don’t know how to run this ship? FASTER. FASTER.
First Mate: Captain. The ship is going down fast.
Captain: Throw the life jackets and lifeboats overboard. It will lighten the ship and we can go faster.
First Mate: It’s no good, Captain. We are taking on too much water.
Captain: Throw the fucking passengers overboard. That will lighten the ship. Why aren’t we going any faster?
First Mate: Because we are at the bottom of the ocean, Captain.
Well at least they can’t walk on water then? Politics – I just don’t understand any of it!!!
Kate – It doesn’t stop them from trying. The sad thing is that I don’t think they understand it either.
Maybe you should go for it Grandad – I think you’d make a superb politician – you might even get it right!!!
I think you are giving the first mate too much credit. A cabin boy who has just joined might still have that much common sense left, but anyone who has been with the ship long enough to advance to first mate will have been entirely corrupted by the system. Of course they always could be give frontal lobotomies the first day in office.
Kate – Too old. I wouldn’t have the energy. And waddya mean “I might get it right”?
Jim C – You are right of course. They are all as bad as each other.
Well, think about it – there would always be somebody who thought you were wrong – thats politics! …and Life for that matter!!!
Too funny Grandad. Still, as I recall wasn’t the Titanic built in Ireland? Something about the boilermakers knocking off early to go to the pub and neglecting to install the water tight bulkheads all the way up to the deck?
Kate – Everyone thinks I’m wrong. I even have doubts myself. As you say – that’s life. *sigh*
TT – It was built in Northern Ireland. As such, we can afford to laugh.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t it built before partition?
At the risk of sounding optimistic and somewhat anarchistic, the bottom of the ocean is Sponge Bob Square Pants’ territory….and there’s always a job going at Krusty Crabs….:)
I hurt myself laughing; then I thought about it and it’s so plausible I’m depressed.
So I’m back on those pills now, thanks!
I think it’s great that we can bring past and current Irish politics, ship-building, Sponge-bob and pills all in the one blog-posting.
SHoop – When you drop into Head Rambles, leave your preconceived notions at the door. Anything goes here.
You’ve got it all wrong, Grandad. If the Irish Government were in charge of the Titanic the catastrophic chain of events that lead to the loss of all those lives would have been completely avoided. You forgot to take into account the fact that the Irish Government’s track record with large scale projects is truly appalling.
I reckon that the construction of the Titanic would have been abandoned after running 7 years over-schedule and billions of pounds over budget (Yes, billions. Even for 1912 this is feasible) and would be currently housed in some giant warehouse in Ballymount Industrial Estate.
Either that, or they’d have stuck it in some remote childrens ‘fun park’ (death trap) in the Wicklow mountains. You know where I’m talking about…
Thanks Grandad.But I have no pre-conceived notions before I arrive at Head Rambles. They [notions] only begin to fester once I visit. Like during the sermon at mass
H – Good point, but the crew didn’t build the ship. You’re right about the construction though. They also would have built it six inces too big to get into any port. Are you referring to CL?
SHoop – It is a spot for festering minds, all right. Blame my commenters, not me!
Nice analogy Grandad. The government are a bunch of amoebic mind mongs.
Your template can be beautifully applied to the fate of the Sirius Star – the recently hijacked tanker three times the size of an aircraft carrier and carrying its full complement of two million barrels of crude oil worth circa 80 million euro.
Suppose our government had been in charge of the Sirius Star……
First Mate: Excuse me Captain, but we are nearing Somalia, where piracy is rife. There’s a 99.9% chance of us getting done over.
Captain: MORE SPEED!
First Mate: But we’ve no guns, torpedos or navy seals, the risks are to high.
Captain: The odds are in our favour. There’s a 0.1% chance of us making it to port by the morning and last week the odds were 0.05 %, so the chances are slim to none. MORE SPEED!
Later…
First Mate: Captain. Pirates in a sunseeker are a mere nautical mile away. We’ll be boarded in no time.
Captain: What a load of crotch rot. I MUST HAVE MORE SPEED.
First Mate: Captain. The ship has been boarded, they’ve taken hostages.
Captain: All the more reason to move faster. We have to get to port. GIVE ME MORE SPEED DAMMIT!
First Mate: Shall I send out a distress call?
Captain: Are you saying I don’t know how to run this ship? FASTER. FASTER.
First Mate: Captain. We’re going to lose control of the ship and there’s a risk of the hostages been shot.
Captain: Throw the life jackets and lifeboats overboard. It will lighten the ship and we can go faster.
First Mate: It’s no good, Captain. The pirates are nearing the helm.
Captain: Throw the fucking crewe overboard. That will lighten the ship. Why have we stopped?
First Mate: Because there’s a bazooka pointing at your melon.
Captain: What the fuck is that weirdo at the door gibbering? Get a fucking translator up here.
First Mate: My Somalian’s a bit rusty, but I think he’s saying open the fucking door cocksmoker or I’ll feed you to the fishes.
True:)
So who is going to answer TT’s partition question?
Night Night!
What has partition got to do with it? It was the eejits up in Belfast who built the ship. Who governed them is irrelevant?